Reduce excess fan noise by cleaning out dust

Apr 06, '06 06:46:00AM

Contributed by: kd4ttc

There have been reports of high fan speeds on the iMac 15 in flat panerl after installing various versions of 10.3.8 or 10.4.x. I had such a problem. I tried the hints about restart with plug out and PRAM resetting and the rest. Nothing worked. Problem went on for months. Then the simple idea finally struck. A vacuum cleaner applied to the lower vents cleaned out dust and the fan now runs at normal speed. For those that had success with their maneuvers it may have been inadvertent cleaning when unplugging or button pushing that helped.

One thing that modern appliance computers don't have is a dust filter. Most people wouldn't change them anyway, so I suppose that is why they are not there. I lost a power supply to overheating on my old 6116CD PowerPC some time ago. That filter was inaccessible without physically removing the power supply. As most of us here function as the local tech experts, we should be sure to remember the basic support function of keeping the equipment clean. Dust is a big killer of electronics of all types, so clean out your computers, stereos, TV's and other devices from time to time.

[robg adds: Warning: A reader has emailed me that using a vacuum can be very dangerous, due to static charges that can build up. Instead, use a can of compressed air...]

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