Intermittent shutdown, fan noise

I have an iMac G5 ALS, 17", 1.8ghz that I bought new from Apple in August '05.
The serial # starts with W853.
It has always had an over active fan IMHO, but I've read of this complaint often on these forums, so I never paid it much mind. In June '07 the iMac started intermittently shutting itself down so I brought it in. I had Apple Care thankfully so they swapped out quite a few parts, including some sensors, the Logic Board, and PSU.
I brought the iMac home, and within a day or too the hyper-active fan noise was back. However, the iMac was not shutting itself down randomly anymore... until today.
The system log shows me, "AppleSMU -- shutdown cause = -110"
It happened once, I haven't been able to reproduce it yet, but it of course has me worried.
I have central air in the house, the room never gets above 75 degrees.
The CPU at rest/casual computing is around 65 degrees with the fan whirring away at 5600rpm.
Hard Drive at 44 degrees, fan at 3206rpm.
WDC 49 degrees, fan at 2500rpm.
What is the real story with the iMac G5? Are there things I can actually do to keep this machine running while avoiding intermittent shutdowns, and reigning in this fan noise?
Thank you in advance for taking the time to share your experiences and advice.

I'm having a similar problem with the sudden shutdowns but not with the fan noise. This just started today after being out for a few hours I noticed that the computer was shut down instead of asleep. I booted it up and it shut down within a few minutes. This continued for several attempts and now I can't even get passed the startup sequence before it shuts down. I can't run any tests on it 'cause it will shut down in the process if not before. I am still under the extended warranty so I guess I will be taking mine in as well. What could be the cause of this? Does anyone have any other suggestions?

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Hello pinster
Reset the SMC > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
+1. Shut down the computer.+
+2. Unplug the computer's power cord.+
+3. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.+
+4. Release the power button.+
+5. Attach the computers power cable.+
+6. Press the power button to turn on the computer.+
Dennis

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Hello,
I have the latest model Apple Macbook Pro 15" with retina display. I'm using the basic model with 8gb ram, 256gb ssd, Haswell i7 cpu with integraded Intel Iris Pro 1gb gpu.
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I have talked to Apple Customer service and they made me do it sth. like SMC, PRAM etc. However, it didn't fix anything, then I handle my mac to the nearest Apple Store.
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Also we tried the same thing but it didn't happen on my friend's late 2013 13" rMBP.
This thing really irritates me because it leds to a such noise. Without taking earphones on, I am not able to use the mac comfortably.
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I'm adding a screenshot below to see the values;

I am not sure of the thermal limit for the haswell processors, but for Intel's previous generation processors installed in the rMBP lineup, the thermal limit was 100C (212F). Extended exposure to temperatures exceeding this could damage the CPU. What software are you using to manually control the fans? I wouldn't recommend manually controlling the fans. Let the internal heat sensors do their thing. Your rMBP will shutdown if the processor reaches dangerous temperatures for extended periods of time. I wouldn't say that this behavior is abnormal given the amount of heat your GPU generates when rendering graphics intensive games. Just make sure to keep the fan vent unobstructed at all times and a cooling pad never hurts.
Uninstall the software you are using to manually control the fans, reset the SMC, test and see if temperatures fall:
Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Support - Apple

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Hi CouchP,
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G5 - Intermittent Loud Fans

Hi,
In short the problem that has recently developed is that the fans on my G5 will intermittently ramp up in speed, become pretty loud, and then return to normal operating speeds after about 5 seconds. I can't discern any pattern to when this happens.
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Coolin-
I have a dual 2.7 G5 machine, and the fans do the same thing on my machine. As far as I can tell, they're simply detecting changes in the processor temperature and spinning up to cool the silicon down. There are various programs that will allow you to monitor the processor temperature (check www.versiontracker.com). You should observe increases in the temperature immediately preceding the fan speed increase, then a drop once the fans turn on.
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Success - but not complete!
After cleaning off all the old thermal grease from the CPUs and the heatsink and applying a sufficient amount of new high-quality grease, there was no difference in the fan speed.
I put in the original motherboard (with the non-working FireWire ports), and the fans returned to operating as they should (ie at a speed proportional to the temperature). There was, however, a temperature increase reported by Temperature Monitor, most likely because of the slower air movement.
I found yet another motherboard which I had acquired in a non-working MDD G4 (dead power supply, dead hard drive, and a capacitor needing to be soldered back onto the motherboard, but the case was fine!), and tried it out. It has working FireWire ports and normal fan speed, but gives no sound through the front speaker. The front headphone socket and the rear headphone/speaker socket work, at least, although the extra socket for the Apple Pro Speakers appears to also be non-functional.
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1). The original: proper fan control, but non-functional FireWire ports;
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3). Second spare: functioning FireWire ports, proper fan control but no sound through the front speaker.
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37-38°C, 32-33°C and 29-30°C for the three drives (of the four) that it reports on, with this motherboard also giving a CPU temperature of 51-53°C (the others only gave readings for the drives). I don't know if these temperatures are "good" or a little on the high side, but the computer is working normally (apart from the front speaker), and the fan noise is mild/normal/acceptable rather than annoyingly loud.
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I just got a Lemontine Yoga 2 Pro i5/8GB/256GB from lenovo.com and the silver one from BestBuy in the same configuraiton. The silver one has no issues except for the crazy number of hours remaining on the battery which is fine, doesn't bother me. The fan noise is very quiet, and you can only hear it if you put your ear up to the vents in a quiet room.
Now the Clementine one...It was heating up pretty good. I put my ear to it on many occasions and can hear nothing at all, the fan is either missing LOL or doesn't work. I had an issue where I left the thing on for 4 hours, but sleep is configured after 5 hours. When I tried to use it, it showed me the screen brielfy, then blank. Tried hard reset, called Support, nothing. Support says its dead. Ok, an hour later, it turned on. I'm guessing it was too hot and was in some mode to protect itself, like a smartphone that is left out in the sun for some time, it won't power on till its cooled down.
I'm still in process of trying to get a hold of Lenovo to swap it, but since they no longer sell this configuration, I doubt they'll be able to get me a new one.
The silver one from BestBuy us solid though, love it, best in class in my opinion...actually got it from Future Shop sorry...from Canada, but they're essentially the same store.

