MacBook Fan is Driving me CRAZY please help

[laurapalmer]

Just got a refurbished 15" MacBook Pro, Mid 2015 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16GB RAM 1TB storage

It seems to be working fine in any other aspect, but it heats up and the fan goes on frequently and loudly. Sometimes it will go on when all I'm running is Safari, I've checked multiple times for apps running in the background (Activity Monitor itself is taking up more CPU power than anything else) It tends to stay quiet around 45 C when I'm just running safari or other light apps, yet will randomly start heating up to about 68 C and fan will become very loud. I don't know what's causing it to do this. I would maybe be less surprised if I were gaming or running recording software, other heavy apps, but again to be clear, this keeps happening when literally all I'm running is safari, or one time nothing at all. Simply was just idling, all apps were closed - and there it goes again.

Honestly I am not too worried about the heat itself I know its normal for Macs to run hot - but the fan is driving me crazy, its extremely distracting and keeps me from concentrating on whatever it is I'm trying to do. It also seems to be very random - some days it will do that hardly at all, or for maybe 30 mins or so after I've been using it for several hours, and then calm down. Other days (like today) It has been doing this off and on the entire day, for sometimes over an hour at a time. There seems to be no apparent pattern.

I have tried several things - I reset the SMC fan setting via instructions from apple. Ive installed Clean my Mac to keep an eye on the CPU load and temp, as well as SMC Fan Control. *Sometimes* If I set it on the Higher RPM it seems to speed up the process and help it cool down faster..once its cooled down I will set it back to default. This will occasionally seem to calm it down for several more hours..but then other times it only seems only delay it for 10 mins or so. I've also tried just shutting off the computer, letting it rest for over 20 mins. This also seems to temporarily cool it down but again it depends, sometimes will start up doing this almost immediately.

I have it elevated on a hard cover book as its usually on my bed. Im constantly checking to make sure the vents aren't blocked. I ran the Apple diagnostics, found no issues. I feel like I've tested/tried other things but going a bit blank at the moment.

I would appreciate any advice, and to understand what is causing this, or if its simply because its an older Mac. Is there anything I can do to prevent this, is there anything that could be fixed, replaced that would help? Will I just have to live with it? I have looked into cooling pads, would like to know if these really help, and was concerned they might make more noise than the fan!
I understand its a used comp so perhaps I can't expect everything to be perfect. Again, there doesn't seem to be any other issues, everything is running smoothly. But this is driving me up the wall now.
thanks for reading

PS: Forgot to say Hi, I'm new here! hope everyone is well

 

[TimothyR734]

I use an free app called Mac Fan Control
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[laurapalmer]

hi, ok I've downloaded it and am trying it now..do you have any advice for how to use it safely? Ive seemed to quieted the fans, but am concerned about keeping the fans at a "safe" level? thanks!

 

[TimothyR734]

I have mine set on ambient

 

[pshufd]

I have a Zoom presentation tomorrow and grabbed a dual AC fan setup with speed control. These can put out about 150 CFM so comparable to two or three case fans. The laptop sits on thread spools and the fans sit under the laptop. I'll see how well it works tomorrow. We have a hot weather stretch and Zoom can tax systems.

One thing to check - avoid running backup during the day.

 

[laurapalmer]

I have mine set on ambient

hmm..I don't see an ambient preset available..just automatic, full blast or custom. Do you have the pro version?

 

[TimothyR734]

I don't have my Macbook turned on but here it is on my iM

ac

 

[DeltaMac]

I think it is more important to keep the temps under control - more than keeping fans under control.
Watch the various sensors to see which temps are kicking up when you hear the fans increase.
You also should keep your Activity Monitor open, just to help track which processes show a lot of CPU use, especially when you hear the fans.

You said you "just got a refurb MacBook Pro"
If you have only had it a couple of days (?), then it's likely that the system has really not settled in yet.
This can take several hours, even a few days, before your system is running at whatever normal should be for your use.

... it's usually on my bed

No -- not with an i7 CPU. Find somewhere else to use your MBPro. You could try a bed table, with a hard surface. I have seen some that look kind of like a big beanbag, with a flat, hard table top. That's great, but don't use your laptop on a soft surface, ever. The case on your MBPro is aluminum, to help radiate heat, keeping the internals cool. That process cannot work efficiently on a soft surface.

 

[throAU]

In my experience with the 15" machines, macOS is pretty stupid with regards to when it enables the discrete GPU which in turn roughly doubles the heat output (turns on discrete graphics when really not required). More heat = more fan noise... worse battery life, etc.

I used to run a utility to disable the discrete GPU unless *I* decided I wanted the discrete GPU performance, which was almost never. Because unless you're doing 3d or video work the integrated GPU is normally strong enough.

I think the tool was gfxcardstatus - it may still exist and might help.

