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digiology2 · May 23, 2006, 08:31 AM

Hi, I need a super quiet mac, the mac mini seems to be touted as silent, any thoughts?

harrisjamieh · May 23, 2006, 08:37 AM

The mini is the quietest, and if its not quiet enough it can be shoved away in a draw. However the iMac is by no means a hairdryer - not once has my fan come on in my iMac, it is DEAD silent, so either would be fine. In fact, you would be fine with any new Apple computer except a powermac

digiology2 · May 23, 2006, 08:54 AM

so your saying the fan is just completely off if the computer is cool enough? Does this happen with the mini and the macbooks also?
I'd love to just buy a macbook and it be super quiet but I doubt its up to my high standards: ) Im into making music but computer fans distract me.

MacOS-Fan · May 23, 2006, 10:27 AM

All I can tell you is that my Mini is completely silent. If you put your hand behind it you can feel the warm air being forced out of it but you CANNOT hear it at all.

parsec_kadets · May 23, 2006, 10:31 AM

The only noise I hear from my iMac is when the hardrive first spins up and the CD drive. Once the hard drive is spun up it is very quiet. I only hear it when I'm actually listening for it. Heck, the hiss from my cheapo speakers is lowder (I really need to buy some better speakers one day).

SLiMeX · May 23, 2006, 10:35 AM

My iMac is extremely quiet. I thought this generation of iMac was known for thier quietness...

icruise · May 23, 2006, 10:49 AM

My iMac (Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz) is silent, as far as I can tell.

HungrySeacow · May 23, 2006, 12:00 PM

By far the quietest Mac of all is the Core Duo iMacs. I have a mac mini too, but it is just a bit louder.

Maflynn · May 23, 2006, 12:05 PM

The G4 cube, no fan, barely heard the whirr of the hard drive.

Mike

cornwallstone · May 23, 2006, 01:22 PM

As I've posted here before, my Mini is dead silent. I've run it at 200% (100% on both cores) for up to 10 minutes where it finally got to cycling around 78-83 degrees C and the fan never came on... at least enough to be audible.

unix · Jun 7, 2006, 03:43 AM

well my macbook is very silent too. havent heard a sound coming out of it yet.

Eug Wanker · Jun 7, 2006, 10:03 AM

Does no one ever max out the CPU on these things? It's pretty easy to get the MacBook to be noisy simply by encoding some video on it. OTOH, most of the time it's pretty silent. The iMac should be quieter though since it uses the same CPU but with a much large enclosure and much bigger fans (that don't have to spin as fast to push out the heat).

The only Mac ever built that is truly silent (depending on the hard drive) is the Cube, cuz it has no fan at all. However, if you want real performance out of a Cube, you have to stick a new CPU in it, and a fan to go along with it.

cornwallstone · Jun 7, 2006, 10:12 AM

Open the System Monitor application and click on the CPU tab. Then click on the %CPU column label to sort processes using the most to be at the top.

Open the Terminal application and enter the command yes. Watch cpu utilization (and Core Duo temperature application). Let run for several minutes. If your fan is going to run and get noisy, this should do it.

To end the yes command in terminal, type control-C.

Socially Awkward Solo · Jun 7, 2006, 10:13 AM

I found my iBook 500 MHZ to be the quietest. Even the clamshells never made a peep.

The cube is quite but I could hear the hard drive spinning because of the chimney in the middle on the cube.

harrisjamieh · Jun 7, 2006, 11:08 AM

The MacBook certainly isn't 'the quietest mac' - since I have had mine, the fans have come on almost everyday, and its made worse if you have the moo-ing thing

Oh, and the cube was not the oly Mac ever built that was truely silent - IIRC, the Rev B iMac G3s had a totally fanless design (i remember watching a keynote where Jobbs introduced the rev B, highlighting the silent operation due to convection cooling)

Eug Wanker · 11:25 AM

True. I think the original Mac had no fan either.

Maybe I should update that statement: The only fanless Mac truly usable in OS X today is the Cube. As far as I'm concerned, early G3 Macs don't count.

It's arguable that a 500+ MHz G3 is usable, but just barely.

