09-30-2006, 06:10 PM

Well, my G4 MDD is now up and living after being reborn from top to bottom (I will post pics tonight of what I've done to her) but I have one question. I replaced the case fan with a 120mm aftermarket Thermaltake Thunderblade blue LED fan, and I know the G4 MDD's case fan is thermally controlled. The only problem is that this aftermarket fan is much smaller than the stock fan so at a given RPM it doesn't put out as much air as the stock fan. This means the CPU is heating up more than I would like it to, so my question is, is there any way to make the system fan run at full speed all the time?

The only other way around this is to plug the fan into the power supply directly (not going through the logic board's temperature-controlled sensor) to give it the full 12V, or it should run at full speed if I ground the black wire to the metal chassis somewhere. I'd like to find a way to do this through software, though so it doesn't look dirty. I'm already trying to figure out where and how to route the power cable for my Radeon 9800Pro... :miner:

10-01-2006, 09:41 PM

I would just buy a larger quite fan instead. Apple designed the fans in a certian manner so that there is maximum cooling for all of the parts. As you know, using a smaller fan would make the system hotter. While you could do as you said and plug it into a full 12v line, then you would end up with a noisier computer. I would just buy a larger fan. Apple's stock fans are kind of loud, so if you replace with a quite aftermarket large fan, you'll optimize cooling as well as keep the noise levels down.

10-01-2006, 10:14 PM

Well, I've been doing some research. The Thermaltake fan I bought is very quiet, even at the full 12V; much, much quieter than stock. The only problem is that with the aftermarket fan, the CPU heats up a heck of a lot. It idles at about 58C and will go to about 62C under load, way hotter than any other CPU I've ever dealt with. I'm going to try and put the stock fan (I have the Apple OEM "quiet" fan that came with my new PSU) back in and see what kind of temperatures I get and go from there. If they both keep it at the same temperature there's no sense in using the much nosier stock fan.