G5 fans at full throttle

[Jim Robertson]

I've unpacked the dual 1.8 GHz G5 about which I wrote the other day for
setup advice, booted it, and found that the fans would not throttle back
from near maximum velocity. The thing blows the hair on my leg straight! If
it had wheels and wings it might move towards liftoff.

It came with 10.3.0 installed. My first action was to run Software Update
until it had no more things to install other than the irrelevant update for
old iPods; i.e., I ran the combined update to 10.3.3 and the firmware
update, among others. The fan was still louder than any Dual G4 "mirrored
doors" machine I've ever heard. I'm in a cool room and the fans make my bare
feet COLD!

I called 1-800-SOS-APPL. They had me reset parameter ram, then boot into
open firmware and type

reset-nvram<return>

And

Reset-all<return>


No help.

So, they've given me a case number and asked me to take it to an Apple
service provider, saying that a fan might need to be replaced. I can vouch
that the fans themselves are VERY healthy. They actually throttle back some
if I open the case and lower the clear plastic airflow shield. And, when I
boot, the fans throttle back to a tolerable speed and noise briefly for a
few seconds before the first image appears on the screen, so they are
capable of responding to control signals.

Any guesses what might be wrong? I'll report back once my service provider
makes a diagnosis.

Jim Robertson
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