fan too loud on skype video call

[Meric]

my mba fan goes over 6000 rpm on skype video calls... I am so used to it running at idle fan speed ( 2000 rpm )... hate to hear loud fan noise..

you all have the same problem ?

skype version latest... 5.1.0.914

my iphone or ipad is dead silent on skype video calls..thank god they dont have any fans... they both have less mem and slower cpus....

 

[simsaladimbamba]

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Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example

Further reading:

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Making The Most of Activity Monitor​

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[Onimusha370]

Skypes a CPU hog, and really heats up your machine. Nothing you can do really, expect try cookbook maybe. Im hoping later versions of skype lower the strain on the CPU. I fear I'm slowly cooking my air

 

[FutureBlake]

Skype is one of the very few apps I use Win 7 for. I know that sounds kinda silly, but the folks at Skype clearly wrote it for the Win platform - it's much more efficient on Win 7. Fan speeds rarely exceed 2k rpms and the temps stay much cooler than when I run the OS X version.

 

[Doc750]

ok I thought it was only me. but yes every time I'm running skype the fun runs pretty loud on the MBA. Otherwise I never hear the fan run.

 

[MacHamster68]

you just need to find the skype version that works best on your Mac , not always the latest or oldest , one of the middle might work better , ok its a pain to install/deinstall all the time until the working version is found but so far its the only option
running skype 2.8.0.851 on my iMac core duo , as that was the version that worked best for that iMac, because newer versions are mostly improved to run on the i3/i5/i7 processors and hog every other older processor, but not always , never could really figure out why certain versions of skype only run on certain configurations of Mac's

 

[ghostlyorb]

ever considered that your MBA doesn't have enough power to keep it cool? The fans don't get that loud on my MBP..

 

[TheAverageJoe]

Skypes a CPU hog, and really heats up your machine. Nothing you can do really, expect try cookbook maybe. Im hoping later versions of skype lower the strain on the CPU. I fear I'm slowly cooking my air

Ya all the video processing for skype is incredibly processor intensive. Keep chats short!

 

[Meric]

skype is using % 70-80 of the CPU.. fans are at 6500 rpm..even my webcam is turned off.... ( the other party has the webcam on )

I'll try installing that on my parallels XP.. see how it runs.

thanks.

 

[Meric]

ok I installed the skype in my XP under parallels... at 1st fan speed was like 5200 rpm....then it maxed out to 6496...

how bout limiting with smcfancontrol ?

anybody tried that ?

 

[entatlrg]

Install Coolbook, it will solve your problem instantly.

 

[Meric]

Install Coolbook, it will solve your problem instantly.

How? By slowing down the CPU ? Will I lose performance?

 

[damnyooneek]

it's working normally. happens to all laptops when it uses a lot of processing power. apple designed the fans to run to keep the computer at safe working temperatures.

 

[calvol]

Running Skype with video, my 13-UMBA ran at 80C, installed Coolbook set at 0.92v, and CPU now runs at 73C. On a Win7-64bit/Dell E4310/i5-540m, CPU temp goes from 50C to 55C with Skype. So I just run Skype on the Dell so as not to cook my Air.

 

[Schorsch0815]

I returned my MBA because of the fan noise when using Skype vdo.

Is oise any better when using FaceTime vdo on a MBA?

 

[stylinexpat]

I have always found it weird and odd as to why a high end laptop computer with a high end processor would need to use so much processing power and heat up so much that it would require the fans to run at redline while Skype on the Iphone does not seem to get so hot and require a speedy fan running at redline..

 

[bcaslis]

I have always found it weird and odd as to why a high end laptop computer with a high end processor would need to use so much processing power and heat up so much that it would require the fans to run at redline while Skype on the Iphone does not seem to get so hot and require a speedy fan running at redline..

Maybe because the app is coded terribly? It's a not big mystery, if you make an app run processes highly inefficiently that it consumes way more resources than are necessary. There are lots of examples of this with Adobe apps, and of course there is Windows.

Skype on the iPhone has be tested and approved by Apple. There is no such process on the Mac that prevents them from releasing junk.

 

[critic81]

I was doing Facetime with my Air Ultimate for like an hour on Saturday and the fan kicked in pretty loud and the bottom of the computer was quite hot. Only time I have experienced this. Was at like 85 degrees Celsius. Despite the hotness it all worked just fine.