How does Apple do it?

TheEagleCD · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 4:51 am

Hey people,
is it true that most of the Apple desktops (except for the newest one) have worked without any fans??? I heard that the cooling was solely based on air rising from the bottom to some small holes in the top part...
If you know anything about the strategies Apple used to achieve that, please let me know! Would be even better if someone had pictures to show off the inside of one of those IMACs...
Regards,
TheEagleCD

TheMuffinMan · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 4:54 am

The old iMacs did.
The PowerMacs (used to) have 1 or 2 quiet fans (still no dedicated processor fan)
The new iMacs have 1 really quiet fan.
Many older macs have no fans.

Now you know why I love Macs!
BTW: Your sig is pretty big...

TheEagleCD · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 5:06 am

Quote:

BTW: Your sig is pretty big...

I know, I hope it's not too annoying. But I still think it's good to have the most important info there because therefore people don't have to ask me about my system specs everytime I want to know something...
Regards,
TheEagleCD

Rusty075 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 5:55 am

The old fanless Mac's are a rare example of how not having upgradability can be a good thing. Since they knew the internals weren't going to be changed by the user they had a standard amount of heat to have to remove. The PC component manufacturers have to follows specs that allow for a wide range of components.

The macs also benefit from having all the components designed by one company. The engineering data gets shared much easier that way. Even big PC firms like Dell don't really do that much engineering, they're primarily just assemblers.

I think Apples are beautifully designed machines, for the most part. Its just too bad they charge twice as much for a machine that's half as powerful as a comparable PC. That's the downside of having all the components designed by one company I suppose. :cry:

powergyoza · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:22 am

TheEagleCD wrote:

I know, I hope it's not too annoying. But I still think it's good to have the most important info there because therefore people don't have to ask me about my system specs everytime I want to know something...

I'd suggest that you add a [size=9] to your sig, as well as put everything on the same line. That would help us all with reading in the forums.

Thanks,
Leo

pingu666 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:05 pm

ye same line would help
the macs are prolly slower cos of no fan on chip
would help scaling no end

hyum · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:19 pm

the primary difference is that the powerpc has nearly a magnitude lower power dissipation. i don't know if even the old mac were completely fanless. didn't the power supply have a fan?

seishino · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 5:44 pm

My old LC3 didn't have a single fan inside. Not on the Powersupply, nor on the chipset. Beautiful machine that.

The subsequent 603e and G3 laptops didn't have a single fan either, but channeled heat directly into your sensitive bits.

OK, it wasn't a perfect design, but it worked very well, and very quietly.

clamrade · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 6:06 pm

mac CPUs do run much slower, you know...

Justin_R · **Posted:** Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:23 pm

The first Mac with a fan was the SE (March 1987). Sadly, there's nothing magical about Macs that makes them quieter. That said, Apple designers tend to strive for that extra "something" that sets Macs apart, whether it's pretty cases, early integration of things like Firewire, or quiet (or silent) operation.

Of course they're helped by the fact that their current CPUs run cooler than current x86 CPUs, but they also get more pressure from users about noise issues (partly due to Mac history, partly to the fact that Mac users can't buy from some other vendor that makes quieter parts).

snutten · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 12:09 pm

RISC processors are faster than their SISC counterparts when at the same clockspeed. So Apple computer CPUs (Motorola) use less power than AMD/Intel CPUs when under the same workload. Same goes for IBM.

powergyoza · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 12:39 pm

snutten wrote:

RISC processors are faster than their SISC counterparts when at the same clockspeed. So Apple computer CPUs (Motorola) use less power than AMD/Intel CPUs when under the same workload. Same goes for IBM.

Just a friendly correction - it's CISC. And the difference in performance between RISC and CISC is not clearcut anymore. We're getting to the point where power dissapation differences aren't clearcut either. Go to the CPU guides on http://www.arstechnica.com and the discussions on http://www.realworldtech.com for more info. In short RISC and CISC share a LOT in common these days b/c both resort the same type of tricks to extract more speed out of code executioin. Think OOE, longer pipelines, big caches, uop decomposition, multiple issue, register renaming... need it go on?

On another note, the G3/G4 processors are not primarily intended for desktop usage. It's primary design target was for embedded use - think cisco/nortel/bay networks/etc - where low power consumption is really important. That explains lower the power consumption. Dunno if the same applies to MIPS or Sparc as well - certainly not Alpha!

Macguyver · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 1:56 pm

Steve Jobs is a huge fan (pun) of silent pcs.
I heard some of the early iMacs w/o a fan had heat problems.
The newer macs have huge heatsinks and two fans. One on the
power supply and one for the mobo/cpu. I thought the cubes
were pretty cool. (way over priced) Kind of like Shuttle's SFF
line.

frequencies · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 3:11 pm

The Mac have had noise problems with the power mac product line for some time now. I read a review of the latest power mac g4 in the swedish macworld edition last month and the noise levels ranged from 47 to 66 dB(A) (these machines are called windtunnels nowadays). My three year old g4 400 Mhz are quite loud as well.

jojo4u · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 3:54 pm

The Mac Cube had no fan. It worked all with convection. It was no commercial sucess. But harddrive war hearable. I believe it was noisier than many of our PCs ;o)

TheMuffinMan · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 4:18 pm

Macguyver wrote:

Steve Jobs is a huge fan (pun) of silent pcs.
I heard some of the early iMacs w/o a fan had heat problems.
The newer macs have huge heatsinks and two fans. One on the
power supply and one for the mobo/cpu. I thought the cubes
were pretty cool. (way over priced) Kind of like Shuttle's SFF
line.

