Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

tom.lindblom · Apr 12, 2005, 12:55 PM

Hi there,

Just picked up an old Cube that looks great!!

I remember everybody saying it should be silent, but mine sounds like it has a fan (small humming sound)? If I understand right the Cube should be fanless (yes this is a standard cpu version). So my questions is: is this sound normal or is this Cube dieing?

Thanks for answers.

Cheers, Tom

Eug Wanker · Apr 12, 2005, 01:16 PM

There is room in the case for an 80 mm fan, but the stock Cube does NOT come with one. There is NO active cooling in the stock Cube.

However, some people have installed them if they have installed a CPU upgrade, and some people have installed video cards with fans. Also, some hard drives may sound a bit like a fan.

I put a 1.7 GHz G4 in my Cube and thus installed a fan, but my fan is not audible from more than a few inches away, because it's a low flow fan which I have undervolted.

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 12, 2005, 01:49 PM

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
There is room in the case for an 80 mm fan, but the stock Cube does NOT come with one. There is NO active cooling in the stock Cube.

I thought you could get a stock cube with a BTO ATI or Nvidea card and they have a fan on the graphics chip.

tom.lindblom · Apr 12, 2005, 04:13 PM

Yes this is a stock Cube with 20GB maxtor HD and ATI Rage pro graphics card. The sound from the hard drive when working is quite obvious but this noise is something else... The sound coming from the Cube is disturbingly high and it's constant.

If any one comes up with good ideas pleas drop me a line..

Cheers Tom

Eug Wanker · Apr 12, 2005, 04:14 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
I thought you could get a stock cube with a BTO ATI or Nvidea card and they have a fan on the graphics chip.

Both the Cube Radeon and the Cube GeForce2 MX are fanless.

Originally posted by tom.lindblom:
Yes this is a stock Cube with 20GB maxtor HD and ATI Rage pro graphics card. The sound from the hard drive when working is quite obvious but this noise is something else... The sound coming from the Cube is disturbingly high and it's constant.

If any one comes up with good ideas pleas drop me a line..

Cheers Tom

You can shine a flashlight down the vent and if you turn on/off the Cube you can see the fan move if it's there. (The fan is located flat over the bottom vent.)

tom.lindblom · Apr 12, 2005, 04:30 PM

No fan visible.

I guess is as to be the hardrive that makes that makes some additional (constant) noise. Anyway I have ordered the GFMX2 card. Maybe I should uppgrade the HD aswell. Any ideas on good silent/cheap hard drives?

Cheers, Tom

Eug Wanker · Apr 12, 2005, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by tom.lindblom:
I guess is as to be the hardrive that makes that makes some additional (constant) noise. Anyway I have ordered the GFMX2 card. Maybe I should uppgrade the HD aswell. Any ideas on good silent/cheap hard drives?

Seagate Barracuda V, as well as some other drive.

BTW, I got mine, it was not that silent, unless I switched it to silent mode. However, to do that, I had to do on a PC, since the software to do the switching is a DOS program.

Other people have gotten these or other drives already in silent mode I'm told though.

bighead · Apr 13, 2005, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by tom.lindblom:
I guess is as to be the hardrive that makes that makes some additional (constant) noise. Anyway I have ordered the GFMX2 card. Maybe I should uppgrade the HD aswell. Any ideas on good silent/cheap hard drives?

Old Maxtors make all sorts of whiny high pitched sounds, and a lot of Cubes shipped with Maxtors/Quantums. As for good cheap quiet hard disks, I'm a fan of Western Digital. However, when I had my Dual 500 as a server, it had (3) 120 GB Samsung hard disks that were cool and quiet. Never had a single problem with the drives, and I'd recommend them as highly for your application as a Western Digital.

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 13, 2005, 12:49 PM

Originally posted by bighead:
Old Maxtors make all sorts of whiny high pitched sounds, and a lot of Cubes shipped with Maxtors/Quantums.

Ya I bought a 7200RPM Maxtor the second I bought the cube and it definitely makes a whine. My dual G5 is makes less sounds.

jrramsey · Apr 13, 2005, 01:35 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Ya I bought a 7200RPM Maxtor the second I bought the cube and it definitely makes a whine. My dual G5 is makes less sounds.

Definitely sounds like the hard drive. I have the orginal cube and installed the Barracuda 120gig. Completely quiet. If you want to do some upgrades, they may need fans. I'm using the ATI9000 GPU since it doesn't require a fan but I had to put it into the PL Clear Cube for the VRM relocation and extra free air circulation. If you upgrade CPU's, you'll most likely have to get a small fan.

Good Luck.

Skypat · Apr 13, 2005, 02:08 PM

Hi

I used to have a cube and was also surprised at the time to actually hear it. Yes, it's not like you had no computer on your desk. Even if it is very silent, you can hear it working. I am not talking here about the hardrive noises ... but about a normal continuous zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Silence of the cube has been exagerated a lot by some people who said it was almost as silent as a book ! No way

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 13, 2005, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by Skypat:
Silence of the cube has been exagerated a lot by some people who said it was almost as silent as a book ! No way

ya the iBook is the real silent mac.

Well, actually the newton/emate was (with the backlighting off)

jamil5454 · Apr 13, 2005, 03:58 PM

In near perfect silence, at night, I can hear my iBook hard disk whirring away. Also, if I listen closely, I can hear the GPU and VRAM working (or at least that's what I think it is). This only happens when I open a movie in Quicktime or dome some other graphics-intensive activity. The whine is barely audible, though, so I don't really care.

tooki · Apr 14, 2005, 10:38 PM

I'd recommend a Seagate 7200.7 drive. Not only is it quiet, but it runs cool enough, and it has a 5 year warranty.

tooki

Kyros · Apr 15, 2005, 11:30 PM

It's the hard drive. I have a cube myself. On the occasion that the drive spins down, it is perfectly silent, but the stock 20 gig maxtor is louder than some of the better fans you can get (if you were to upgrade). You will notice that when you sleep the cube you will hear the drive spin down. I have a seagate barracuda in an external drive, and that thing is very quiet. It's the drive that will go in my cube when I take the time to upgrade it (the external seagate is my dad's).

buffalolee · Apr 18, 2005, 12:02 PM

If you want a silent computer, get yourself a Seagate hard drive.

OtisWild · Apr 20, 2005, 07:40 PM

... Cubes can IIRC boot off of a network server, so you could always pull the HDD and boot off a server in the basement/attic/soundproof closet....

tom.lindblom · Apr 21, 2005, 02:42 AM

Thanx for all helpful ideas!

I did put in a new Seagate 120 GB 7200 drive and now the Cube is really silent

and snappier.

But now the drive can just suddenly shut down if I stress the drive a lot. I think it's due to the heat...

I wouldn't want to put in any extra fans... Does it run Cooler if i put back the original ATI Rage GPU I now have the GFMX2 inside. Or do you have any other tricks that might help...

Cheers Tom