Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Resolved Kind of a dumb question, but I'm new to this fan thing.....

a-m-k

a-m-k

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 3, 2009
1,579
148
I've got that annoying fan noise going right now. I am going to buy some sort of fan cleaner soon (NOT canned air), but in the meantime, there is a whole lot of activity in the activity monitor. I read something a day or so ago that removing the items in that list would maybe ease the problem, should I go ahead and do that in hoping the problem is taken care of. I am not sure if i read that right or not. That's why I ask. Thank you.
 
Last edited:
a-m-k said:
I've got that annoying fan noise going right now. I am going to buy some sort of fan cleaner soon (NOT canned air), but in the meantime, there is a whole lot of activity in the activity monitor. I read something a day or so ago that removing the items in that list would maybe ease the problem, should I go ahead and do that in hoping the problem is taken care of. I am not sure if i read that right or not. That's why I ask. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Post a picture of your activity monitory. It seems this "fan noise" is the fans kicking up to cool your machine.
 
a-m-k said:
I've got that annoying fan noise going right now. I am going to buy some sort of fan cleaner soon (NOT canned air), but in the meantime, there is a whole lot of activity in the activity monitor. I read something a day or so ago that removing the items in that list would maybe ease the problem, should I go ahead and do that in hoping the problem is taken care of. I am not sure if i read that right or not. That's why I ask. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Define annoying fan noise?

What speed are your fans running at? What temperature is your computer at when you hear the noise? What are you doing on the computer when you are hearing the noise? It may be that it is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.
 
snaky69 said:
Define annoying fan noise?

What speed are your fans running at? What temperature is your computer at when you hear the noise? What are you doing on the computer when you are hearing the noise? It may be that it is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...

My fan(s) are currently running at 3565 RPM.
 

Attachments

  • Picture 1.jpg
    Picture 1.jpg
    193.7 KB · Views: 189
Last edited:
a-m-k said:
The noise sounds like "bwuzzzzzzzzzz" it's dull (not loud) but it's annoying.

/Users/angelakrycka/Desktop/Picture 1.png. I hope this picture thing works out, I'm new sending screen shots, I don't do it that often. Thank you all, again. :)
Click to expand...

You have to upload a screenshot, we can't access your Desktop from here.


______________________________________________________
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
Acitivty_Monitor.png

Further reading:
______________________________________________________​
 
simsaladimbamba said:
You have to upload a screenshot, we can't access your Desktop from here.


______________________________________________________
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
Image
Further reading:
______________________________________________________​
Click to expand...
Just did it.. LOL. I was having trouble uploading a screenshot because it's been awhile since I've done it. Sorry for the inconvienece.
 
a-m-k said:
Just did it.. LOL. I was having trouble uploading a screenshot because it's been awhile since I've done it. Sorry for the inconvienece.
Click to expand...

No trouble. WHat is the fan speed at? You can use iStat Pro to measure it.
You can also use QuickTime X to record audio and upload as compressed archive to this site for us to hear the fan.
Btw, your screenshot does not show us much, maybe sort by CPU and select All Processes as in the screenshot I provided?
 
simsaladimbamba said:
No trouble. WHat is the fan speed at? You can use iStat Pro to measure it.
You can also use QuickTime X to record audio and upload as compressed archive to this site for us to hear the fan.
Btw, your screenshot does not show us much, maybe sort by CPU and select All Processes as in the screenshot I provided?
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will do that and post the results when I can. :)
 
snaky69 said:
Looking at your % CPU usage, sounds like a normal occurance to me.
Click to expand...
OK, thank you.... Maybe it's more noticiable to me now because of the quieter times. (No one (human or dogs (2 dogs, btw)arround to make noise.) I was jsut thinking that maybe the fan(s) were either getting clogged up something. (Like when you grease something that isn't supposed to be squeaky.) I'll just pay attention to this and see what happens.

Thank you. :)
 
Safari running showing youtube videos and stuff. It might get this hot & loud.
If it is 15" force the Intel HD GPU. Generally it stays at the lowest fan speed for quite a while and you need serious load to get them to do something. With the dedicated GPU very little load is enough to make the fans run faster.

You should post a ac monitor with "all processes" and ordered by "% CPU" as described. In yours there might still be something in the background that is really the heat source, or it was just a snapshot which doesn't really show the load.
33% in Safari isn't all that much, scrolling creates as much load.
 
dusk007 said:
Safari running showing youtube videos and stuff. It might get this hot & loud.
If it is 15" force the Intel HD GPU. Generally it stays at the lowest fan speed for quite a while and you need serious load to get them to do something. With the dedicated GPU very little load is enough to make the fans run faster.

You should post a ac monitor with "all processes" and ordered by "% CPU" as described. In yours there might still be something in the background that is really the heat source, or it was just a snapshot which doesn't really show the load.
33% in Safari isn't all that much, scrolling creates as much load.
Click to expand...