The older iMacs (Up to the 33 or 400 MHz models) had fans, but no heat problems.

All Macs have huge heatsinks...so do PCs. The reason the stock heatsink is bigger is because
A) The processor card has to be big enough to hold 2 processors. The heatsink has to cover the whole card to reach the board on all sides.
B) The same heatsink is used for the single and dual processor models. A 2 proc system needs a pretty big heatsink...

Quote:

My three year old g4 400 Mhz are quite loud as well.

Really? What model (Sawtooth, Yikes)? My G4 450 (at work) isn't...

seishino · **Posted:** Thu Jan 23, 2003 5:00 pm

Quote:

Steve Jobs is a huge fan (pun) of silent pcs.

Very much so. He designed the all-in-one cabling for the NeXT computer to be very long, with the express purpose of putting as much distance as possible between yourself and a noisy computer. Putting them in the next room was quite common.

-C

BaconTastesGood · **Joined:** Mon Nov 04, 2002 3:55 pm **Posts:** 137

For those that haven't been keeping track of this, many users of MDM and even QuickSilver PMs have been pissed about their noise.

http://www.g4noise.com

Lots of interesting reading there.

tm · **Posted:** Fri Jan 24, 2003 4:19 pm

I own an "iLamp", ie one of the LCD iMacs, and I would not necessarily call its fan quiet. The iMac is noticeably louder than my mostly silenced linux server that sits nearby. I didn't notice the noise until I quieted the linux server though, but now I do

A lot of the perception, of course, has to do with the fact that the iMac is sitting on top of the desk, less than a meter away from me, whereas the linux server is down on the floor, but even at equal distances, the iMac is louder than a linux server with 3 fans (2 panaflos @ 12V, and a NX-3000 (I know, it's not an apples to apples comparison

)) and a 7200 RPM disk. It is a really nice design, in many ways (for this forum, the way the venting is done both looks nice and is effective), though, and makes a great little "home" machine. I am usually listening to internet radio through the speakers and that's my solution to covering up iMac's noise.

rcmontgomery · **Posted:** Fri Jan 24, 2003 8:56 pm

My friend had a Mac Cube and I used it on occasion and it was fine for offices apps, but if you did something CPU intensive it very hot fast and soon bogged down. The HD and DVD were louder than my current system, but it was a open box.

DanceMan · **Posted:** Sat Jan 25, 2003 1:57 pm

quote:

My old LC3 didn't have a single fan inside. Not on the Powersupply, nor on the chipset.
________________________________________

Very unlikely. I had both LC2 and LC3, and took apart a junk LC2 for parts. It had a 60mm case fan. The holder was different on the two LC2s, but mounted in the same place. I researched the fan, because I wondered about using it as a quiet HSF fan. It was a high quality (long life) low rpm fan.

JarsOfFart · **Joined:** Sat Jan 25, 2003 10:28 am **Posts:** 85

seishino wrote:

Quote:

Steve Jobs is a huge fan (pun) of silent pcs.

Very much so. He designed the all-in-one cabling for the NeXT computer to be very long, with the express purpose of putting as much distance as possible between yourself and a noisy computer. Putting them in the next room was quite common.

-C

I have a NeXT computer and it only has one fan. It was rather quiet if I remember correctly. It reminds me of those Slimline computers that are advertised in PC World. Do you know where I could get the NeXT OS to reformat that NeXT computer? I tried about 3 months ago to use it again but it would stop on the "Loading TCP/IP" part of boot up.

MikeC · **Posted:** Sat Jan 25, 2003 9:24 pm

A recent appropos post from the silent pc yahoo email list:

Quote:

Since August '02 Apple's top of the line Power Mac towers have had major
noise problems. On the one hand Apple promotes its industry-leading design standards...

"Acoustical noise is becoming an increasingly important concern to computer users. It affects user comfort and performance, and it may become disruptive and annoying to the user or others in the work environment. For these reasons, Apple is concerned and designs our products to generate acoustical noise levels as low as possible."

... then after 5 months of Owner complaints about the whiney high pitched
noise from the G4-MDDs, here's the first and only thing Apple has said about the matter:

"Increased noise levels are expected with dual processor computers. The
sound generated by Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors) computers is
approximately equivalent to previous dual processor computers. Users who upgrade from earlier, single processor computers might notice that the computer is louder. This is because there are more parts to cool--multiple processors and additional expansion capabilities--within the same form factor. ..." http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42948

ENTER VERAX, the German Fan company.

One week ago Verax contacted the G4noise.com website to suggest they would custom build a solution. A G4 owner who lived in that area volunteered. In one day, Verax installed one of their super-silent fans, the G4 owner took it home and can now hear the stream outside his home, with the windows closed. ... Verax is now working on a production run of this fan solution.

PHOTOS of this temporary solution:
http://www.g4noise.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=18&t=98

This is very exciting -- and shows what can happen when a company LISTENS to customers.

We meanwhile continue in our effort to get Apple to address these problems, and last week FedEx'd letters to all Apple senior execs around the world, including Steve Jobs. Included are technical stats measured in various G4 units, plus references to many successful fan modifications, plus the full printouts of our Online Oetition (550+ users), plus oir own Tracking Database designed to track Apple's handling of OUR customer service calls and inquiries.

FYI: http://www.G4noise.com

Modification photo-illustrated guides:
http://www.g4noise.com/listen_see/mods.php

I'm posting this here because I hope it becomes a success story of computer owners saying "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" -- we don't accept these noisey computers at a pricetag of $3500 - $5000 USD.

Richard Hoefer
San Francisco, California, USA

So could this have been solved with a 7V Panaflo or two? One of us could have been a hero too?!

How does Apple do it?

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