Comments on: An Apple Is Best Seen and Not Heard: My Quest for Quiet Computing

By: Nitesh

Nitesh — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:05:01 +0000

I thought I was alone in my psychotic quest for complete computer silence, now I find out there is a whole community of us! Yay!

By: tim

tim — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:57:09 +0000

—thanks for the word on silent computers! My ears are sensitive to
motor sounds and other sounds. The mac 1100$ laptop may be a solution
—all the best…
Tim B., MFA

By: Zac

Zac — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:37:36 +0000

My main PC and what I rely on is a cheapest Dell, now 4 yrs old, running Ubuntu. I also have a Apple Mac Mini (March 2009 revision) which I mainly use for iTunes and some software that I cannot get for Linux, so I don’t use it too often, until…….

….it’s summer when the room temperature gets to 34C (93F). The Dell even moments after turning it on sounds like a vacuum cleaner which makes difficult to use, and not too healthy for the PC, my ears or energy levels. (Note that running Windows on it makes it worse and it uses more CPU than Ubuntu)….but….

…the Mac Mini, wow, what a relief it brings, emits just a whispering purr, alot less tiring using it. For a quiet and powerful computer, I recommend it.

By: Jeff Flowers

Jeff Flowers — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:17:37 +0000

Win39: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but no one makes laptops anymore. They are portable computers or notebooks. Many manufacturers, including Apple I believe, recommend AGAINST placing them in your lap.

By: Eva

Eva — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:25:57 +0000

win39, as someone who lives in the frigid north, I actually quite love the fact that my MacBook Pro gets very warm. I’ve never had to stop holding it in my lap (even in summer, I can just prop it up on my knees a bit and I’m fine) as long as I’m wearing pants. I wouldn’t really recommend using it without pants (or any other laptop really, ew). I do have to admit however, being a woman, my lap might not be representative of all possible ergonomic situations…

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Sun, 24 May 2009 09:40:15 +0000

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By: lok cheung

lok cheung — Sun, 24 May 2009 09:09:41 +0000

not sure about the Mac 128k or the Mac Plus, but my Mac SE do have a fan in the AC/DC convertor. the fan actually pull air from button of the Mac SE, passing the mother board, floppy drive/HD drive, the CRT monitor, then finally reach the AC/DC convertor and out. so i don’t think i would consider it is convection-cooled.

By: t

Sun, 24 May 2009 06:20:40 +0000

I’ve just gone deaf…

By: MacGizmoGuy

MacGizmoGuy — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:28:34 +0000

Switching to an SSD drive not only eliminated heat around my 1st-gen MacBook trackpad hand-rest, but noticeably reduced the overall incidence of my fans kicking in as well.

If the dozens of hopelessly dead hard drives I’ve thrown in the garbage over the course of my consulting career are any indication — I’ll take my chances with a SSD and a good backup over the ‘time-proven’ failure rates of spinning platter hard drives any day.. :)

By: win39

win39 — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:03:45 +0000

I would say that noise in a MacBook normal or Pro is the tiniest problem compared to heat. It is silly to call it a laptop if you cannot use it on your lap if heat cannot be transferred out of it before that nice conductive case singes your legs.