Ahh... I AM using Safari right now, I have been, its my primary browser. Thank you for that advice.
 
dusk007 said:
33% in Safari isn't all that much, scrolling creates as much load.
Click to expand...
Maybe I should be more precise.
When you scroll the load jumps up but if you let Safari sit idle and nothing is downloading or no videos playing the load should be much lower in the 2-5% range and without addons about 0.
 
I think I've fixed the problem, but I waited a few days before I posted here again.

I went to system preferences>fan control and turned down the base speed all the way to the left. It quieted right down. Can't here anything, at the moment. My MBP is a nice 49 degrees celcius after trying to figure out something else out all afternoon. (not a problem with the mechanics of my MBP, a file. I posted about it on a different thread.)

Thank you.
 
a-m-k said:
I went to system preferences>fan control and turned down the base speed all the way to the left. It quieted right down. Can't here anything, at the moment. My MBP is a nice 49 degrees celcius after trying to figure out something else out all afternoon. (not a problem with the mechanics of my MBP, a file. I posted about it on a different thread.)

Thank you.
Click to expand...

you didn't tell us that you had a fan control program on your MBP. that would have made things much easier haha
 
Fans shouldn't really have to go over 2.5k RPM, even with YouTube usage.
If you are doing more I would understand, but only Flash? I've never experienced that.
 
GuitarG20 said:
you didn't tell us that you had a fan control program on your MBP. that would have made things much easier haha
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know.... SMC really didn't help, and I stumbled on 'fan control' in system preferences by complete accident. I don't usually go to system preferences that often and never paid attention to the different programs.

Thanks again, everybody. Consider this thread closed. (Can this thread please be closed out whoever closes the old threads? Thank you.)
 
Your ventilation is clogged. Now I don't own a MBP (yet), so I don't know the mechanics of the fan on a MBP, but as a laptop gamer, ventilation is of utmost importance to me. I need to make sure to check that it doesn't get clogged with dirt at least once a month in order to play games at peak performance. If I start to notice my computer being sluggish, audibly hear the fan being louder, or physically feel the fan working harder, I know it's time to clear the vents. I suggest you make sure it didn't get clogged.
 
Last edited:
a-m-k said:
Yeah, I know.... SMC really didn't help, and I stumbled on 'fan control' in system preferences by complete accident. I don't usually go to system preferences that often and never paid attention to the different programs.

Thanks again, everybody. Consider this thread closed. (Can this thread please be closed out whoever closes the old threads? Thank you.)
Click to expand...

Change your original post (edit>go advanced on the post) and change the prefix to 'resolved'. Thanks for doing that! not enough people do.

Suno said:
Your ventilation is clogged. Now I don't own a MBP (yet), so I don't know the mechanics of the fan on a MBP, but as a laptop gamer, ventilation is of utmost importance to me. I need to make sure to check that it doesn't get clogged with dirt at least once a month in order to play games at peak performance. If I start to notice my computer being sluggish, audibly hear the fan being louder, or physically feel the fan working harder, I know it's time to clear the vents. I suggest you make sure it didn't get clogged.
Click to expand...

As the OP has said, I think we figured out what was wrong-his fans were set to run higher than they needed to. Also, as you'll find out, MBP fans tend to not fill up with that much dust, actually.
 
GuitarG20 said:
Change your original post (edit>go advanced on the post) and change the prefix to 'resolved'. Thanks for doing that! not enough people do.



As the OP has said, I think we figured out what was wrong-his fans were set to run higher than they needed to. Also, as you'll find out, MBP fans tend to not fill up with that much dust, actually.
Click to expand...

LOL, I'm a woman. Though, you couldn't tell by my user name. No problem. I just laughed. :)
 
Well, since someone mentioned the 'annoying' fan noise might be normal for my MBP, It's a whole heck of a lot quieter right now. I just sat down maybe a half hour ago, and at the moment the temperature fluctuates between 49 degrees celsius to 51 degrees celsius.
 
a-m-k said:
My fan(s) are currently running at 3565 RPM.
Click to expand...

Seems like Safari is the one that's making your fans go higher? But 3565 RPM really isn't a lot. I've had mine go to about 6000 RPM nonstop. It could also be a hardware related problem. You should do a Apple Hardware Test: Put in your Apple Restore Disk, Press the power button on your computer, then hold down the "D" key when you hear the startup tone.
 
AppleFanatic10 said:
Seems like Safari is the one that's making your fans go higher? But 3565 RPM really isn't a lot. I've had mine go to about 6000 RPM nonstop. It could also be a hardware related problem. You should do a Apple Hardware Test: Put in your Apple Restore Disk, Press the power button on your computer, then hold down the "D" key when you hear the startup tone.
Click to expand...

I'll save this for next time... right now, it's been so quiet and it's been a few days of the silence.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back