Power Mac G5 fans dont stop

newbie_geeknewbie_geek
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have been working for a multimedia artist in town lately. And i have been doing a lot of work on his delicious G5 tower. But the trouble is the thing wont shut up!



No matter how many or few processes are running, ALL of the fans are going FULL tilt! It is AMAZINGLY loud.



Unfourtunately the guy who owns it (the artist in question) doesn't really have the time to address this, and since i am the one who will be mostly working on this machine, i would love to see it fixed.



Thanks guys.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Have you tried Apple's support site?
  • Reply 2 of 9
    oldcodger73oldcodger73 Posts: 707member
    Open Activity Monitor, select "all processes" and see if something is using an unexpectedly large percentage of processing power. If so, try quitting whatever is hogging the processors and see if that makes a difference.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    newbie_geeknewbie_geek Posts: 7member
    Well i took a lookin' at the apple support site. The only concrete suggestion there was to "reset the SMU". Which i did, and that seems to have NOT worked. And that makes me sad.



    Any other suggestions?
  • Reply 4 of 9
    zoranszorans Posts: 187member
    I remember early on a few had problems with the clear sheilding inside the metal casing. The sensors believed it was not closed so always spun up in emergency mode - fans full tilt.



    Open it up, check it out.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    newbie_geeknewbie_geek Posts: 7member
    So once i have it open, what am i looking for?



    Wether or not the clear sheilding is properly put in place?
  • Reply 6 of 9
    newbie_geeknewbie_geek Posts: 7member
    SO i have poked my head inside and it seems that the plastic cover is snuggly in place.



    Looking for the SMU reset button, i found nothing. But it it's place i saw the PMU reset button. Not being too sure wether or not this was close enough to the idea of hitting the SMU reset button, i opted to avoid temptation. Would PMU reset do the trick here?



    Also, i should note that the G5 heat sinks were downright COLD, so it is DEFIANTELY not an "overworked processor" problem.



    So what do you say? Dare me to RESET THE PMU?!?!?! Well? DO YA?
  • Reply 7 of 9
    londorlondor Posts: 258member
    Open the side panel and remove the plastic cover. Do the fans start to spin even faster or do they stay at the same speed?



    If they spin faster. What is the room temperature? My PM G5 when it is over 28-30º C starts to sound like a blower. Below 25ºC is almost silent.



    If they spin at the same speed check the plastic cover. As you pull it out the right hand tab at the bottom of the plastic cover should have a piece of foil stuck to it. If this piece of foil is missing the computer thinks that the plastic cover is not in place making the fans spin at full speed.



  • Reply 8 of 9
    newbie_geeknewbie_geek Posts: 7member
    cool let me take a look.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    trtamtrtam Posts: 111member
    I dare you to press the PMU reset button. As the Apple Support site quotes, they are the same button, except the later models feature the SMU instead. It's funny, because I visited this site (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300341) earlier this year and it had instructions for both resetting the PMU AND the SMU.



    You could also try this: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300351



    Or try an Apple Hardware Test, by booting up from the CD that was included with the computer.



    Not necessarily in that order, by the way.
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