We have a truly baffling problem with a 1.8ghz single processor G5, which will gradually spin up its hard drives and never spin them down again. They thrash around even when no applications are launched. In the first minute or so after startup they are quite quiet, but after that they seem to go into overdrive.
Can anyone offer any advice as to what might be causing this? We've stripped everything off and done a clean system install, taken the second drive out altogether, and zapped the PRAM. Nothing seems to make a difference.
Please help - the noise is driving us nuts!
julie simpson js@redacted.invalid wrote:
We have a truly baffling problem with a 1.8ghz single processor G5, which will gradually spin up its hard drives and never spin them down again. They thrash around even when no applications are launched. In the first minute or so after startup they are quite quiet, but after that they seem to go into overdrive.
Can anyone offer any advice as to what might be causing this? We've stripped everything off and done a clean system install, taken the second drive out altogether, and zapped the PRAM. Nothing seems to make a difference.
Please help - the noise is driving us nuts! sure its not the cooling fan?
I have a noisy fan problem with my G4 -totally ruined my Mac experience.
RL
julie simpson js@redacted.invalid wrote:
We have a truly baffling problem with a 1.8ghz single processor G5, which will gradually spin up its hard drives and never spin them down again. They thrash around even when no applications are launched. In the first minute or so after startup they are quite quiet, but after that they seem to go into overdrive.
Can anyone offer any advice as to what might be causing this? We've stripped everything off and done a clean system install, taken the second drive out altogether, and zapped the PRAM. Nothing seems to make a difference.
Please help - the noise is driving us nuts!
You sure it's not the fans running? They normally go full belt when there's a kernel problem in the OS.
Make sure you don't have any Norton or Unsanity stuff installed.
Thus spake julie simpson:
We have a truly baffling problem with a 1.8ghz single processor G5,
We might be more helpful if you tell us the version of OS you're using.
Are you sure it's the hard drive(s) and not the phan (c:
In article 0001HW.BFB9EF6A002F373BF02845B0@redacted.invalid, DaveC me@redacted.invalid wrote:
Thus spake julie simpson:
We have a truly baffling problem with a 1.8ghz single processor G5,
We might be more helpful if you tell us the version of OS you're using.
Are you sure it's the hard drive(s) and not the phan (c:
Sorry. We were using 10.4.0, but reverted to 10.3.8 when we rebuilt it.
I don't think it's the fan, but I'll look into that.
Thanks.
julie simpson js@redacted.invalid writes:
Ah, it is indeed the fan - activity monitor shows no hard disc activity. Wow, is this fan noisy!
The fans are software controlled. Under normal conditions, their speed is a function of the temperatures inside the case (except when the fan-control software isn't running - during bootup and after a system panic - when they switch to full speed.)
Different releases of Mac OS have tweaked the fan-speed algorithms, so your software versions will affect this. If you haven't yet upgraded your 10.4.0 to 10.4.3, you may want to try it.
Also, I don't know what your operating environment is, but if the room is warm, the fans may have to spin faster in order to keep the internal temperature within normal ranges.
Also, try playing with some of the Energy Saver parameters. Some have reporteed that setting the processor mode from "automatic" to "highest" quiets the fans down, even though this is counterintuitive.
I've downloaded the firmware upgrade, zapped the PRAM again and installed it, but so far no joy. Is there any fix short of a new fan?
Although a bad fan can definitely make a lot of noise, it is more likely that this is due to either real temperature problems or a bug in the fan-control software.
-- David