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Loud beep: scary
#17217 08/26/11 01:30 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
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This is a brand new Intel iMac (2 weeks old)

New experience (in all my years on many different Macs)

Hit the spacebar to wake it up; nothing.
Oh I must have switched it off last night (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)

Pressed power button at back.
Nothing happened.
Pressed power button again (I could see my face reflected in the black screen, looking perturbed)

Can't rembember if I pressed it a third time, when there was a LOUD BEEP

(perturbed face changed to seriously worried expression)

Screen came to life, with grey screen and progress bar. Never seen that before.
Waited for progress bar to finish.
Screen changed to grey with apple logo and spinning cogwheel.

After a heart-stopping pause, iMac comes up as usual.

Went straight to Disk Utilities and ran Verify disk.
Verify disk passed. i.e., it is OK

So what happened to my new Mac and is there anything else I should be doing, should have done?

I've just run software update too (now that it's back up) and it downloaded three items, one of which required a reboot and that went ok too.

(One of them was Thunderbolt and another one a stainless steel keyboard update; but somehow I don't think that's relevant.)

Please be nice: I've never been beeped at like that before. Thanks.

Re: Loud beep: scary
Bensheim #17221 08/26/11 03:11 PM
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The beep is the firmware unlock warning, that occurs just before the chime when it has unlocked the firmware for updating. When it updates the firmware, it runs the fans max and you get a slow progress bar across the bottom. Sounds like your computer ran a firmware update. Maybe you had it set to "download important updates in the background", and when you shut it down it said do you want to install the updates and you clicked yes without reading. In some models it has to shut the computer off and you press the power button yourself to turn it back on. (or is it all, I thought I saw some reboot instead of shut down?)


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Loud beep: scary
Virtual1 #17223 08/26/11 03:51 PM
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Hi Virtual

Thanks for answering. I don't think it was that, but you could be right.

I think - though I could be wrong - that I pressed the power button once too often while being worried that it wouldn't start up, and it was Mac's way of shouting STOP DOING THAT.

Re: the firmware update it did just download, I didn't have to press the power button to start it up again.

Regarding Software Updates from Apple: I have a look at what they are, and know that some of them don't apply to me. So I uncheck them. Next time I run Software Update, there they still are, eager to be downloaded.

I've checked around the net about the iMac power button, but my question is too vague or stupid to get an answer, I think.

ps. I also didn't know that iMacs have fans. There are 4 iMacs in this office and I've never heard them. Where would they put a fan in a stainless steel enclosed iMac which is only 1" deep?

(gets up and takes a sideways look: ok, it's deeper than 1" behind the screen, and there is some slot behind the screen, at the top, which I've not noticed before. You wouldn't would you? Is that the fan outlet?)

You may think I'm talking gibberish, but we all have learning-curves, despite having used Macs exclusively for over 20 years now...............


Re: Loud beep: scary
Bensheim #17227 08/26/11 05:16 PM
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There are in point of fact three fans in each of your iMacs. A CPU fan, a Hard Drive fan, and an optical drive fan. According to Marcel Bresink's excellent Hardware Monitor utility — on my iMac, which I believe is very similar to yours, the fan speed ranges are:

CPU Fan 940/2100 RPM
Hard Drive Fan 1100/5500 RPM
Optical Drive Fan 1000/3800 RPM

Run your hand over the vent near the top rear of the monitor and in normal conditions you can detect a slight breeze along with some significant warm air coming from the fans. Start burning video DVDs as I was last night and if you are in a quiet room and listen carefully you may hear the fans running.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Loud beep: scary
Bensheim #17232 08/26/11 09:56 PM
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Originally Posted By: Bensheim
ps. I also didn't know that iMacs have fans. There are 4 iMacs in this office and I've never heard them. Where would they put a fan in a stainless steel enclosed iMac which is only 1" deep?

To get some idea of the shape and size of Mac fans, check out this teardown of a recent iMac. Panels 4, 8 and 9 left show the rather large optical drive fan. Other Mac fans look similar, but may be quite a bit smaller.


alternaut moderator
Re: Loud beep: scary
Bensheim #17235 08/27/11 05:56 AM
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> Regarding Software Updates from Apple: I have a look at what they are, and know that some of them don't apply to me. So I uncheck them. Next time I run Software Update, there they still are, eager to be downloaded.

You've misinterpreted the checked boxes; they mean "Install" now, and unchecking them merely delays installation.

Select any d/l's you don't want to be offered again, click on SU > Menu Bar > Update > Ignore Update, click on "OK" in the dialog box with which you'll be presented, and you'll see them again only if you click on either SU > Menu Bar > SU > Reset Ignored Updates or on "Reset Ignored Updates" in an SU dialog box.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

Moderated by  alternaut, dianne, MacManiac 

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