How hot should the exhaust from a Mac Mini be?

[mshan]

I just bought an used Mac Mini from another AT'er.

It's a 1.83 gHz Core Duo with 2 GB upgraded RAM and a 160 GB 7200 rpm hard drive in it (Hitachi 7K200-160).

I powered it up and it's (compared to what I was expecting) very loud and exhaust out rear of Mini is fairly hot, rather than warm.

Is this normal, or is that 7200 rpm hard drive really burning things up in that small enclosure?

It's also really loud (both hard drive and fan - and it's fan bearing noise more so than whoosh).

 

[aphex]

something funky is going on. I had two mac minis, a G4 and a Core Duo and both were completely silent unless something was utilizing 100% cpu for more than 2-3 minutes straight.

Even then, the fan would speed up and the exaust would get decently hot, but it was by no means a permanent thing, only when using 100% cpu which was rare.

If you go into Activity Monitor (under Utilities), Show All Processes, then sort by CPU, is anything abnormally high?

 

[mshan]

You don't think that a hot 7200 rpm notebook drive could account for rather hot exhaust and overall noise?

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: mshan
You don't think that a hot 7200 rpm notebook drive could account for rather hot exhaust and overall noise?

i've never found 7200 2.5" drives to be all that noticably hotter or louder than their 5400 rpm counterparts....

I have a 7200rpm drive in my MacBook and it wasn't really any hotter than the 5400 one i had in before... And its as silent as can be

I doubt its the HD

 

[mshan]

RAM and this hard drive upgrades were installed by Apple (Store?).

Are they covered under Applecare if I have a problem?

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: mshan
RAM and this hard drive upgrades were installed by Apple (Store?).

Are they covered under Applecare if I have a problem?

Were they apple parts? If so, yes.

If you brought your own stuff to an apple reseller, and they installed it. You warranty is still intact, but not on those parts.

 

[mshan]

Seller said they were installed by Apple.

I'm guessing he bought the parts from Apple, but I'm waiting for him to PM me back.

EDIT: I didn't see anything that stood out in the activity monitor.

I suspect I've got an exhaust fan with noisy bearings and a notebook hard drive sample that's unfortunatley just plain noisy.

 

[mshan]

Listening more carefully, there is this buzz / coarse vibration sound coming from right front corner of Mac Mini (especially at idle?).

Is this where exhaust fan is located?

I am trying to run repair permissions under disk utility, and it seems to be hanging at about 25% complete. ??

EDIT: it took about 10 minutes, but repair disk permission finally completed. Also, I looked at some old photos of Mac Mini taken apart that I copied from the web and it looks like the exhaust fan is located in the front right corner. Will AppleCare send me a new one free of charge?

EDIT #2: did repair disk permissions again right after eventually successfully repairing disk permissions and same thing occured: got to 25% immediately, seemed to hang there for 10 minutes, then completely fairly quickly and said disk was ok. On the iMac my dad has, it always repairs disk permissions very quickly with no hanging.

 

[aphex]

I've had the repair permissions hang for awhile on both my Mini & my Macbook, never been able to attribute that to anything specific.

The fan is on the front right side, so that is likely what your hearing.

You can see the Mini teardown here; http://eshop.macsales.com/tech...ge=Video/mini/med.html

I would bring it in.... Something is amiss.. My mini's were basically dead silent 97% of the time over the three years I had em.

 

[mshan]

Should Apple be willing to ship me a replacement free of charge, and will installing it myself void the warranty?

And does seller have to call Apple to transfer warranty to me, or does it go with serial number of Mac Mini?

EDIT: seller included original notebook hard drive and it looks like it has standard desktop sata power and data connectors. Can I just hook it up like a regular sata desktop drive to my desktop computer to test it?

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: mshan
Should Apple be willing to ship me a replacement free of charge, and will installing it myself void the warranty?

And does seller have to call Apple to transfer warranty to me, or does it go with serial number of Mac Mini?

The fan is built directly into the caddy, so it would be very very difficult to replace yourself. The HD/DVDRW as well as some mini boards are attached to the caddy, so I think Apple would want to do it themselves.

 

[aphex]

EDIT: seller included original notebook hard drive and it looks like it has standard desktop sata power and data connectors. Can I just hook it up like a regular sata desktop drive to my desktop computer to test it?

Yep, you can plug it in.

As for the warranty, I don't believe it has to be transferred as it goes by serial afaik.

 

[mshan]

Thanks for the link.

I think that was a G4 disassembly, though.

Video also shows that fan unscrews from everything else, and I assume power leads just pop out also (?)

And what do you make of this fan bearing noise (right now it sounds like a droning as fans is spinning up and down).

Do you think this is just sample variance on basically cheap made in China fans, or does it portend early failure of the fan itself?

EDIT: found this pic of drive cage:http://flickr.com/photos/jsnel...280/in/pool-macintosh/

Do you think fan will unscrew separately from everything else?

 

[aphex]

The G4 and Intel are nearly the same internally, except for the ram.

 

[aphex]

On second glance, the fan might unscrew easily, but I still dunno if apple will allow you to replace it yourself. Technically speaking, Apple doesn't even allow you to replace the ram on the mini yourself.

 

[mshan]

The noise those fan bearings make have changed from the original buzzing / vibrating to more of a droning sound now.

If I do nothing and Appleware expires in about a year, do you think I should be able to get a replacement fan on eBay or something at a not too expensive cost?

 

[hiromizu]

What did Apple say when you called them?

 

[mshan]

Didn't call yet as warranty may still be under seller name.

Trying to decide what to do by end of weekend.

 

[mshan]

Called Apple and they said I have to take it into an Apple Store and that it should be covered under warranty.