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PowerBook G4/667 Noise: Reader Feedback
December 10, 2001
by Stephen Hildreth
Editor-in-Chief
Our article on PowerBook G4/667 fan noise generated a fair amount of reader feedback. As expected, most of the messages we received fell into one of two categories; "The 667 is too noisy" or "Mine doesn't make that much noise, so stop your whining." Have a look for yourself (these are posted unedited, typos and all):
"Great site. On the question of the noisy fan, I too have a TiBook 667, and I have to say that the fan works as advertised. It comes on every now and then and has two speeds, one that is quite loud (top speed). But, I have to say, that it really doesn't bother me. I'd rather have a noisy fan than a burnt out motherboard."
"I know exactly where you're coming from. I have a 550 Mhz and the fan, in my opinion is TOO noisy and obtrusive. After 15minutes of it being constantly on whilst playing iTunes the other day (the machine had been on for an hour before that during which time the fan came on for a couple of 5 minute bursts) I turned everything off and just ran the Finder, I even took out the USB peripherals, and it still stayed on for a further 45 minutes - that's an hour constantly on for a total of 2 hours use. Phoned Apple Care and having someone collect it today. Hopefully it's something the technicians can remedy."
"I have 2 of these and both turn on the fan constantly whenever the processor is used or if the drive is used often. I use it in target mode and the thing goes off all the time. I have noticed it does not turn on as much when using the battery alone but that makes sense as the charger adds heat when charging. I must say,it is VERY annoying during flights when I'm trying to avoid waking people during flights and have been told a few times that it bothered other people. Very disappointed in this flaw. As well as the airport range. But the antenna seems to be directional. When I point the charger outlet (right side) towards the airport I add an extra light to the reception. Turn around and it drops. Interesting. And it is the most problematic PB I've ever owned ( since 5300) with all these irritating flaws. Ah well, too late."
"Yes, it's true, the fan goes on very quickly. It's very annoying to me, as I often use my PB when looking at TV, in the sofa, next to my wife. I used to have a PB G3/400 bronze before the titanium and it was very rare that the fan went on, but the hard drive was a bit noisy. The Ti is very quiet for the first hour, a real pleasure. On mine, if used on a wooden table, the fan doesn't go on it's second speed, so the noise is bearable. If on speed two... I have to leave my sofa ;-) It's sad that the it needs the fan to cool down... although, thank's to it, it doesn't overheat."
"I own a Ti 550 with 512 mb of RAM. Yes, the fan is on too much for my taste. I like my 550 a lot. Big improvement over the 400 Pismo in a lot of areas, but I miss the silent operation of the Pismo (and the dual USB iBook I owned for a couple of months). I can live with the fan at low speed, but in blowdryer mode it really bothers me. Forget watching a DVD, since after ten or fifteen minutes the fan goes into blowdryer mode and stays there. In fact, I only got an hour and forty-five minutes from the machine on a fully charged (and properly conditioned) battery. I suspect that this is due in part to the operation of the fan. I can understand Apple's desire to keep the machine cool; it's just that some of us got rather used to quiet portable computing. I wonder if we'll ever hear from Apple on the matter."
"In response to your article on whether or not the fans in the new powerbooks are problematic: I think this must be more of a problem with the 667 than the 550. I can only discern 2 speeds but have read there are 3. Some examples: I can't ever recall the fan coming on after hours of constant use in Quark and Illustrator. The low speed fan does come on occasionally in Photoshop. If I use it directly on my lap while surfing the net or emailing the lowest speed fan will come on but it takes at least half an hour. Even then, only for a duration of a few minutes. The bottom does get roasty but I don't think as hot as my Pismo 400 did. I can watch an entire DVD movie with the powerbook sitting on my desk (wood, not metal) and the fan isn't a problem at all (maybe the lowest one is on but I'm not even sure that it's not just the hard drive). The only time I can consistently get the fan to come on is with heavy 3D use. 5 minutes after launching the demo of X-Plane, the high speed fan will always come on and remain on until I quit. To me, this seems reasonable considering the cpu is really being taxed. All in all, the fan is a non-issue."
