Solution to ati x800 xt related fan noise

i am so happy, that i need to share this with everybody else:
a few weeks ago i decided to upgrade my gpu to tht ati x800 xt. i won't bore you with the fact, that it is a great card, fast and - truely - silent. the problem was that the due to the heat of the card the pci slot fan, just beneath the superdrive, started spinning at over 43% (i am using the hardware monitor tool for measurements http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html).
i looked everywhere for a solution to my problem, which i thought was either
a) replacing the pci slot fan
b) replacing the x800 xt fan
c) lowering the speed of the pci slot fan
d) replacing the gpu
it took me a week, until i bumped into the following page:
http://www.barefeats.com/radx800.html
if you read further down you we will notice that some of the tests were done with an overclocked ati x800 xt. greedy as i am, i forgot about the noise and decided to hunt for even more gpu speed. and there i went to http://thomas.perrier.name/software/ATIcceleratorII.html and downloaded the aticcelarator tool. and there it struck me:
as soon as i increased the speed by increasing the card's clock speed, well, the pci slot fan went to 46%. yes, you read me. if you do the exact opposite, you will lower the fan speed.
and here is the solution that works for me:
to reduce pci slot fan noise, underclock the card to
core 475 -> 445 (-5%)
memory 499 -> 472 (-5%)
and since my powermac g5 2.0 ghz has reached a pci slot fan speed of 41%. just slow enough to be under my annoyance level. you will need to play around with the parameters, since (ati clock speed =) ati heat + mac heat + ambient heat will impact the pci slot fan.
cheers
philip

Hi Tangier,
did you install the necessary drivers? ATI DISPLAYS 4.5.7.
Works perfectly on both my G5/Dual 2.5 and G5/Dual 2.7. If it still does not work try to reinstall the latest Combo update, presently Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Update (PPC)
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

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Try resetting the SMC http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

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http://www.redvent.com/images/card/1.jpg
http://www.redvent.com/images/card/2.jpg
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[img]http://www.lotech.co.nz/images/IMG_0035.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.lotech.co.nz/images/IMG_0038.jpg[/img]
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Does the ati x800 xt run silently?

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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=273349&tstart=1125
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The slot is AGP on a June 2004 Dual 2Ghz, sorry about that. I have been doing dozens of posts on another site and forgot to give my specs again when starting this post. I have had a huge confusing issue with this card. An ebay mac graphics card seller called this card an AGP card but then then someone pointed out that it was only for PCI-e. I went to the site and found that the was true.
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I saw some articles on the web earlier about using larger heat sinks and big fans. I asked about this in the forum but no could give me in sight on it or tell me if they would even work on the mac. How did your 9800 sound before and after the silencer? I really want to go back to the silence of my nVidia 5200 I loved how there used to be complete silence.
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1. Will it let me keep the the card in my top PCI slot? The two PCI slots above the graphics card are empty and I can sacrifice those slots but I would like to keep the top card if I can.
2. Is it hard to install ie require a lot of technical expertise?
3. Would it be easy to make a mistake and mess something up?
I realized that the 9600 is a slower card but having the machine quiet is a lot more important to me than having it super fast. I am also not doing super demanding stuff. I generally spend my day working in Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. So it's not like I am doing the latest games or 3D animation or high definition video or anything like that.

T420 Fan noise

I just bought a T420 a couple of days ago, and am rather surprised by the constant fan noise (level) after having read that it is very quiet. The fan runs constantly with a noise level that is much higher than other notebooks I've used (maybe noisy isn't the right word here, but it's noisy relative my expectations).
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I've already had a noisy keyboard replaced by IBM (called them the first day I received it) and I don't want to be a difficult guy (the space key is still irritatingly noisy!).
Any similar experience with the T420? Is it a general feature with this notebook?

@lenovoT420,
The T420 is fairly new and there hasn't been any reports on fan noises on this particular model so far. Maybe you can upload a clip on youtube or record it?
A very good example of a customer who recorded the fan issue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQwp6K1kK4
//JameZ
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X240 | 8GB RAM | 512GB Samsung SSD

Do MacPRo mid 2010 models run with level fan noises or uneven whine?

