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emacfan? · Feb 16, 2004, 10:31 AM

After our 5 year old imac gave up we decided to purchase a new emac and began to search forums, reviews, etc. for opinions. Two things seemed to bother people, the look(fine with us) and the noise the emac was said to produce. We must travel a couple of hours to reach Mac retailers so we took our notes and questions and headed off. Our questions were answered including the salespersons opinion that the noise was minimal, no big deal. Being the skeptical type tho' I checked with my very own ears on both sides and back of an emac on display(yes, it was running) and was pleasantly surprised to find very little noise. Ok,let's buy the emac! Got the superdrive, had more memory added, some extra software installed and were on our way back home. Have used macs for years and love them and this one is no exception. Almost runs itself, so easy to use. One problem tho' that is puzzling to say the least. When we started up our emac up it was, let's say, quite a bit noisier that those in the store. Sounds similar to refrigerator fan noise except the refrig fan shuts off from time to time, this just goes on and on. It does blend in after awhile because it is constant but it's strange that you could hardly hear the others close up and you hear this one 20 feet away. I have seen where some tech types(certainly not me) have opened them up and regulated the fan to reduce noise. But are some emacs created more quiet than others? Can't really afford an imac and really like everything else other than the air moving around. The old one was much less noisy than this. Do we have a mac lemon? Thanks in advance, Mike

bradoesch · Feb 16, 2004, 10:40 AM

Unless the store is perfectly quiet, it's difficult to judge the noise I find. I thought my iMac would be dead silent, but once I got it home there was a bit of noise from the hard drive that I could hear. I never had my ear up to the machine though.

Anyway, if the eMac uses a standard size fan (likely an 80 mm), you should be able to put in an after market quiet fan from the hard core PC weenie crowd.

nredman · Feb 16, 2004, 10:44 AM

i can hear my emac's fan from across the room if it is dead silent in my apartment. there is no doubt that it is loud but i dont think you have a bad eMac. it probably didnt seem as loud as when you were shopping for it because there was other background noise. but mine doesn't sound like a refrigerator either. just crank up the itunes and you won't notice it as much, i actually find the fan noise to be somewhat calming

emacfan? · Feb 16, 2004, 01:10 PM

Thanks for the info! I'll keep the fan change in mind altho' I find it really strange that the Apple store emac was sooooo quiet. It was as if the fan was not on at all. Is that possible? This is a great site! Thanks again, Mike

bradoesch · 07:03 AM

Originally posted by emacfan?:
Thanks for the info! I'll keep the fan change in mind altho' I find it really strange that the Apple store emac was sooooo quiet. It was as if the fan was not on at all. Is that possible? This is a great site! Thanks again, Mike

On some computers the fan's speed changes with the temperature of the computer, I'm not sure how it works with the eMac.
Yes, this is a great site. Except for the lounge.

edit: grammar