What do you do with your noisy Mac?

Discussion in 'Mac / Hackintosh' started by Vincent Price, Jul 13, 2021.

  1. Vincent Price

    Vincent Price Kapellmeister

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    When I use Cubase my Mac minis (Late 2012) fans start getting noisy

    What do you do when your Mac starts getting noisy, do you have it somewhere out of the way or do you have it in a Mac mini rack mount enclosure?
     
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  3. BigM

    BigM Guest

    I saw you discussing that mac a lot. Let's get to the point, if you're doing some serious recordings, you need to get rid of that noise. Otherwise it's your personal preference.
     
  4. Pipotron3000

    Pipotron3000 Audiosexual

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  5. 5teezo

    5teezo Audiosexual

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    Macs are known for bad thermals by design (slick, slim, silent, no vents, thermal throtteling)

    First order of business would be to perform an SMC Reset. Since setting like Fan speeds among other preferences are stored in there - it's comparable to NVRAM on PC.
    Second would be to take it apart which is pretty easy and clean the fan.
    Third, remove the super cheap low quality thermal paste by something of quality like Arctic Silver. And that's pretty much all you can do
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  6. Jim Bob

    Jim Bob Kapellmeister

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    Take the bottom cover off and elevate the mini so air can pass through.
    I never have fan noise.
     
  7. VisionSierra

    VisionSierra Ultrasonic

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    Get an M1... :wink:
     
  8. quadcore64

    quadcore64 Audiosexual

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    Go to ifixit.com & do a search for 2012 mac mini fan noise.

    If you did maintenance or upgrades, you could have inadvertently disconnected or damaged the sensor(s).

    Also take the time to read this PDF Apple Service Training Mac mini Late 2012
     
  9. BigM

    BigM Guest

    As i saw on old threads, he got this issue after using big sur patcher on that mac.

    That SMC reset might work, try it or getting a new m1 mac won't hurt:bow:.
     
  10. alen

    alen Newbie

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    I buy new one.
     
  11. tzzsmk

    tzzsmk Audiosexual

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    disassembling it, cleaning it from dust, and reapplying fresh new thermal paste between heatsink and cpu heatspreader can help dropping temps as much as ~20°C therefore also reducing fan rpm and noise
     
  12. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Audiosexual

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    install linux?
     
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