Apple is replacing my mid-2010 mainly because of a disturbing modulating, up and down, fan noise problem. Not sure of the source. At first thought it was 5870 graphic card, but haven't been able to nail down exactly why.
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I have read that these machines, relative to earlier models, are quiet hummers, at least relatively.. Do most people with this year's model have machines running at a constant noise level or do the fan noises, even at idle, modulate and whine up and down, even with light usage...or on idle. I don't want a replaced machine with the same issue. I do work in a quiet environment, and don't mind the fan noise, but the modulations of up and down sound like a tunnel and I need to turn off the computer at times. Model is 3.2 ghz quad core, with ati 5870 graphic card.
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So I've read a lot of forums and generally there's no simple answer anywhere. People say that their hdd/optical is making more noise than fans. That's true to my case. Hdd/optical indeed sound louder than fans. From the other hand, I work in very quiet environment (no street noise, no ventilation noises in the room or whatever) and my new Mac Pro sounds... well loud! Once again - relatively it is QUIET, I can hear older PC from the other room (and the 'other room' connects through a corridor so...). Still, a lot of people mention that they literally don't hear ANYTHING from their mac pros except for hdd/optical operation sounds. I do hear fan noise...
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Anybody here who can compare their mac pro's with say mac book pros? I clearly hear fans of my mac book pro (even being idle) in the main working room and mac pro is like 2-3 (may be 4) times louder than mac book pro. This might be OK for tower, but definitely it is not 'dead silent'...
So far I've even tried some iPhone decibel measurement apps (yeah it's not even close to 'pro' measurements but no other means are available to me at the moment). They doesn't notice mac book (most noise measurement devices as far as I've read don't count noises beneath 40 dB for good), but mac pro is about 42-43 dB while idle at some 10 inch from the machine and some 45-46 if I bring the mic like 3-4 inches to the case. Is it like OK or what? Unfortunately all Mac pros I've heard before where in environments where even my 42-46 dB would be completely lost, so i cannot judge if it is OK. It is still one of the quietest towers I've heard/owned but those posts about 'dead silent' and 'only hdd/optical' make me a bit uncomfortable...
Oh, and the modulation. Indeed idle operation has some modulation. As far as I can tell it comes not from varying speed of the fans but rather from how frequencies of the fans inside of the case are different and modulate when added to each other (like those FM/AM in the synthesizers). More to say, there are angles in a room where other frequencies are heard (probably reflections produce some additional modulations)...

Problems with new Yoga 2 Pro (battery, fan noise, yellow, screen orientation, on-screen keyboard)

I purchased the Yoga Pro 2 on Thursday October 17. I love the computer for so many reasons, (especially since it replaces my 4 year old Compaq that was 6.5lbs!) however, I am also having a few issues with it.
It is the i7/8GB/256GB model from BestBuy. I am experiencing the same yellow issue as is mentioned by many on here. I didn't realize it, though, until reading these forums and then comparing to my old computer and my ipad and iPhone. A little disappointed, though it looks like Lenovo may be working on a solution.
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The fan (on the right side of the keyboard) is always on! I didn't expect this, and am wondering if mine is a lemon or if others are noticing the same thing. It's pretty noticeable, especially in a quiet room. I was showing off my new computer to a friend and the very first thing she said was that it was loud! She was using a MacBook pro, which wasn't making any noise at all.
The second thing is the battery... I am attaching 4 photos all taken within a few minutes of each other. If you cant see them, they are all of the battery meter on my screen. I am listing the time of day (to show how much time passed), percent remaining, and time remaining:
10:04 (88%) 306 hr 15 min
10:05 (88%) 8 hr 48 min
10:09 (86%) 4 hr 54 min
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I feel like my computer just cant make up its mind!!
Another issue I had... I turned on my computer to show it to a friend (same friend who said it was noisy) and the screen image wouldn't flip when in any of the modes. This means I showed her the stand mode with an upside down image. Even in tablet mode I couldn't get it to flip. I turned the computer off and then on again, and luckily it decided to work, but it was frustrating, and I hope it's not something that becomes an issue.
Also, when I have the computer in tablet mode, the keyboard automatically pops up when I click somewhere to type... but this doesn't happen in stand mode or tent mode. Is this normal? I would have thought that the keyboard would appear in any of those modes, since the real keyboard is not accessible in any of them. And of course now that I am testing it out while writing this, none of the modes (including tablet) is having the keyboard come on screen. Of course, I know I can always choose the icon on the task bar to bring up the keyboard, but it would be nice if the computer did it automatically since it knows there is no other keyboard accessible in those modes. Is this an issue anybody else has had?
I really do enjoy using this computer, but some of these issues really need to get worked out if I am going to keep it. I'd love to hear if anyone is experiencing anything similar, and if there are any good fixes!

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.

Solution to ati x800 xt related fan noise

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