[gwillikers]

Having just ordered a dual G4 1.25, but never having seen one in person, and... with the Apple power supply replacement program ending tomorrow... I'd like some opinions.

So, for any G4 "Wind Tunnel" owners, how bad is the fan noise? Mine will be under a desk, and will not be used in a quiet, audio mastering, type of environment.

I wish Apple would have extended the power supply replacement program. I can't take advantage of it until the machine is delivered, but too late by then.

-GW

 

[Mississauga]

You likely won't hear it at all in your environment.

 

[MasterBlaster]

a

 

[minnes]

Mine is acceptable, it is noisy upon the first 30 seconds of startup, then it is fine after that
It's too bad you can't get a demo or open box model to check in store
I guess Im lucky, but most of the newer ones are fine
Probably the offer ends because the new parts are installed at the factory already

 

[Tomac]

So, for any G4 "Wind Tunnel" owners, how bad is the fan noise? Mine will be under a desk, and will not be used in a quiet, audio mastering, type of environment.

I had a Dual 1.25GHz Power Mac (FW800 -- 2nd-gen MDD) earlier this year, and it was BLOODY LOUD! One thing that led to its purchase was Apple's "promise":

From MacCentral:

The noise level was one of the biggest complaints many customers had with the previous generation Power Macs. According to Apple, this problem has been fixed and customers will be happy with the results of the work put into correcting this issue.

"We worked really hard and went over the systems to find every possible way to make the system quieter," said Tom Boger, Director, Power Mac Product Marketing. "I'm happy to tell you that we've done that -- when the systems get out in the marketplace, I'm sure our customers are going to be delighted at how quiet these systems are."

"They are significantly quieter -- these will answer the critics," added Joswiak.

Apple lied. Hopefully their hype about the G5's "quietness" proves correct. That'd be a big selling point to many. I had the Dualy on a desk, under the desk, but the darn thing blanketed all surrounding rooms with its loud drone/hum. Louder than ANY PC I've ever had the nasty chore to use, and it REALLY annoyed me. That's a BIG reason I sold it -- noise. Even had the machine checked by two Apple authorized service providers, but didn't bring on a solution. There're 3rd-party solutions -- Verax or whatever the company's called -- but they're bloody expensive.

I hope your Dualy turns out to be one of the quieter ones.

 

[Britnell]

I've had no complaints about my MDD w/ 800 firewire until this week. With the heat, the fan is blowing a lot ... So much that I am not turning the system off when not in use.

 

[rhino]

I've had my MDD G4 Dual Boot on my desk for about a month now. Came to me WITH the fan upgrade-fix.

In OSX it runs quietly using up to six open apps at a time. Have been watching the CPU via "CPU monitor" on my desktop throughout and have been very pleased with the speed and multi-tasking.

In OS9, however, a different story.
Fan howls during and after startup and while in certain programs. I bought this machine through Apple Education, whose rep advised me that this was due to the lack of fan control in OS9 vs. OSX.

According to the rep, OSX has something (software? ) that checks and activates the fan based on usage and heat. My words, not his, but that is my understanding.

OS9 does not manage this at all and can howl. As I'm trying to work as much in OSX as possible, I'm becoming less familiar with the howling and liking the speed in OSX immensely. Using OS9 apps from the OS9 partition in OSX under Classic also negates the howling "feature".

Love my MDD

 

[gwillikers]

I had to change my order with Apple Canada today, not just because of the chance that I'd possibly get one of the noisy Wind Tunnel machines, but because of the downgraded specs of the current price reduced Duals too. There were a few factors involved, but I went for the G5 due to all of those factors put together.

Perhaps my biggest influence (other than some of the posts here) was the 30 minutes, or so, that I spent on "G4noise.com" last night. It kind of blew my mind, all the testimonials, fan mods, and case conversions. Damn, it scared me off of the Wind Tunnel machines, I admit it.

I know most Wind Tunnel's are great machines, fast, upgradable, and very capable, but if you get one that isn't, it's a major bummer. And Apple's return policy makes it much worse. I couldn't take the chance I guess.

-GW

 

[MasterBlaster]

a