My fan just howls
As soon as I turn my imac on the fan starts screaming. it was never quiet but has become
increasingly unbearable.Would a new fan help?
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Your imac might be overheating that may be why the fans are louder. Higher temperature readings will speed up the fans.
Remove all dust from vents and heat sink especially under the heat sink cover I always use a shop vac to vacuum the dust just be careful with the fans.
reapply thermal paste, use the good stuff like Arctic Silver 5 or Arctic Silver Ceramique. The Ceramique stuff is cheaper and is non conductive so it is safer.
Also lubricate the fans with a non conductive lubricant, I like to use sewing machine oil. The fans will spin faster and quieter once they are cleaned and lubricated decreasing noise and temperatures.
I would advise you to do this sometime in the near future because the higher temperatures will more than likely cause the GPU to malfunction.
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+ good shot at the answer but it does it before it's had time to overheat. Think about that first.
I am not saying his imac is burning up just that it is dirty and running above normal operating temperatures due to dirt and debris clogging the fans, vents, and heat sink. I have seen this many times, you would be surprised at how quickly computer components heat up.
Computer components don't require long periods of active time to heat up, especially CPUs and VGA chips. Try starting a desktop without a heat sink it will shut down before you even boot into the OS due to high temps even if you haven't used it all day.
Here is a video that shows exactly how quickly computer components heat up. This AMD CPU went from 80 degrees Fahrenheit to over 300 degrees just 10 seconds into boot. This is why keeping your vents, heat sinks and fans clean is very important as well as good thermal paste especially in an iMac G5 that already has temperature problems. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQG1Lr1Dm...
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Have you upgraded or added anything to the computer recently? I would check the fans as suggested but also if any of the thermal sensors are not seated correctly that will cause the fans to run constantly.
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+ good point i have seen this happen before when people upgrade their HDD and misplace the temperature sensor.
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Thanks for all the input. I haven't done anything to it recently. I'll try this stuff and hope it helps.
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