Removing Fan from MAC Mini?

Alan

As above really, is there a way to remove the cooling fan from a MAC mini upon the installation of an internal SSD? I understand SSDs run cooler anyhow, and the computer is used almost exclusively as a music server.

I would half expect a little preogramme might be necessary to 'convince' the computer it doesn't need a fan, and most likey the addition of a little carefully placed heat-sinking somewhere inside.

Have you heard of anyone doing this before? I posted this on CA but got no bites. Its worth noting I am not really technically savvy, I can change RAM for instance, also a hard-disc change if I have good instructions.

The MAC is a 2009 model, 2.27mhz core2duo now with 8 gb RAM, running on the last version of Snow Leopard.

(I dont know why I bother really, I havent played anything in over a week now! Still, its nice to have something to plan for)

tenpastmidnight

As a stop-gap before you get the pallet knives out (dunno if newer Mac Minis are easier to get in, my original model was a bit of a pig) I suggest trying the Fan Control app from here...

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23137/fan-control

Which I've used successfully on my old MacBook to stop the fan going mad. It might mean you can control it to not run apart from at very high temperatures, which is as good as having to go in and disconnect/replace it.

Alan

Thanks, Tenpast'

If that app does what I suspect then it will be just the ticket.

Shall get the SSD first though.

Opening it up - getting quite practised now, what with the RAM, and removing 2p coins from the optical drive...Dave's tip is to use a round pizza cutter, works v.well.

Sorry to be so brief, I'm trying to give that headless chicken a run for it's money...

Anyone actually done the SSD sans fan mod? Does it work?

realmassy

I've removed the fan from my MAC mini 2010 when I've installed a 32GB SSD: as soon as Istarted playing music through Audirvana (no DSP, upsamling...nothing) temperature went up to 65 C. It took about 5 minutes.

Needless to say I put the fan back :-)

Alan

Ah - that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the tip.

Would it be possible to add adequate heatsinking to the SSD? Or is there insufficient room?

realmassy

Maybe in the 2009 version, in the unibody version definitely not. The problem is not the SSD though, but the CPU.

Also the fan in 2010 version runs at least at 1800, but I remember in the old version Fan Control was able to speed down the fan to 1000rpm. Having said that the Mini with SSD is very very quiet, the drive is louder than the fan.

To avoid the noise from the external drive (where music is stored) I'm using a drive silencer and a sata dock connected to the mini using the firewire. This solution is better than any other external drive enclosure I've tried in the past: I barely can hear the drive when it spins up.

ItemAudio

Yes - it is possible, and a fine idea with a unibody Mac. Every Mac Mini SE goes out that way . . .

The L-shaped heatsink is fixed with three sprung screws to the motherboard and incorporates an exhaust vent on the underside. It cools both the CPU and video chip, which are at inconveniently different heights . . . the Apple item has a profiled copper heatspreader to accommodate it.

The knack is to use all that temptingly conductive aluminium as a passive heatsink by making copper heatpipes affixed to the right edge of the case. If you do it right, you can run two concurrent instances of Flash movies while encoding and playing 24/192 audio files (something of an unrealistic torture test for an audio Mac) and never see temperatures in excess of 65°. The idle temperature - and that during typical playback - is actually lower than with the fan. And that's without cryo-treatment . . .

In a perfect world, all computers would be silent. We're trying to get there one machine at a time!

Docfoster

Yes - it is possible, and a fine idea with a unibody Mac. Every Mac Mini SE goes out that way . . .

The L-shaped heatsink is fixed with three sprung screws to the motherboard and incorporates an exhaust vent on the underside. It cools both the CPU and video chip, which are at inconveniently different heights . . . the Apple item has a profiled copper heatspreader to accommodate it.

The knack is to use all that temptingly conductive aluminium as a passive heatsink by making copper heatpipes affixed to the right edge of the case. If you do it right, you can run two concurrent instances of Flash movies while encoding and playing 24/192 audio files (something of an unrealistic torture test for an audio Mac) and never see temperatures in excess of 65°. The idle temperature - and that during typical playback - is actually lower than with the fan. And that's without cryo-treatment . . .

In a perfect world, all computers would be silent. We're trying to get there one machine at a time!

I'm not going anywhere near the specifics of the Apple discussion here. No idea at all...
But one of the things about the TFS music PC that was pleasing (in a 'surprise and delight' sort of a way) was that it is completely silent when playing audio/video files from the SDD. It's a quite odd experience when one is liberated from the sound of motors of various kinds when playing digital audio/video.
Now, if I could just build a heat sink big enough for my DLP projector, and a ceiling bracket to support it I could liberate myself from the cooling fan noise of that too...!

ItemAudio

We named the 'Stealth' Mini after the same experience: quite eerie when you first power up a really silent small computer . . . is this thing on?!  We've too long tolerated such cacophonous beasties in our homes.

uglymusic

Yeah. My White MacBook makes an intrusive racket when I'm listening at late-night levels.

realmassy

I wanted to give you an update about my battle against the mac mini's fan.

I've disconnected it again but this time I removed the cover from the bottom. I've also added 4 sorbothane feet to raise the mini...about 1cm.

Played some music, the temperature was about 59 degrees.

Then I completely removed the fan, so the board had better ventilation.

And now temperature is 51 degrees, playing some hi-res files through PureMusic, and I'm sure Audirvana uses even less CPU. That's pretty cool!

I'm using an SSD for the OS and an external firewire drive as storage, which I've made totally silent using an Hammond enclosure and some acoustic foam.I really can't hear any noise coming from the Mini...beautiful!

uglymusic

Thanks for the update @reamassy, that is really interesting. 

