Thanks

Hello guy’s .. i just upgraded my hard drive on my 27″ iMac from a 1TB to a 2TB..( Seagate )… and as you would expect.. i ran into the the loud fan issue where it starts slow and then goes full blast and stays that way. Well as “Diesel87″ posted in this page..he performed a wire trick where he swaps the grey wire to the black wire and vise versa. This absolutely worked !!!!!!! I no longer have a loud fan anymore and everything is back to normal..!! I check it with the iStat application for mac and it gets the correct thermal temperture and fan speed for the hard drive. Im so glad i stumbled into this page cause it truely fixed my loud fan issue!! if you have this problem do the wire trick..though you might need some small pliers and patience..but it pays off..!

Thanks and i hope this helps..!!

- Katra

Issue that I can see is buying this cable doesn’t mean it will work right either. Sorry to sound lame but I’m getting confused messages. Do I need the cable AND software fix or will just the cable make my “Seagate” iMac work with a WD Green drive?

btw if you want to go the software route…. HDD control fan did work instantly…

Is it correct that when i buy a 1TB HD from Seagate –> ST31000528AS AND the 922-9229 Optical Temp Sensor Cable that i won’t have any problems with my fan?
I mean, when i buy the Optical Temp Sensor Cable do i also need the Apple customer firmware?
I asked a Apple store over here and the OEM HD would cost me 286,90 Euro OMG !!

If I order the replacement ST31000528AS – will it work without hacking the temperature sensor. So a like for like replacement.

As an aside If you send it to an authorised repairer, what do they do – order the Apple branded drives from Apple? How much more do they cost!?

It works.

And the way I look at it, $70 for the drive from OWC and $30 for the software, you’re still way ahead of the game.
The Apple Store will replace the hard drive for $200-$300 ( no apple care – and they wouldn’t give me an exact quote), the one local Apple Authorized Service place (Mac Specialists, Virginia Beach) wanted $500 to do it.

Seems like a rip-off to me, Apple should either make the firmware available or not use it.

Apple installs custom firmware on their hard drives. So even if you order one of the temperature sensors mentioned above, your fans are still going to be running at full blast. (And if you take your iMac to an Apple Authorized Service Provider, it will fail all of their testing)

You can install an optical drive temperature sensor cable from previous generation iMacs. This attaches to the hard drive like older iMacs did (to the top with a piece of tape basically). Now your iMac will be able to correctly read the temperature of the hard drive, causing the fans to run normally. And, when running Apple Service Diagnostics and the Apple Service Toolkit at an AASP, it will pass all the testing.

The part you need to order is: 922-9229 Cable, Temp Sensor, Optical. Its cheap.

I have used this cable on an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010) and it works great. Though, I haven’t tried it yet on other models yet, it should work just the same.

Good luck!

I read your post about the Hitachi sensor cable and used it in my iMac with a 3TB Hitachi drive. It will NOT fix the problem with hard spinning fans. When the imac is cold the fans start spinning at 2500 rpm gradually increasing to 5500. HD temp is only 43 C. Please send me a link to the original Apple post. There is got to be a fix.

Thanks

You are the MAN. First, I tried what the article suggested — replace my existing (failed) Seagate drive with one of the three Seagates listed. That didn’t work. The fans spun up like CRAZY. And, I haven’t proven it yet, but I think the bigger current from running the fans made my whole USB bus go crazy.

ANYHOW, I had ordered the Hitachi 1.5 TB from OWC (by “mistake” — before ever realizing there was an issue at all). Since the Seagate was a failure, I dove back into the iMac (late 2009, 27″) and threw the Hitachi in there. Did the cable mod that Sven described. Closed her back up. Quiet as a mouse.

Seriously, kind of freaky. After about a week of hearing loud fans, now I walk in the room and think for a moment that my computer shut itself down. This is GREAT. (And, so far, my USB hasn’t given me much trouble… but I haven’t tried to do anything serious yet.)

Thanks Sven! You rock!

I´ve got THE solution for replacing the standard HDD with an WesternDigital Drive.
First you need the named WD-adapter(Part No. 593-1062). The trick is: You have to put the adapter invert onto the Jumper-Interface so the grey cable is connected to Jumper-Pin4 and the black cable to Jumper-Pin3.
When you´ve got an iMac with an WD drive the adapter is connected grey on Pin3 and black on Pin4. Thats all.

The lenght does´nt matter. Only the right direction ist important. I´ve done an mistake when I ordered the adapter, so I got an adapter for the 21″ iMac. But it works also…

So good luck with replacing your HDDs with WD drives.
After all I can only advise you to use WD drives. At my work I had in two years about 7 failed HDDs – All of them where Seagates… So decide the maufacturer your own. In my oppinion WD is the better choice…

Have a nice day

Apple installs customer firmware on their hard drives. So even if you order one of the temperature sensors mentioned above, your fans are still going to be running at full blast. (And if you take your iMac to an Apple Authorized Service Provider, it will fail all of their testing)

You can install an optical drive temperature sensor cable from previous generation iMacs. This attaches to the hard drive like older iMacs did (to the top with a piece of tape basically). Now your iMac will be able to correctly read the temperature of the hard drive, causing the fans to run normally. And, when running Apple Service Diagnostics and the Apple Service Toolkit at an AASP, it will pass all the testing.

The part you need to order is: 922-9229 Cable, Temp Sensor, Optical. Its cheap.

I have used this cable on an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010) and it works great. Though, I haven’t tried it yet on other models yet, it should work just the same.

Good luck!