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More reader comment on the PowerBook's internal fan
March 18, 2002
by Stephen Hildreth
Editor-in-Chief
Wow. I think I hit a nerve. I've stated before that I think the PowerBook G4/667 has a noisy fan and a noisy hard drive. Read about it here, here, here, and here. This time, however, I received a deluge of e-mails from people commenting on the subject. Most people agree: The 667MHz PowerBook has a very noisy internal fan, and it's too noisy for quality audio work. That doesn't mean that the PowerBook G4 is a bad machine. No, the TiBook is a fabulous PowerBook--easily the best PowerBook I've ever used. Sitting in front of its 15.2" LCD is a real privilege, but when that internal fan kicks in and starts running at high speed, be prepared to put on headphones to finish listening to those iTunes tracks. Here are the letters I received, posted unedited:
"I too have the TiBook 667 noisy fan problem. It's a stock TiBook 667/512MB. I too use the larger Roadtools.com podium pad in an attempt to keep the noise down. The fan has two speeds. The lower speed is not a problem. I mainly run OfficeX, and during a one hour, I timed the fan not running at high speed at less than 5 minutes. The fan is off a bit longer with the Podium Pad in place. Running off battery the fan is also on less often. The hi-speed fan operation seems to be related to certain apps: Office X and especially Palm Desktop 4.0b77, for example. Of the Palm Desktop package, the worst offender seems to be the Transport Monitor 3.0.0b7 which can set my fan running all night if left to do an IrDA sync. I've even placed my TiBook on frozen gel packs in an effort to shut down the fan quickly. It doesn't shut the fan as fast as you'd think. I can get the TiBook base cold to touch and yet still have the fan going."
"Just read your article on Readers comment on PowerBook G4 fan noise, it is pretty interesting. I also have a 667MHz Ti, and I concur with the reader who said the fan only comes on during games. My view is similar, though it does come on while I render with Bryce. Seems to be related to OpenGL for some reason- any program that makes extensive use of OpenGL tends to make the fan come on. This makes me wonder if the real culprit isn't the G4 processor, but the graphics chip, but I don't know. I would also recommend that others with the fan problem use ProcessViewer app (in the Applications/Utilities folder) and see if any programs use an unusual amount of processor time. Recently I had been using the program PTHClock, and the fan was on all the time - very unusual. I ran ProcessViewer, and noticed that PTHClock was using a huge amount of cycles. I disabled the program, and the fan barely turned on. I later checked versiontracker, and found a new version of PTHClock which fixed this bug. This may be worth mentioning to readers of your site."
"Been reading the fan noise comments. Here's my 2¢ worth. I've found my PB/G4/667/512MB to intolerably loud most of the time. I was somewhat dismayed when the fan kicked in the first day after running it for only 20 minutes. When the overdrive fan kicked in, I was on the verge of returning the machine. I do a lot of audio engineering and the fan noise is too loud for recording audio in most cases. I've found that the machine is very sensitive to ambient temperature between 70-80 degrees. In San francisco's mild winter, if I close my windows and let the temperature get past 75 or so degrees, the fan is always on. I open the window, and the fan is off after a few minutes. Unfortunately the machine's tolerance is about 10 degrees to low for normal indoor use in my case. This summer, the fan will probably be on all the time - there are very few air conditioners in SF. Otherwise this is a great little box. Well, I'm off to build a heat sink or a small support wedge incorporating fan - which I'm certain will be much quieter than the PB's fan."
"I've got to register my disappointment, too, with how noisy my new PowerBook 667 MHz is. I do audio production for a living, and I originally upgraded from my clam shell iBook to take advantage of the larger display and greater processing power of the TiBook, but I was dismayed to discover that my sensitive audio environment would frequently be disrupted by the rushing of my laptop's fan. With such an expensive and highly touted computer, my expectations for its performance were quite high. I am truly disappointed to have my experience with it be less than perfect."
"I admit that my Rev. B TiBook's high speed fan noice can be very loud but there are only certain occasions that I've noticed which trigger the high speed fan. 1) Running the laptop in OS 9. I don't mean Classic mode in OS X but straight OS 9. 2) When I have the processor spiked (such as running the SetiAtHome client in the background) 3) When the Radeon chip needs to work at anything harder than normal 2D screen redraws. Usually this means games or iTunes in full-screen effects mode. Running everyday programs like browsers, word processors, email and the like usually does not result in the fan turning on."
"I recently switched from a PowerBook G3/400 Firewire to a PowerBook G4/677 Gigabit Ethernet and was afraid to go backwards on two fronts: airport reception and fan noice - obviously on all other fronts the switch should be a good step foreward. I am happy to report that airport reception is acceptable (although a bit weaker than the PowerBook G3) and that fan noise is also quite acceptable (sometimes the fan comes up, but only very seldom at full speed). Two office coworkers with Dell laptops have huge double fans that fire up multiple times every hour while their 'portable' enclosures are easily twice the volume of a PowerBook G4 (which should make heat less of a problem I would guess). Mac OS X performance, display quality, portability and looks are a lot better than with the PowerBook G4. I am happy. I think that of the tens of thousands of PowerBook G4's sold, most are totally OK. But in online forums and on websites you only read about those with problems."
"I have a G4/550 Powerbook. I had the noisy fan problem too, but it got a lot better after I applied the latest Apple firware update. The fan doesn't come on so much any more."
"Just Curious, are people with the 550 having the same kind of problem with the fan noise?"
"Great website - you really helped me with my choice of laptop. I received my new PBG4 550 just over a week ago. This is my first PowerBook and I'm really happy with it. Before buying it, I was very scared about the fan noise issue, having read about it in forums beforehand, but it seems to affect the 667 more. Much to my relief, my 550 is very quiet, with the fan on its lowest (very acceptable) setting most of the time. It only comes on blowdryer mode during games (which is understandable) - but even that I think doesn't seem as bad as others have made out. I read on macosrumors.com last September that Apple was limited on choice of processor for the rev. B powerbooks, not being able to ramp up the speed very much without excessive heat dissipation/power drain (related to Motorola's persistent G4 production problems). The fan needing to work overtime to keep the processor cool I guess may be evidence to such a problem. But I think the 550 is a good compromise - quieter, but is still very fast. My only fear is that it may 'wear in' in a couple of months and get noisier - is this an experience of others? Otherwise, no complaints."
"Could you ask that people who comment also include their ambient temperature. I'm guessing if the average temperature is 40 F then the fan might not come on as often if the average temperature is 80F."
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