I wonder what happens if I remove the fan from my White MacBook? Actually, I won't work, I suspect, because there's no way of increasing the airflow by removing bits of casing :-(

Monty

Are the Macs really that noisy? I can only hear the fan in any of my Macs when sat right next to them in an otherwise silent room.

In terms of adding SSD, is there really sonic improvements to be had? The only things I have running on my 2010 Mac Mini is iTunes and Amarra. All music files are on a NAS.

I do see a benefit of adding more RAM when using memory play but I can't get my head around the need for SSD if the files are store off-board.

I clearly need to do an A-B test for myself

uglymusic

My old White MacBook is. My later Macs are quiet. I suspect it's an issue that Apple have sorted out over time. 

To my ears, the SSD is well worth it. It only needs to be a small disk if you're storing music elsewhere - mine's on a NAS, connected by Gigabit Ethernet - as it only has the OS and a few apps. I've maxed out the RAM to 4GB as well, but that had been done before I put the machine in the hi-fi.

realmassy

My "standard" Mini is not noisy by any means, but I sit just beside it, as I listen with headphones.

Stax are very open, so every noise in the background really bothers me. The noise frequency particularly annoys me, because it triggers my tinnitus.

I can't honestly hear anything when I'm about 3 meters from it.

As for the MacBook, I don't think you can't do much. It really needs the fan, and as you said you can't remove any piece of the enclosure.

No real sonic benefit using the SSD, other than, again, silence. Pure Music, Audirvana, Amarra they all have in-memory play.

But I think I've noticed an improvement upgrading to 8gb of RAM and disabling the virtual memory, but really any blind test is impossible!

Alan

Thanks for the update, realmassy. As Dave said, really interesting findings.

My mini is quiet, but the fan is sometimes on for no apparent reason (most of the time it is off). I would be interested in using an SSD so there are no moving parts left on board - for mechanical reasons as well as power supply. As to whether there would be an audible benefit, there is another matter...

I must look into the passive cooling that is now being more widely used. There must be some DIY guides on t'interweb by now.

On a slightly related note, I have my (now spare) King-Rex power supply here. I understand that these linear PSUs can be adjusted to power a McMini. That is interesting to me...

Alan

My "standard" Mini is not noisy by any means, but I sit just beside it, as I listen with headphones.

Stax are very open, so every noise in the background really bothers me. The noise frequency particularly annoys me, because it triggers my tinnitus.

I can't honestly hear anything when I'm about 3 meters from it.

-Exactly the same here.

.......

But I think I've noticed an improvement upgrading to 8gb of RAM and disabling the virtual memory, but really any blind test is impossible!

Pardon me, but what is meant by this part please?

realmassy

Hi Alan,

OS X like Windows and Linux, of course, allocates Virtual Memory on the drive when needed.

Linux is clever enough not to use the swap are if there's RAM available, Windows and OS X instead grab an area of your disk even if you've got 8gb of RAM.

Using the drive as Virtual Memory makes the system slower, a bit unresponsive, and it produces a lot of IO access, reading and writing. Even the fastest SSD won't be as quick as the RAM.

Can this affect the sound quality? It would makes sense.

When I upgraded to 8gb I decided to turn the Virtual Memory off

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=201106020948369

The guide suggests this can lead to an unstable system, but so far, after a couple of months the Mini is working perfectly, never had problems.

Alan

Thanks for that, I'll have a look later. It doesn't seem to be included on the list of OSX tweaks that I have followed.

realmassy

You're welcome!

And I didn't know about your guide, I'll look into it, cheers.

Alan

You're welcome also. Its by a chap called Larry Moore, a kind gent sent me the link on Computer Audiophile.

Arfa

Can the fan be swapped for another model that's quieter? Will a bigger fan fit in - these can run slower/quieter yet still give the same air flow?

As mentioned, normal hard drives do get warm, but nothing like the heat generated from a CPU and GPU. Can the CPU be downclocked? I vaguely recall something in the energy saving options, to lower performance - which will save power and generate less heat. TBH running a modern chip at 60 degrees is no big deal, they should handle that fine. It's when they hit 80-90C I'd worry...

Alan

Lots can be done (though I am pretty sure there is no room for a larger fan). One method is passive cooling, utilising heatpipes. A quick google shows these are simply copper pipes attached to certain components (you'd need to know which ones to focus on) which are then attached to the outer casing. The heat is transmitted away, the case being utilised as a heatsink.

CPU & GPU, underclocking etc can also be done. ItemAudio now offer this (along with with other improvements) to anyone with a spare £450. Understandably, the 'how to' details aren't displayed all over the net.

Docfoster

Re. The ssd v hdd point, what's the power supply concern mentioned above?

Alan

Um - I am well out of my depth now, but I believe the idea is to minimize what components draw from the (multiple switch-mode) power supplies. Perhaps a spinning disk/hdd not only draws more power but also does so in a non-continuous fashion, unlike a ssd. Of course its entirely possible that what I think I have read correctly on forums is a load of guff...

realmassy

I think you're right Alan. 

The whole idea of no moving parts is to minimize noise AND power requirements.

For the same reason some people suggest a single RAM module (usually 1.5V) r`ather than 2.

On my Linux box I'm powering the storage drive using a different PSU, so the motherboard has just to power a small flash drive for the OS and the USB ports.

I'm not entirely sure this has audible benefits, but it's fun :-)

Docfoster

I stuck a 256gb ssd in my TFS for a £/gb last year and then wondered why I could have got an hdd at about 10% of that rate.
I don't understand this pooter stuff.
I'll have to try some listening tests as I now have an external usb powered 500gb hdd too that I stick my blurays on. Then again, life's too short...!!!