Fans Running High on MacBook Pro MacOS Sierra 10.12

[marco114]

My MacBook Pro (mid 2015) Fans almost NEVER RUN in the past. I just updated to Sierra and they won't even turn off unless I shutdown the computer. Shortly after restart, they slowly spin back up and stay there. Every program is quit, CPU is almost nothing.... What is going on? Anyone else having this problem? My MacBook Pro is sitting on my normal flat desk with nothing around it.

This SUCKS!

 

[Mlrollin91]

Wrong forum, but it's probably indexing.

 

[Mr. 123]

I have this problem as well as well as the whole system being terribly slow

How does one know if it's indexing or setting upp stuff?

 

[Mlrollin91]

I have this problem as well as well as the whole system being terribly slow

How does one know if it's indexing or setting upp stuff?

Can take quite a few hours. There is a way to intentionally kill the indexing.

Settings -> Spotlight -> Privacy -> Add your hard drive. Then remove you remove your hard drive. It will index a lot faster and use less resources. Been doing this for years, not entirely sure why or how it works.

 

[Mr. 123]

Can take quite a few hours. There is a way to intentionally kill the indexing.

Settings -> Spotlight -> Privacy -> Add your hard drive. Then remove you remove your hard drive. It will index a lot faster and use less resources. Been doing this for years, not entirely sure why or how it works.

I'll try this! Can indexing make the whole system slow? Everything from making selections, to clicking on menu options in the menu bar to scrolling to opening apps is slow for me after updating to Sierra

 

[Mlrollin91]

I'll try this! Can indexing make the whole system slow?

Yes, its using a good portion of your processor and RAM. I let my computer index overnight last night, do a restart and they seem to be perfectly normal again. No high CPU or fan usage

 

[Mr. 123]

Yes, its using a good portion of your processor and RAM. I let my computer index overnight last night, do a restart and they seem to be perfectly normal again. No high CPU or fan usage

That's a relief! I was already preparing to downgrade to El Capitan... I noticed that about 15 GBs of iCloud drive files are downloading as well.

I'll let it index overnight and then decide wether to downgrade or to stay on Sierra!

 

[Brammy]

That's a relief! I was already preparing to downgrade to El Capitan... I noticed that about 15 GBs of iCloud drive files are downloading as well.

I'll let it index overnight and then decide wether to downgrade or to stay on Sierra!

Yeah.

This will account for your slowness. Don't panic until the 15g download is done.

 

[Mr. 123]

Yeah.

This will account for your slowness. Don't panic until the 15g download is done.

Okay!

Another reason might be the fact that Photos is scanning through my 48GB photo library (which is stored on my Mac).

Btw, I read that you need to use terminal to revert, is there a way to avoid that?

 

[Brammy]

I've never used terminal to revert.

That said, the only way to revert is to completely reformat the machine. Any method that attempts to back you out of an OS install will likely end in tears.

 

[Mr. 123]

I've never used terminal to revert.

That said, the only way to revert is to completely reformat the machine. Any method that attempts to back you out of an OS install will likely end in tears.

Hum okay. I'll do some more reading on reverting.

I just checked the activity app and under Ram usage there is something called kernel_task which is taking 1,14GBs of Ram.

 

[stooovie]

Indexing AND photo recognition. That's a big one and takes longer. Just look at your Activity Monitor and you'll see something like "photorecognitiond" taking some CPU usage.

 

[Brammy]

For information about kernal_task, read this thread (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...d-why-is-it-taking-up-so-much-memory.1395156/). Short version: don't worry about it. It's the OS doing OS stuff.


Also, in terms of normal performance I just tested a few things on my 2011 15". I have the 2ghz version with the 256MB card, 8g of ram, and an SSD. I am running a 3d Game in the background and Excel loaded in 3.5 bounces.

Let all your stuff run overnight. DO a reboot Friday morning (give it tomorrow instead) and you'll problems will most likely go away.

 

[stooovie]

⬆️⬆️

 

[Tarek]

You can also give smcFanControl a shot in order to monitor and control your Mac's fans. Make sure you read some guides and tutorials on how to use it to avoid messing anything up, though.

 

[JonD25]

My MacBook Pro (mid 2015) Fans almost NEVER RUN in the past. I just updated to Sierra and they won't even turn off unless I shutdown the computer. Shortly after restart, they slowly spin back up and stay there. Every program is quit, CPU is almost nothing.... What is going on? Anyone else having this problem? My MacBook Pro is sitting on my normal flat desk with nothing around it.

This SUCKS!

I'm having the same issue, but this is on my 2010 MBP. For me, it's a process called "xpcproxy" that is taking up over 100% CPU. I don't know whether to keep letting it do its thing or if I should just restore from Time Machine back to El Capitan. There's not much in Sierra that I need on this particular machine especially since it's too old to take advantage of a lot of the features.

