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OSX Lion + high fan speeds

S

sboerup

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 8, 2009
417
2
Upgraded to OSX Lion. Everything went smooth, didn't have any problems yet.

Normally at night, I leave my computer running (ie: never shut it off, doesn't go to sleep, just keeps running). It runs for weeks at a time before a restart, never had a problem on 10.5 or 10.6.

So, last night I leave it running like normal. It's the first time the machine hasn't been used for more than 3 hours in the day. I wake up early around 5am to a loud whirring noise. Go to the computer, the fan was running at max speed!

I turned off the computer, everything was cool inside to the touch (HD, ram, GPU, etc). Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but, this isn't something I'm wanting to happen again.

Only posting to see if anyone else has had temp issues or glitches regarding fan speeds.
 
sboerup said:
Upgraded to OSX Lion. Everything went smooth, didn't have any problems yet.

Normally at night, I leave my computer running (ie: never shut it off, doesn't go to sleep, just keeps running). It runs for weeks at a time before a restart, never had a problem on 10.5 or 10.6.

So, last night I leave it running like normal. It's the first time the machine hasn't been used for more than 3 hours in the day. I wake up early around 5am to a loud whirring noise. Go to the computer, the fan was running at max speed!

I turned off the computer, everything was cool inside to the touch (HD, ram, GPU, etc). Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but, this isn't something I'm wanting to happen again.


.
Click to expand...

I too have had similar higher fan speeds since installing on my 09' 2.6 Mhz Quad Pro!
Only posting to see if anyone else has had temp issues or glitches regarding fan speeds
 
It's probably because spotlight is re-indexing your computer.

Just sudo mdutil -a -i off and quit the mdworker process (it will automatically restart the process but not grow in size) or wait til' it's done :)
 
I have the same problem: after installing Lion my (rear) fan speed is 1100. tried reset SMC, PRAM etc. but no results yet...
 
My 2010 was fine. I have left Spotlight on at the moment because the App Store needs a valid Spotlight index to see which of your purchases are installed or need redownloading.
 
I've got quite the same probleme on my Mid 2009 Macbook Pro 13,3" - the fan is running at high speeds even with only safari opened (no flash of course :rolleyes:)

I'll check if spotlight is running or something else today, but it doesn't seem that something stressing is running.

I hope that'll be a solution for this issue or I have to go back to snow leopard.
 
kkanuck said:
I too have had similar higher fan speeds since installing on my 09' 2.6 Mhz Quad Pro!
Only posting to see if anyone else has had temp issues or glitches regarding fan speeds
Click to expand...
My Macpro is having same problem with fans. Computer is asleep, light slow blinking, over night fans on high speed. When I wake it up fans drop to normal speed instantly. Only happens after sitting for a few hours.
I have reset and no change.
 
Another me too.

I have a Mac Pro 1,1. Upgraded to Lion and when I come back to it after awhile my display will be asleep and the fans will be spinning noticeably loud. As soon as I hit the keyboard to wake it up, the fans slow to normal.

I should mention that my Mac hasn't slept properly for quit some time (never did reliably with Leopard or Snow Leopard). The display sleeps but the computer itself will not. Tried to reset PRAM, SMC etc.
 
Hi there,

have the same issue with the fan (100% full speed) since installing lion...
I have a MacPro 1,1 - it is definitifly no Spotlight reindexing!!
The fan now starts when seeing the boot-apple on the grey screen!
Even if i boot to SnowLeopard on a different HDD I have the 100% Fan speed.
Already tried a PRAM Reset and a SMC Reset (Unplug Power Kable for >15 sec).

Any tips welcome - because with a Mac Pro sounds like a turbine, I can not use it anymore!
Damn :(

cheers,
doabigcheese
 
doabigcheese said:
Hi there,

have the same issue with the fan (100% full speed) since installing lion...
I have a MacPro 1,1 - it is definitifly no Spotlight reindexing!!
The fan now starts when seeing the boot-apple on the grey screen!
Even if i boot to SnowLeopard on a different HDD I have the 100% Fan speed.
Already tried a PRAM Reset and a SMC Reset (Unplug Power Kable for >15 sec).

Any tips welcome - because with a Mac Pro sounds like a turbine, I can not use it anymore!
Damn :(

cheers,
doabigcheese
Click to expand...

Hello

I thought power cable pulling should be for at least 10 minutes not seconds.

It worked for me on am iMac I had the crazy fast fan issue withn years ago.
 
According to Apple...

Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve

Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
Click to expand...
 
Safari pdf plug-in

I have a 2009 Macbook Pro and installed Lion on Saturday. Over the past three days I noticed the fan has been constantly running. I also noticed the system was really slow in general, especially when viewing PDFs in Safari.

After quitting Safari, the fan has suddenly stopped. I restarted Safari and, without any PDFs open, it's running fine without the fan on.

Hope this helps!
 
I use a pref pane called "Fan Control"that was made by a fellow MR member for the 2009 and now 2010 MacPro. With it, I run my MacPro fans at a base speed of 600 RPM's. Machine is near silent and never gets hot.
 
I am having this same problem but only when I connect it to my ACD. When I am working on it, no problems. But when it sits and then the screen saver comes on the fan kicks on and runs at full level.

Is there any information out there on this?
 