HP TouchSmart 610-1280qd CTO Desktop PC Fan Noise

Hi,
Can you tell me if a loud CPU fan is normal for this computer?
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SOLVED: I spent some time with technical support and they had a model in the lab and confirmed that the loud fan noise is not by design. I returned my Touchsmart and received a new replacement and it is almost silent. I checked the BIOS and the fan speeds are reporting 1100 CPU Fan Speed and 2100 system fan speed with the same low temps above. I believe in my original machine they did not install fans right by swapping the plugins on the motherboard; I do not have solid evidence of this though.
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Hello sal4303. I understand your screen is going blank.
Have you tried changing the settings for how long it takes your monitor to turn off? Here are the instructions.
Let me know if this has an effect on your issue.
Have a lovely afternoon!
Please click the white star under my name to give me Kudos as a way to say "Thanks!"
Click the "Accept as Solution" button if I resolve your issue.

Big fan noise problem: the rear fan won't shut off, the BIOS won't update, systemupdate locks up

I received new ThinkStaion (oh boy, lots of memory and CPU speed, yay!)
I unfortunately left the originally installed Vista OS on there. Very much regretting that as I believe it contributes to the following problems (BIOS).
So the original problem was that after just a month of using my new ThinkStation, the System Board died, and it had to be replaced. Honestly, all I did was choose the sleep or hibernate option in Vista to shut down. Afterwards,poof! didn't even get the proper Power lights on the system. I diagnosed this with the online docs and then sat for a few hours on our tech support line doing all the same things to re-diagnose it.
So after the replacement, the rear fan will not shut off. Jet engine noise all day. I went into the system settings and selected "Quiet" for the Fan settings but that did not help.
Research on this forum resulted in the possibility of a BIOS update fixing the problem. Comparison to my co-workers systems which arrived at the same time shows this BIOS is woefully out of date, so even if it does not fix the fan issue I want to update it. However, everything I've tried to do is failing for one reason or another.
(The fan issue does need resolution since in one week I will end up sharing an office (first time in many years, thanks IBM for nothing!) so since I don't want us both to have to wear noise cancelling headsets, I'd like to fix this without having to just pull the @#$@ power to the fan. Grrrr. )
I downloaded what I felt were the appropriate Lenovo apps to update both the BIOS and the serial number but none seem to work properly from the command line in Vista. One of the two (can't recall which) asks me to reboot and it never actually shuts down. Eternal "Shutting Down" message. Ga! The other throws some gosh awful
systemupdate le
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-69701
eternal reboot
BIOSD attempt:" 2xjy26usa
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-69701
error 1275 no admin priv - I AM the administrator account, there is no other acct to use!
Then I decided Vista might be the problem and found sites recommending flashing the BIOS from a bootable USB. So I started down that path and after burning the wrong version, finally geting the AIK Vista tools installed and to the point of trying to make the USB bootable, it won't allow me to put the OS boot on it. Ah, for the days when a simple "sys a:" took care of that.
So, after reformatting the USB and pounding my head in the wall, keyboard, etc. I am at my wit's end. What to do. I just want the fan noise to go away.
This does seem to duplicate other forum messages but I can't get anywhere on this. Help!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

FYI to all the helpful folks here (and any looking to shut their jet engine off as well): Flashing the BIOS did the trick.
First I had to find a website with DOS OS files and put those on the USB instead of Vista. Oldie but a goodie, but at least it booted! No other versions would.
I had been intending to use the WinPhlash utility that Lenovo supplied with the BIOS update but since I was booting from DOS that was useless. However, I found a DOS version of it and used that instead. Boom baby! Flashed and rebooted.
It did take two boots to get it back to normal (first one gave very alarming messages about no operating system being found but I think it was just a remnant of the reboot that was triggered from the DOS session). A second boot returned life to normal and blissful silence from the server. And I was finally able to get the model and serial number back in there to get rid of the bootup message it throws for that too.
Ahhhhhhh.
Thanks to all for the hints - I believe I had gotten the idea of flashing the BIOS to solve this from some other thread I found here. This is a very nice forum to have bookmarked.

HT3964 How do I stop my Macbook from overheating and making a fan noise?

My Macbook Pro 17 Inch keeps overheating and making a fan noise after I use it for... say... an hour.
I use Windows on my Macbook, is this related to my problem? If not, do I need to get my fan replaced?
It gets annoying whenever I play a game, and then suddenly my Mac goes to sleep for no reason (probably due to overheating).
The fan noise is kept to a minimal when I use a web browser, or listen to music, but it goes up when I start an application.

Since overheating is something the computer tries to prevent, it will shut down if the temps get too hot, thus your experience is not overheating.
You can have a look at Activity Monitor (Menu Bar > View > Show All Processes) and then sort by CPU to see what the culprit is during downloading.
A hot Mac is not that big of a problem, the fan takes care of the heat and if you do not mind the noise, then that is it.

Intermittent shutdown, fan noise

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