"I've had my PBG4/667 for a little over two weeks now. When I first got it I ran almost exclusively in OS9, but I have been switching over and now run almost exclusively in OSX. I have noticed that when I'm in OS9 and running processor intensive apps like VirtualPC 4 that the fan comes on regularly, but it is definitely not constant. I've left my computer running (not letting it fall asleep) for many hours without the fan coming on at all as long as I'm not running VPC or DVD Player. I downloaded DVD Player 3.0 for OSX and did a little comparison test with DVD Player 2.7 in OS9. After about 30 minutes in OS9 the fan came on high and didn't shut off until after I stopped the DVD. In OSX I watched a 2 1/2 hour movie and the fan only came on low a few times. I think I'll be using OSX for watching movies on planes... Overall I'm very very happy with my new Powerbook. It's a huge leap up from my venerable old 1400C/250G3 upgrade. Well worth the wait. PS I downloaded DVD Player 3.0 for OSX before I thought to do the comparison. I'm guessing that 3.0 must offload the CPU and take advantage of the Radeon graphics chip, hence less fan use."
"I leave mine on all day and don’t hear he fan running at all. Grant, this is off of the battery, and I'm probably only using it 20-30 minutes out of the hour. While playing a demo game the fan did come on, and it sounded like a hair dryer going full blast, but for WP, or web browsing I'm not get a any fan noise at all."
"I have recently purchased a PB 667. With it I also bought from devdepot.com a slightly tilted stand with a fan in it that constantly cools the powerbook from below. InterCooler GTX The fan runs constantly from the power in a USB connection so I use a powered USB hub with it. This fan is also much more quiet than the internal PowerBook fan. The G4's fan still comes on from time to time but my guess is that it comes on less than it would without it. I general with CPU's where cooler is better - having an extra fan on the job sounded like a good idea to me. "
"I too find the fan toooo noisy also. I even talked to tech support about the problem with no resolution. I have found a practical solution though. Enable "processor cycling" on the energy control panel. There is no slowdown when I'm using My Ti 667. The fan might come on once an hour and shuts off with a minute. The only slowdowns I've found are Retrospect backups and long downloads, otherwise I can't tell when the cycling is enabled. I thought you might want to try it."
"I have a G4/667 PB and my fan rarely comes on. Only when an intensive process is going on. I found that when I use my internal modem instead of my satellite connection (via Ethernet), the fan comes on after 15 minutes or so when using Explorer. I also found that the fan comes on more frequently when in OS 9. I use OS X 99.9% of the time. Only once has the fan ran at high speed. The low speed does not bother me much. I also raised the back a 1/4 inch with a small piece of wood and this seems to keep it cool."
"I've had my Ti PB G4/667 30gb for about a month now. Before purchasing it I talked to a friend who had the older 500 model and was warned that it gets hot and is very noisy. I use my 667 as my primary work machine pretty much 8 hours straight during the day and often take it home and play with it in the evenings. While it does seem to get pretty hot around the power switch, (it is much worse when it's charging than when it's charged), I haven't found that the fan comes on all that often or for very long. It is pretty loud when it runs though - sounds like an airplane taking off in the distance."
"I've got a 667 MHz G4 Titanium. I've run it for up to four hours with the fan only coming on intermittently. The fan goes for a couple of minutes and then stops and it doesn't come back on again for 30 minutes or more. No big deal. I don't know why your Book's fan runs nearly constantly, but there's not enough evidence to say that's the norm for the 667 model Titanium."
"We are running the same PB on display all day long in the ComputerWare Berkeley location and never have I heard the fan. We have it on a 'Cool Pad' - a gizmo that elevates and allows air to circulate under the machine."
Thanks to everyone who sent in their observations. |
