Yesterday, out of the blue, my G4 started making a very loud humming noise. I had several programs open, nothing froze but I was unable to shut down from the Apple menu so I rebooted from the harddrive. The sound was gone and I have not heard it since. However, when I start up my computer now, it no longer makes the little Apple start up sound. Anybody know what happened?

I know some G4s have noise problems. Mine sometimes makes an irritating sound but never for very long. This was different...almost deafening!

Hello,

I wonder if you have the "wind tunnel" G4 that sounds quite, um, loud. The hum could have been the fan cycling on and causing some internal vibration. Curious what happened too that the apple bong sound is gone on startup.

Did you open the case, and see anything out of whack?

Curious indeed.

Christian

Thanks for the reply. I suppose it could have been a sound like wind tunnel but it were the fan, why couldn’t I shut down?

I’m not sure I would know if anything were out of whack. I had someone install the internal harddrive just 6 months ago or so and there was nothing wrong then.

My office is not hot or particularly dusty if that could affect the fan.

Yes, very weird about the missing apple bong.

Fibber McGee

I had some flaky things going on with my G4, such as wind-tunnel fans, before it wouldn't boot or chime at all. Turned out that a logic board failed. I hope that's not your problem, but be prepared.

Thanks for the heads up. I haven’t heard the noise again but my chime is gone...no problem booting up but I will look into this further.