People experiencing fans on high & cpu/gpu temps after lion install.

So I have a solution for all the people who have been experiencing issues with fans and high temps on cpu/gpu after installing Lion. I was one of the unfortunate few who experienced massive issues with Lion after install and subsequent patching all the way to the latest patch 10.7.2. The fans and high gpu/cpu issues continued long after spotlight finished its thing. I was at a complete loss and also Lion was unusable with its slowness and hour glassing every time I did anything. I did all kinds of research and exploring to find solutions. After much searching and many months I found the issue and the solution. At least for me. Here are my specs and machine ID so that people who are still having these problems can follow my lead. I have a 24" iMac 2008 running Intel Core 2 duo 3.06 Ghz. 4 GB 800Mhz DDR2 SDRAM. Machine ID "iMac8,1".

I went as far as to go through each process in Activity monitor and parse every process. This was a great help as I found many great sites that list every Apple process and many 3rd party apps and utilities, as well as root kits and other malware processes. What I found is that Sophos Anti-Virus and ClamXav Anti virus were the culprits for me. Once I killed their process's and uninstalled them all my Fan issues and spec hot cpu/gpu went away. I was seeing temps in the 180F and higher ranges as well as all 3 fans pegged at their highest rpm's. I am what I consider a power user and use programs like Photoshop, Maya, Mudbox and many other programs that tax my iMac regularly while rendering and so on. I have since used these programs and nary a fan higher than 3k RPM and CPU/GPU sit at around 130 - 150F during render times in maya using highest settings.

I realize this is very unscientific and specific to my machine and its config but I wanted to share what I had found after a very long and exhaustive search for the answers. Overall Lion is running like a dream. I also want to hand out props to a superb utility called "Lion Cache Cleaner" made by Northern Softworks - http://www.northernsoftworks.com/. This tool has replaced many other utilities and works like a dream. I also recommend Alsofts "DiskWarrior" another great tool.

I appreciate all the like minded authors here on their diligent pursuit for the solutions to their particular issues. I gleaned much knowledge from posts and threads here from to many authors to name. Thanks again and I hope this helps someone.

Kind regards,

Michael
 
I upgraded my 2011 server to a new Samsung 830 SSD, and it's nice and fast (already was pretty fast with the stock 7200rpm drives), but once I put the SSD in, the CPU temp and fans went nuts. I couldn't figure out what was different other than the SSD and the CPU temps. Michael's post just above mine said he disabled Clam X and things went back to normal. I have used Clam X for a year or so just to keep my Windows side of things safe, but after I disabled Clam X the CPU temps dropped from 92-95 C to 51-53 C. Odd stuff but it worked. Thanks Michael.
 
Upgraded to OSX Lion; fans randomly kick on high when at idle.

I'm experiencing an issue with my iMac shortly after installing Lion. A few days after installing Lion I noticed that after having it run on standby a short while, I came back into the room and noticed the rear system fan running at full speed. The system felt cool to the touch and restarting the Mac didn't help. It proceeded to run at a very high speed. I shut down the system and the fan problem went away. I took the Mac to the Apple Store for repair since I bought the SquareTrade warranty. We ran a basic diagnostic check and nothing came up. Duplicating the problem in front of the tech didn't happen and would have to do some stress tests. After about a week, the Apple Genius tech told me that the hard drive was failing. They replaced the drive and I took the system back home. Several months later, I returned from a trip and booted up the Mac. After several hours of it running at idle, I came back into the room and found the system fan again running at high speed. I recorded the event on my iPhone on video and via Recorder. I took it back to Apple to do more repair. Provided the video, but the store was too loud to hear anything. Nothing came up during basic diagnostics. After another 2 weeks, I picked up the iMac. The genius was not able to find anything wrong with the system. According to the notes; they did some permissions repairs and a few other things, but were not able to duplicate the problem. Its been a few weeks now and it has not happened yet. I'm not confident that the problem has gone away entirely.

I haven't tried killing processes. That will be my next troubleshooting step if it happens again.

If anyone finds a fix for the fan. We'd love to here it. Othewise, I'll keep researching. Thanks.


Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac9,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM91.008D.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.37f3
----

sboerup said:
Upgraded to OSX Lion. Everything went smooth, didn't have any problems yet.

Normally at night, I leave my computer running (ie: never shut it off, doesn't go to sleep, just keeps running). It runs for weeks at a time before a restart, never had a problem on 10.5 or 10.6.

So, last night I leave it running like normal. It's the first time the machine hasn't been used for more than 3 hours in the day. I wake up early around 5am to a loud whirring noise. Go to the computer, the fan was running at max speed!

I turned off the computer, everything was cool inside to the touch (HD, ram, GPU, etc). Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but, this isn't something I'm wanting to happen again.

Only posting to see if anyone else has had temp issues or glitches regarding fan speeds.
Click to expand...
 
Same as above, after a Lion install and when the iMac goes to sleep the fan speeds up to an annoying level. I've tried resetting the SMC.

Any help or fix appreciated.

Processor 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3
Memory 12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50b)
 
Mac Pro 2008

P-RAM Zap and unplug 15seconds worked to silence the fans.
CPU A and B temp had been 40 and 41 degrees, now at 45 and 46 C but fans at very quiet 1100 rpm instead of 2300.
 
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