 

[Mr. 123]

I'm having the same issue, but this is on my 2010 MBP. For me, it's a process called "xpcproxy" that is taking up over 100% CPU. I don't know whether to keep letting it do its thing or if I should just restore from Time Machine back to El Capitan. There's not much in Sierra that I need on this particular machine especially since it's too old to take advantage of a lot of the features.

My Macbook Pro 2013 is really slow after the upgrade so I'm going to downgrade using Time Machine. The computer finished indexing and going through my photo library and it's marginally better and the fans aren't as bad. However it's still too slow so Siri and the other new features don't justify the speed loss.

 

[smileman]

Having the same issue with fans on a late-2013 15" MBPr. Have restarted once already after the battery drained in two hours. Fans still going and battery is draining a second time in approx two hours.

I have 90GB of free space on a 256GB SSD, and I have turned off optimized storage.

How long should I wait before I book a Genius Bar appointment?

UPDATE: Fans still spinning and it's been several days now.

I've thought about downloading the new public beta and seeing if that helps, but would prefer not to go that route.

 

[Tarek]

Having the same issue with fans on a late-2013 15" MBPr. Have restarted once already after the battery drained in two hours. Fans still going and battery is draining a second time in approx two hours.

I have 90GB of free space on a 256GB SSD, and I have turned off optimized storage.

How long should I wait before I book a Genius Bar appointment?

UPDATE: Fans still spinning and it's been several days now.

I've thought about downloading the new public beta and seeing if that helps, but would prefer not to go that route.

I believe you should make a Genius Bar appointment. If you're not under warranty and you don't have Apple Care, at least have them diagnose the problem for you.

 

[smileman]

I believe you should make a Genius Bar appointment. If you're not under warranty and you don't have Apple Care, at least have them diagnose the problem for you.

Update: Thought I had solved it, but not sure now. According to Sophos and Sophos users, Sophos Home is apparently having all sorts of issues with Sierra.

I uninstalled Sophos and the fans stopped spinning, but now they're running again. I wondering if it might actually be my VPN (ExpressVPN) that is causing the issue?

 

[m4v3r1ck]

You can also give smcFanControl a shot in order to monitor and control your Mac's fans. Make sure you read some guides and tutorials on how to use it to avoid messing anything up, though.

THIS might save your bacon! As stated please DO read the guide. Good luck.

Cheers

 

[Tarek]

Update: Thought I had solved it, but not sure now. According to Sophos and Sophos users, Sophos Home is apparently having all sorts of issues with Sierra.

I uninstalled Sophos and the fans stopped spinning, but now they're running again. I wondering if it might actually be my VPN (ExpressVPN) that is causing the issue?

I am honestly not sure. I guess you can remove ExpressVPN and see if that makes a difference, just for trial purposes. If nothing works, just make the appointment and save yourself the trouble.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

I'm having the same issue, but this is on my 2010 MBP. For me, it's a process called "xpcproxy" that is taking up over 100% CPU. I don't know whether to keep letting it do its thing or if I should just restore from Time Machine back to El Capitan. There's not much in Sierra that I need on this particular machine especially since it's too old to take advantage of a lot of the features.

Warning, fellow MacBook Pro 2010 users:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...h-affect-all-macbook-pro-2010-models.2000559/

 

[zmonteca]

My MacBook Pro (mid 2015) Fans almost NEVER RUN in the past. I just updated to Sierra and they won't even turn off unless I shutdown the computer. Shortly after restart, they slowly spin back up and stay there. Every program is quit, CPU is almost nothing.... What is going on? Anyone else having this problem? My MacBook Pro is sitting on my normal flat desk with nothing around it.

This SUCKS!

I've read it can be your SMC. Try and reset your SMC: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

 

[manotaur]

Can take quite a few hours. There is a way to intentionally kill the indexing.

Settings -> Spotlight -> Privacy -> Add your hard drive. Then remove you remove your hard drive. It will index a lot faster and use less resources. Been doing this for years, not entirely sure why or how it works.

So, I'm having the fan issue since upgrading to Sierra, and it didn't take long to notice that my processors were pegged. I checked Activity Monitor and it was full of instances of mds and mdworker that were using up most of my processor cycles, so in my case it was down to indexing.

I tried this method of using System Preferences to reset the cache, but the result I got was that I couldn't do that because of an "unknown error." I ended up disabling spotlight for my main drive which fixed the fan and speed problem but now I have no spotlight results. If someone has any ideas on a fix I'd love to hear them. I'm intending to update this laptop (2013 rMBP) as soon as the new laptops are out, so I'm sort of ok without Spotlight for a month or two, and I don't really want to go to the trouble of restarting from a backup given I'm about to get a clean slate.