P · Jun 7, 2006, 11:43 AM

For current Macs, the Mac mini is the most quiet, though the iMac is pretty good as well. For older Macs, the slot-loading iMacs and the Cube are more or less equally quiet (no fan) and can be made even more quiet by replacing the HD. In fact, most of the G3-based machines were very quiet, and the first G4s were as well.

Socially Awkward Solo · Jun 7, 2006, 11:49 AM

The original Mac.

Eug Wanker · Jun 7, 2006, 05:25 PM

Well, the floppy drive was sometimes loud in the original Mac.

That and it was soooo sloooowwww...

cornwallstone · Jun 7, 2006, 07:42 PM

The first time they put a fan in it (the SE), the fan caused wavering of the image on the monitor screen. I had one of those. The replacement fan was a little better, but they eventually had to redesign it.

Tuoder · Jun 9, 2006, 04:23 AM

My Lombard PBG3 is very quiet. The fan is broken. The HDD is quiet, too. My iMac DV is quiet, it has no fans and it works for me (I am using it right now). My PC is the quietest of them all. I leave it off.

WOPR · Jun 9, 2006, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by pheonixash

well my macbook is very silent too. havent heard a sound coming out of it yet.

Come on, you're going to have to turn it on one day...

larrinski · Jun 9, 2006, 12:15 PM

My intel imac is silent. I have it in an office/spare bedroom, and you can have it on all the time and not hear a thing. A lot quieter than my G5 imac. I sent that back due to the noise. You also want to make purchase decisions on more than the fan though. The imac is beautiful. I was never a mini fan. It is just tucked off to the side. Unless you pair it with the apple cinema display, the desktop looks similar to any PC.

Stratus Fear · Jun 9, 2006, 12:25 PM

The Intel iMac is indeed very quiet. Mine seems a little louder than it used to be -- might be because where I live is pretty dusty, and dust buildup increases heat a bit (so the fan will run a bit more). It's still fairly quiet, though. In a dead silent room, I can hear the fan whir slightly, the little bit of air movement and very quiet whir-buzz noise that the fan does make. It's not imperceptible, although as soon as any level of noise happens in the room, the fan is easily drowned out. This machine is pretty quiet.

angelmb · Jun 9, 2006, 04:06 PM

As if being the quietest Mac was not enough, the Cube could easily be the cutest Mac ever… that says a lot about the company R+D efforts.

nickw311 · 10:07 PM

I have never heard the fan come on in my MacBook or my Mini. My Mini is however a PowerPC version.

Edit: I can hear the fan on my MacBook right now, first time lol... It isnt bothersome to me at all.

LagunaSol · Jun 10, 2006, 09:54 AM

My Intel iMac is quieter than my wife's G4 Mac mini. At idle they're about the same, but the mini's fans tend to kick in more often than the iMac's.

pat++ · Jun 10, 2006, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by Socially Awkward Solo

I found my iBook 500 MHZ to be the quietest. Even the clamshells never made a peep.

The cube is quite but I could hear the hard drive spinning because of the chimney in the middle on the cube.

True, the iBook 500 was completely silent. Never ever heard any noise in 3 years...

harrisjamieh · Jun 11, 2006, 03:39 AM

IIRC, the clamshells were fanless.. no?

dreamBweaver · Jun 16, 2006, 05:57 AM

I have a G4 Cube and just like the iMac it only makes distracting noise, if any, when the drive is in use. My Intel Core Duo 20" iMac has made noise only once and the other time it did was when it was a firmware update. My PowerBook G4 12" Rev. A was completely the opposite and is deafening. I recommend you avoid a laptop if you want a quiet system. I had to tuck that PB into a drawer at night when it was still working on something.

Kadman · Jun 16, 2006, 08:35 AM

I took a 20" iMac back (and ate the restocking fee) because I couldn't stand the noise level. The only time I have heard my mini is when it did a firmware update that ran the fan at full speed for a few seconds. This thing is whisper quiet.

siMac · Jun 16, 2006, 10:19 AM

It's good to hear that these CD iMacs are apparently so quiet. I'm disappointed that my 2.0GHz iMac G5 is something of a noise monster, there's always a low droning sound and it's best to leave the room if I'm encoding video.