Fan Instalation

H

Half Truth

Registered
I have an old imac 350 mhz. This generation of imac didn't come with a fan and lately it is getting quite hot and its just going to get hotter. I have a fan which I can install but I don't know how to connect it all together. There is enough space for it to fit just under the handle on the top, even if it wont fit properly there I just leave it external. I do't requite it to be connected to the internal temperature control, just need it to run. If anyone knows how to connect it could you please give me instructions on how to do it.

Any help will be appreciated.
 
The top of the iMac G3 fanless machines will get quite warm -- even hot -- to the touch. It's perfectly normal. Unless you've upgraded the internal hard drive to something that would generate a substantial amount of heat, like a large 10,000RPM drive, I wouldn't worry about it.

We've got an iMac DV SE 400MHz machine upgraded with a 120GB 7200RPM drive working as a fileserver, and it gets hot to the touch -- but it's been running this way for more than four years and it's rock-solid.

As long as the ambient room temperature isn't above 80 - 85 degrees Farenheit or so, the machine should be fine. The venting, of course, is done through the holes by the handle, and it's gonna get pretty damn warm up there. The engineering of the iMac is good, though, and that kind of heat at the handle location won't cause damage to the computer.

Still, if you wanna install the fan, you're gonna need to crack open the iMac case and get a Y-power splitter, depending on the kind of connection the fan has (molex, I assume?). Then, just place the Y-splitter to the hard drive power cable, connect one end of the Y-splitter back to the hard drive and the other end to the fan -- then place the fan where appropriate.
 
Thanks for the help, the reason that I am wanted to put in a fan is because a few days ago the computer shut its self down for about 24 hours and wouldn't start up, I was guessing that it was just a way of keeping the computer of reaching a dangerous temperature level. For the next few months its going to be quite a lot hotter than 80-85 farenheit (27-30 celcuis) and I don't want to damage the computer.
 
um. actually. no. i also have one of those "fanless" imacs (266, five flavours)...

when i upgraded the ram last year, guess what I found? i has a fan that sits directly above the CPU.
 
@ Pengu: The tray-loading iMacs Rev. A - D had fans; the slot-loading models, that began with the 350 MHz model that Half Truth has, do not.

@ Half Truth: If your machine is running a lot hotter than normal, this might be a good time to have your data transfered to a new drive. My BondiMac is certainly running a whole lot better since I upgraded its HD (and everything else in it I could...)
 
I keep my iMac on almost constantly, whether on screen saver or asleep (when I'm away from it), and yes, it gets quite hot, and yes, it has problems, but they're not heat-related. That shutdown thing sounds like either something wrong externally, or something wrong with they system (the software part). It could have been some sort of power surge; do you have the computer plugged into a strip or the wall? It also could have been a random software glitch; have you had any other problems, like freezing, kernel panics, etc.?
 
It was an internal, it wasn't just that the computer wouldn't start, I mean that I could hear the computer power up, the light wouldn't go on and about 5 seconds after I pressed the on button it would power down. I guessed that it may have been the computer that was blocking the started up because of its temperature. I have also upgraded the computer to a 20GB HD. If it was a power surge it was very localised, I have another computer (Performa 5260) plugged into the same socket and the rest of the house was fine, the computer just wouldn't start until it had totally cooled down, I haven't had any problems with it since but I just want to make sure that it won't happen again.
 
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