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Back from vacations and my iMac is now ventilating heavily

lawlietkm

lawlietkm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2020
117
37
I haven't used my iMac in just a few days and today, after coming back, I have noticed that it's ventilating easily and heavily for not much reason.

It has been pretty silent for years, except when I ask it too much, and it's been mostly asleep and not turned off when I don't use it, even when I left for a few days.

Then it stops, also, it doesn't run completely loud for hours, but sometimes here and there, which is weird. Especially when it's on tasks that it used not to do any noise at all before. Maybe it will just pass in a day or two but I'm a bit confused by this "behavior".

For information, it is an iMac from 2020 (27") and I'm currently updating it as I'm writing, from 13.2.1.
 
lawlietkm said:
I haven't used my iMac in just a few days and today, after coming back, I have noticed that it's ventilating easily and heavily for not much reason.

It has been pretty silent for years, except when I ask it too much, and it's been mostly asleep and not turned off when I don't use it, even when I left for a few days.

Then it stops, also, it doesn't run completely loud for hours, but sometimes here and there, which is weird. Especially when it's on tasks that it used not to do any noise at all before. Maybe it will just pass in a day or two but I'm a bit confused by this "behavior".

For information, it is an iMac from 2020 (27") and I'm currently updating it as I'm writing, from 13.2.1.
Click to expand...

The culprit could be one of several factors. The two in particular to come to mind are environmental and software-related.

1) Not sure where in the world you might be, but one factor could be the air quality where you’ve been located. Aside from the usual detritus and fine dust which can accumulate from circulating indoor air (dander, airborne lint, etc.), the presence of other particulates, including smoke, could be accumulating on both the fan blades and also on exhaust vents, limiting the efficacy of passing cooler air through as effectively as when the system was new.

At the very minimum, inspecting the rear vents with a torch/flashlight for signs of dust clogging might be worth the five minutes of time. Dust located there, if so, can be somewhat reachable using a bristled brush of some kind — ideally while the system is running and the fans are spinning anyway (which should send the direction of dust outward.

2) What seems probably more likely, though, is there is a background process, possibly even a system process with the version of Ventura you’re using, which is consuming a lot of processing resources.

The easiest (and free) way to see what this could be is to open the Activity Monitor utility (in /Applications/Utilities) and to let it run in the background, even minimized into the Dock, as you go about your usual use of the system. If you walk away and return a few minutes later. only to find the fans spinning loudly/quickly (despite nothing you’ve been working on), pop open the minimized Activity Monitor to check and review which background process(es) might be using a bunch of resources.

For the long term, the shareware utility, iStat Menus, which launches at start-up and runs in your menubar, is a quick and handy utility which can help you notice quickly whenever your processors are running heavily for no perceptible reason.
 
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B S Magnet said:
The culprit could be one of several factors. The two in particular to come to mind are environmental and software-related.

1) Not sure where in the world you might be, but one factor could be the air quality where you’ve been located. Aside from the usual detritus and fine dust which can accumulate from circulating indoor air (dander, airborne lint, etc.), the presence of other particulates, including smoke, could be accumulating on both the fan blades and also on exhaust vents, limiting the efficacy of passing cooler air through as effectively as when the system was new.

At the very minimum, inspecting the rear vents with a torch/flashlight for signs of dust clogging might be worth the five minutes of time. Dust located there, if so, can be somewhat reachable using a bristled brush of some kind — ideally while the system is running and the fans are spinning anyway (which should send the direction of dust outward.

2) What seems probably more likely, though, is there is a background process, possibly even a system process with the version of Ventura you’re using, which is consuming a lot of processing resources.

The easiest (and free) way to see what this could be is to open the Activity Monitor utility (in /Applications/Utilities) and to let it run in the background, even minimized into the Dock, as you go about your usual use of the system. If you walk away and return a few minutes later. only to find the fans spinning loudly/quickly (despite nothing you’ve been working on), pop open the minimized Activity Monitor to check and review which background process(es) might be using a bunch of resources.

For the long term, the shareware utility, iStat Menus, which launches at start-up and runs in your menubar, is a quick and handy utility which can help you notice quickly whenever your processors are running heavily for no perceptible reason.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for all the good advices, I haven't experienced more loud ventilation yesterday but I will definitely inspect all of this today and monitor it, if that happens again.

Regarding my environment, I'm living in Paris and I have my room window opened all day long haha
 
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lawlietkm said:
Thanks a lot for all the good advices, I haven't experienced more loud ventilation yesterday but I will definitely inspect all of this today and monitor it, if that happens again.

Regarding my environment, I'm living in Paris and I have my room window opened all day long haha
Click to expand...

Paris, Texas - Do you know Lake Crook ... wonderful place for fishing and boating ;-)
 
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