MacBook Air 11.6" Noise...

[etjazz]

So I finally caved and bought the 11.6"/2/128 MBA at the local apple store yesterday. It’s a beautiful little thing but the (faint) noise the fan makes is really annoying. It not loud by any measure, but it's there and its defiantly noticeable if you're in a quiet room and have good hearing.

It seems its lowest setting is 2000rpms. Has anyone been able to slow it down further? The highest CPU temp I've seen is 65C and most of the time it hoovers arnd 45C, so there should defiantly be room for the fan to rest a bit.

 

[OSMac]

What are you using to monitor fan speed and temps?

 

[etjazz]

smcFanControl

 

[kryca]

... and while you are it, don't forget CoolBook

 

[maflynn]

I have an over clocked desktop core i7 running at 35c, so I'm coming from that perspective.

Isn't 45c warm enough that you don't want to reduce fan speed (and reduce noise level).

 

[Scott6666]

All apple notebooks have fans that run at 2000rpm as their base setting. They are typically inaudible at that speed. At 3000rpm they become audible and at 4-6000 rpm they sound like airplanes.

My i7MBP has 2 fans running 2k each and i can't hear them and I'm a nut against fan noise.

The early Airs ran 6200k a lot, almost constantly.

The new airs spin up on videos (sometimes) and games for sure.

If you can hear a 2k rpm fan no Apple (or any other notebook) will be silent fo you. Get an iPad which has no fan at all and a keyboard.

 

[etjazz]

Agree that the apple laptop fans usually are inaudible at 2000rpm, but guess the very slim design of the MBAir fan makes this an exception... the computer is sitting next to me on the table right now, and its defiantly audible...

The good news it that I haven't heard it spin up higher even when browsing youtube, so perhaps I can learn to live with it not being completely silent.

 

[japawlik]

smcFanControl enables you to control minimum fan speed. But along with smcFanControl you have smc command line programm which enables you to control MAXimum speed as well.

Try this:

Go to Automator choose: custom/shell procedure/ delete "cat"/ insert text below / save as app

6200 max:
/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k F0Mx -w 60e0

4000 max:
/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k F0Mx -w 3e80

F0Mn - Fan minimum speed
F0Mx - Fan maximum speed


Or one of these speeds

6200 - 60e0
5600 - 5780
5000 - 4e20
4800 - 4b00
4000 - 3e80
3600 - 3840
3000 - 2ee0
2500 - 2710
2000 - 1f40
1500 - 1770
1000 - fa0
500 - 7d0
0 - 0

 

[Fanboyofnothing]

First, the word you want to be using is "definitely" . Second, I just got a 13 inch Air and love that its literally silent, but I did have the fan kick on last night while watching Hulu and it is in fact not a pleasant sound. At the lowest speed it's truly irritating, but as it kicks up louder it's more pleasing only because the sound is less annoying. 95 percent of the time it seems the fans are never on loud enough for me to hear though. Might want to return yours.

 

[Scott6666]

Agree that the apple laptop fans usually are inaudible at 2000rpm, but guess the very slim design of the MBAir fan makes this an exception... the computer is sitting next to me on the table right now, and its defiantly audible...

The good news it that I haven't heard it spin up higher even when browsing youtube, so perhaps I can learn to live with it not being completely silent.

That's very interesting. I have had several Apple notebooks and no fan at 2k had ever been audible.

Like to know from others if they hear the same thing you do and that the enclosure makes a difference.

Perhaps you just have a fan with bad bearings and need to do a swap out.

 

[AppleGoddess]

Mine is silent also not a bit of fan noise I have super sensitive hearing and mine has 0 noise.