 

[TimothyR734]

Here is a copy of it

 

[laurapalmer]

Here is a copy of it

hmm it is saying my system does not support it as I don't have dual gpus
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In my experience with the 15" machines, macOS is pretty stupid with regards to when it enables the discrete GPU which in turn roughly doubles the heat output (turns on discrete graphics when really not required). More heat = more fan noise... worse battery life, etc.

I used to run a utility to disable the discrete GPU unless *I* decided I wanted the discrete GPU performance, which was almost never. Because unless you're doing 3d or video work the integrated GPU is normally strong enough.

I think the tool was gfxcardstatus - it may still exist and might help.

interesting ok thanks, unfortunately it is saying my system doesn't support it - says "Please ensure that you are using a a MacBook Pro with dual gpus" ?
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I think it is more important to keep the temps under control - more than keeping fans under control.
Watch the various sensors to see which temps are kicking up when you hear the fans increase.
You also should keep your Activity Monitor open, just to help track which processes show a lot of CPU use, especially when you hear the fans.

You said you "just got a refurb MacBook Pro"
If you have only had it a couple of days (?), then it's likely that the system has really not settled in yet.
This can take several hours, even a few days, before your system is running at whatever normal should be for your use.

No -- not with an i7 CPU. Find somewhere else to use your MBPro. You could try a bed table, with a hard surface. I have seen some that look kind of like a big beanbag, with a flat, hard table top. That's great, but don't use your laptop on a soft surface, ever. The case on your MBPro is aluminum, to help radiate heat, keeping the internals cool. That process cannot work efficiently on a soft surface.

Hi,
I have checked the activity monitor when the fans are going several times, most of the time I was only running safari as I said before, but I will continue to keep it open now that I have the Mac Fan Control and can keep an eye on the sensors. I don't know much about the different sensors so that's all new to me.
Honestly I am confused about what is causing it to heat up in the first place when hardly anything is running, it almost feels like a chicken or the egg situation..because it does heat up first before the fans get going - but then it seems like the fans themselves are making the laptop work extra hard - in turn making it heat up more??

I got it a couple weeks ago though, so I think its had time to settle in.

I haven't had it directly on the bed at all, its on a hardcover book. But you are probably right it might need more airflow and circulation around it than it has at the moment.

 

[Consultant]

It is 2020, a 2015 computer is 5 years old. Websites now are much more demanding than websites of 5 years ago.

With that said, try running ad blocker, and disabling the ad blocker one web site at a time. Or open only a few pages at a time.

Basically many sites will run multiple scripts for ad serving, user tracking, social login (aka social tracking), analysts, etc and they take up a lot of resources.

 

[katbel]

Just got a refurbished 15" MacBook Pro, Mid 2015 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16GB RAM 1TB storage


I have it elevated on a hard cover book as its usually on my bed.

PS: Forgot to say Hi, I'm new here! hope everyone is well

Hi LauraPalmer
You already got few good tips
I would add something that helps to dissipate the heat better , like a stand where air can circulate freely and cool down faster than a solid surface. The book will get worm and keep the heat beside being inflammable in the worst case scenario.
There are stands like this or similar that do a good job.

 

[pshufd]

It is 2020, a 2015 computer is 5 years old. Websites now are much more demanding than websites of 5 years ago.

With that said, try running ad blocker, and disabling the ad blocker one web site at a time. Or open only a few pages at a time.

Basically many sites will run multiple scripts for ad serving, user tracking, social login (aka social tracking), analysts, etc and they take up a lot of resources.

Geekbench 5 for the 2015 MBP 2.5 are 893/3,319. They are 1,112/7,903 for the 16. These numbers are fine for modern web browsing. I'd guess that the vast majority of people have far less horsepower than these two systems.

My daily driver is a 2008 Dell Studio XPS and it has scores of 491/1,926 and it handles web browsing and trading just fine. The 48 GB of RAM probably help. You don't need a lot of CPU resources for casual use.

 

[waw74]

Evan an older Mac shouldn't work too hard on safari.
on some of my older Macs, they would get full of lint, and run like you describe
not sure why the newer ones haven't' been a problem, not sure if it's my use or re-design of fans

but.
the fans blow out into a small metal honeycomb.
the exit of that vent then blows air out the middle of the back of the laptop.
on my laptops, the "entrance" of that honeycomb would fill will lint, once maybe twice a year, I'd have to open my laptop and just pull what looked like a very thin piece of felt off that heat sink


It's possible they didn't clean it
if you got it refurbished from apple, I'd make a genius appointment, and see if they can fix it.
they should be able to do it in store, and the actual work should take under 30 minutes.

doing this yourself has the possibility of voiding your warranty, but is fairly simple if you're tech inclined, and have the proper screwdrivers.
was looking for pics to help explain, and found a thread from a few years back.

Slow MacBook Pro ? Properly clean the vents !

