MBA Fan is a pain in the ass

[Particular]

It will hover around 2500 rpm which is sweet then it jumps to 6500 rpm (maybe after some more "intensive" CPU activity) and it just sits their forever. Even if everything goes back to doing barely anything and despite the CPU activity only hanging around the 15% utilization mark and temp around 50 degrees ... it just sticks @ 6500rpm and the fan sound sucks.

Thoughts?

 

[Thomi]

If CPU usage is back down and the temps too, then the fan should go back after a few minutes as well.

 

[clayj]

If your fan is jacked up for longer than you might think, here are a few things to try:

1. Minimize or close Safari. Moving components in a Safari window, especially animated GIFs and Flash movies, cause the CPU to have to do a lot of work and this can cause the fan to run a lot. Not having these items actively displaying on the screen will cut the CPU usage back.

2. If you're using the Arabesque screen saver, switch to another screen saver. Arabesque has been identified as a total CPU hog and it will make your CPU heat up and the fans will run constantly at maximum speed.

3. You may want to fire up the Activity Monitor application and see if any apps are not responding or using ~100% CPU. Killing such apps may cut CPU usage down and let the fans slow down.

A handy thing to remember is that until the CPU gets down to a normal operating temperature (115º to 130º), the fans will almost certainly run faster than normal (~2500 RPM). Once the temperature is reached, then the fans will slow down.