My biggest fan
Hmmm. Anybody clever got any clever ideas why the fan on my Apple MacBook might have suddenly gone mad? It seems to come on at the drop of a hat, like it's at the gym or something. I'm not running that many applications - as I type, the usual triumverate of Word, MacMail and Firefox - and it's whirring away right now. Whirrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrr-rrrr. Quite disturbing in a library environment - I feel bad for the lady sitting next to me. If the free British Library wi-fi connection is slow or down or I need to send emails which it won't let me do, I pop in my dongle and use my Vodafone mobile broadband connection, and that often seems to get the fan going. I know the fan cools down the laptop, which is very kind of it, but it seems to be getting hot much more readily these days. I've tried propping it up on books to "air" its underside - does that actually do any good, or am I wasting my time? And is there some other way of reducing fan noise/activity? Does switching from mains to battery make any difference? It's a brave new world.Sorry to be a burden, as usual, but I know many of you love responding to blogs like this.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:43 AM
22 Comments
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22 Comments:
It's just stopped, thank God. Now, was that the propping on the books, or the forcing quit of the Vodafone programme (which I'm not using)? I love these games.
I've seen this happen when the spotlight indexing service goes a bit "nuts" or when one program is consuming a lot of CPU. Best advice is to use the Activity Monitor application & have a look at which programs are consuming the most CPU & kill them off if its getting annoying. If it is a service though then the program will restart itself which means you'll just have to grin & bear it.
There are lots of things that could cause your fans to come on and propping it up on books might have helped.
Have you got the iStatNano dashboard widget?
http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatnano/
Very handy, will tell you the speed your fan is actually running in rpm, so it is running fast or just noisily? Also you can see the temperature of all the components, how busy your CPU is etc.
Might help you track down what is causing your problem.
Of course your Mac might be running a fever due to swine flu :)
Will using this dashboard widget make my computer hot? (I'll investigate it.)
Thanks, already.
If your laptop is starting to get on a bit the battery might be on its way out - the battery can get very warm during use and thus cause the fan/s to need to run. I don't know if there is mains electricity available to the public in the British library, but if there is and you're worried about the noise your laptop makes you could do what they do in computer shops - take the battery out (not necessarily right out) and run purely from the mains. Not being a fan of Macs I'm not sure how easy this would be on your MacBook, on my Sony laptop I just had to lift a flap and slide the battery out a centimeter or two to disconnect it and run purely from the mains.
Before you splash out on a new Mac, or do anything drastic, it may be worth giving the vents a gentle vacuum. My Macbook's fan went crazy a few weeks ago - following a gentle hoover it's quietened right down and doesn't get so hot all the time. Try it.
Also, @raetsel is right about iStat: very handy 'at a glance' check on your Mac's health.
Indeed, first tip is to fire up Activity Monitor. Choose "All Processes" from the drop-down at the top, then sort by CPU usage descending by clicking the CPU column.
It's pretty difficult to figure out what the next step will be until you know what's causing you the gyp. Frequent culprits are browsers, especially when viewing Flash animations and movies, but it could be anything.
Oh, and don't be too shocked if you see something taking up more than 100% CPU; the value is totalled for all processor cores, so on a Core Duo processor you could probably theoretically hit 200% usage ;)
Hi Andrew - as wowser says - try a quick vacuum - often this sort of thing is the result of a build up of dust.
Of course, that might not cure it - but as a first port of call, it's worth a try before you start trying to get more involved...
As other have pointed out, it's likely that dust is the culprit.
Chucking laptops out of a 2nd floor window is pretty much guaranteed to quieten them down.
If you need a highly qualified and experienced acoustic engineer again, you know where I am.
PS love the hoovering idea - you're having a laugh right?!
@Tina "you're having a laugh right?!"
I gave my MacBook another hoover today (it's very satisfying). You've just got to be careful not to suck the keys off the keyboard ;-)
I'd support the hoovering comments.
A colleague at my last company received a warning that his CPU was overheating and his laptop wouldn't boot up. The tech support guy (who satisfied all attendant stereotypes) asked "How long you had it?". The user replied "A couple of years".
Without pause, the tech support guy picked up the machine and blew into the ventilation grid near the fan, eliciting a sound akin to a melodica. The combination of his physicality and the polytonal whirring was, for a fleeting moment, like having our own private unplugged performance from The Magic Numbers. After the huge cloud of dust had dissipated the laptop booted first time and, to my knowledge, was fine thereafter.
its the penalty you pay for buying a mac.. live with your mistake. hehe.
Any thoughts on adding a little shake n' vac?
You didn't leave a CD in there by any chance? That often produces random whirring in mine.
My MacBook started doing that when the sensors that turn the fans on and off got 'confused'. Install the iStat widget. If it tells you that your fans are working even though everything else looks OK you may benefit from resetting the pram (or SMC as Apple call it). This resets all of the sensors (amongst other things). Instructions can be found here - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
Its probably firefox to be honest - if you've got a site with embedded flash or other video content firefox can get a bit tasty.
Use NoScript to stop websites from doing things you don't want them to.
vodafone dongle eats up power. extra power consumption = extra fanning I guess? my fan always goes mental when I plug things into my 6 year old relic of a laptop.
you could try
http://www.amazon.co.uk/5-Star-Duster-Compressed-Flammable/dp/B000MQ7DZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241197750&sr=8-1
1.turn the unit off
2.blow the air into the fan vent at the rear for a few secounds (hold the can upright!)
this will clear any dust collected in the mac's fan (better than hoover)
Jim
You are all brilliant.
I have installed that monitor. And I've noted two things:
1) The fan gets going when I have been using the battery for a while and go back to mains.
2) The fan gets going when I plug in my Vodafone dongle. Even quitting the two programmes required to connect it - Vodafone Mobile Broadband and Internet Connect - reduce the fan activity. That widget is a peach.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're never alone with a blog.
My MacBook does the same thing.
I did clear out the vents as per the previous suggestion.
In addition once the Hard Disk fills up enough to leave less than approximately 20% of free space Mac OS starts acting a bit weird. I recommend a bit of a clear out emptying trash.
If like me you never shutdown, content with just closing the lid and packing it away. try shutting down more frequently as the Mac does some necessary housekeeping stuff on shutdown.
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