Hi, So yes, as in the topic. If your MacBook is running slow from time to time, clean them. In OS X under heavy load my mouse cursor tend to slow down and kernel process went over 100%. In Bootcamp Windows 10 under heavy load, MacBook was switching off (guess to prevent damage). It's a...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[leminhhien]

Though It's a refurbished Mac but I am thinking about open it up and clean some stuffs inside whether it can help?!
By the way, I'm also having a Mac Air early 2015, running Catalina. When upgrading it from Sierra to Catalina on my Mac Air, I also got the same prob with you that the system easily reached to 6x*C because of an unusual process taking most of 90% CPU all the time.

 

[mmomega]

Click the battery icon in the menu bar and that can tell you what application is using the most power or causing the fans to ramp up.
‘it may just say, safari, or chrome.
‘but it then let’s you narrow down to, is it a certain tab in safari? is it a specific website? Are there videos or lots of ads loading on that page?
there could be many little things causing your cpu to use so much cpu cycles to cause the fans to run at higher speeds but a simple click on the battery icon can give you an idea.

do a restart and allow no apps to open whatsoever.... are tha fans spinning up? Yes or no. If they are spinning up very high with no programs whatsoever running then I would get it checked out.

sometimes an SMC reset plus a PRAM reset, one first, then the other, can fix many fan related issues.

 

[dave255]

Also give turbo boost switcher a try. I use it on my mbp 2017 i5 and it keeps it nice and quiet when turbo boost is off

Turbo Boost Switcher for OSX / macOS

Turbo Boost Switcher for macOS. Save battery of your Mac, cool your CPU and reduce fans noise

www.rugarciap.com

 

[laurapalmer]

Update: I realized there that the "configd" daemon was running in the background and taking up about 90% of my cpu. (I'm not sure why I didn't notice it before or if I did I didn't know it was something I could control?) I managed to force re-launch via terminal, and it instantly started to cool down, then the fans along with it. CPU is about 50C right now.
The Mac Fan Control app has also been very helpful to quiet them down to a bearable hum if needed - although I am still learning how to use it and want to be sure I'm using it properly and not harming my computer. Any tips would be welcome!
Going to look into a laptop stand to make sure I'm getting enough air circulation under the laptop cause I think that might be partly to blame, But for now it seems like I have improved things - possibly fixed the problem! thanks so much for everyones help
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Hi LauraPalmer
You already got few good tips
I would add something that helps to dissipate the heat better , like a stand where air can circulate freely and cool down faster than a solid surface. The book will get worm and keep the heat beside being inflammable in the worst case scenario.
There are stands like this or similar that do a good job.

I'm going to look into this , thanks!

 

[Tankmaze]

I have the same machine as yours, which is 2015 MBP.

What others have not mention is probably your thermal paste dried up, I had re-applied my thermal paste using thermal grizzly. It's very easy to do on the 2015 machine.

But I don't know if your refurbished unit already re-applied the thermal paste or not.

My Mbp connect to external monitor & keyboard on clamshell mode running safari, torrent, mail, chrome, etc. it's 58 celcius CPU & 54 celcius GPU and the fans always stay at 2000 rpm or around it.

 

[laurapalmer]

I have the same machine as yours, which is 2015 MBP.

What others have not mention is probably your thermal paste dried up, I had re-applied my thermal paste using thermal grizzly. It's very easy to do on the 2015 machine.

But I don't know if your refurbished unit already re-applied the thermal paste or not.

My Mbp connect to external monitor & keyboard on clamshell mode running safari, torrent, mail, chrome, etc. it's 58 celcius CPU & 54 celcius GPU and the fans always stay at 2000 rpm or around it.

Im not sure, I can ask the shop that I bought it from if they re applied this or not. Thanks!

 

[laurapalmer]

Spoke too soon - the configd daemon is back!
I used these instructions https://osxdaily.com/2013/09/30/configd-mac-os-x-fix/ to kill it and that worked, but only for about a day, it just came back and fans started whirring.

 

[throAU]

If you've only had the machine a few days my advice is to turn it on, log in, leave it on AC power and turn off sleep and just let it do its thing for a while.

Messing with killing processes, etc. might "solve" the cpu usage issue for a while but all you're doing most likely is stopping it from doing things the machine needs to do initially to import/process/index your data, etc.

 

[dogbait]

I'm wondering if there's a hardware fault with this series of machines - mine is becoming ever noisier and with the slightest load. It had its battery replaced by Apple just last year and its thermal paste replaced around then too.

Seeing lots of errors in Console like so:

fault 00:15:29.584326+0100 kernel IntelAccelerator driver returned kIOReturnNotReady for transaction [ID=150168, IOSurfaceID=2]
fault 00:15:29.613595+0100 kernel IntelAccelerator previous NotReady transaction [ID=150168, IOSurfaceID=2] sent. kr=0x0

If I plug it into an extenral monitor the errors disappear and the fan noise seems to be far less (bizarrely since it uses the discrete AMD GPU instead...). Similar reports in Apple Forums.

@laurapalmer are you seeing similar errors in your log?