Who else is bothered by fan noise?

[Thunderbird1]

Need to know, want to purchase MBA 1.6 80 gb

1. One person mentioned that the HD click noise is apparent on the MBA. That is just like my old powerbook g4. I really don't like hearing that click. Does anyone else experience that annoying click of the hard drive?

2. If I purchase the SSD the click noise goes away, but the fan noise is still apparent? After doing the reset does the fan settle down to a constant 2500 rpm?

3. SSD quiet running, was the main reason for me wanting to go the 1k more.

Any suggestions from you that already have the MBA would be much appreciated.

 

[MRU]

^

1) Some people have reported this. However I have not heard anything from my HDD at all

2) Again fan noise, I'm getting concerned because my MBA is running VERY cool, never once seems to get warm like the MB or MBP and I haven't heard a peep out of it fan wise

3) SSD guarantees silent disk access, but 1k for that ? It's your money do as you will. Like I say my HDD is silent, so I guess it comes down to whether you want to try out the HDD version and if you get a noisy one - you can always return within your first couple of weeks and go for the SSD option.

 

[Cybergypsy]

I hear mine click maybe 1 time a hour..if that not worth the 1000.00 upgrade IMHO

 

[jsap]

long time listener first time caller!, just got my air yesterday and love it. only time ive noticed fan noise at 6500rpm was using time machine today to back up 20gb to a rocstar external hd. so far surfing, itunes, iphoto etc, plugged in power have not noticed anything. very happy with the machine so far! spec wise seems to be faster than my macbook 2ghz intel core duo. also this thing rips music so fast!!!!!!!

 

[illian]

compared to the xps m1330 with the same onboard graphics...it is much more silent!! and still fast enought for all the tasks i need it for...love it more every minute!

 

[dthree36]

Replacement received

Ok,

I just got my replacement MBA 1.8 SSD and the fan was at 2500 RPM out of the box. The laptop is now doing its typical Spotlight indexing so it is spinning at 6200 RPM again. I am going to wait and see if this time the laptop goes back down to 2500 RPM or if this is just bad luck on my part. I can say this when it was spinning at 2500, I really couldn't hear it and 6200 RPM being as fast as that is isn't that bad in a room with some noise.

 

[SCMedic]

1.6/HDD here, and I never had the 6200rpm indexing issue. I've had the fan up to 4500 or so, and you can't hear it at all... I'm wondering if there are two different builds going around...

 

[bubbaben]

Another long-time lurker... Got my MBA 1.6/80HDD on Saturday and it's been running the fans at 6200 RPM ever since. No spotlight indexing, no apps running, no Safari Flash...
I performed full re-install of the system on Sunday. Tried SMC reset yesterday. Battery reconditioning last night, after the 10.5.2 update. Still running the fans full blast.
On iStat, temps reading low and yet the fan is still running at 6200 rpm:
CPU A 38°
Heatsink A 32°
Enclosure Bottom 25°
Airport Card 29°
Power supply 1 38°
HD: 27°
Fan, Exhaust: 6200rpm

I've got an appointment for the Apple Store genius bar tonight -- first time having to use them. Hopefully they will either have a nice, simple fix, or a replacement Air for me to walk home with! Other than the incessant whirring, I love this thing!

 

[dthree36]

Another long-time lurker... Got my MBA 1.6/80HDD on Saturday and it's been running the fans at 6200 RPM ever since. No spotlight indexing, no apps running, no Safari Flash...
I performed full re-install of the system on Sunday. Tried SMC reset yesterday. Battery reconditioning last night, after the 10.5.2 update. Still running the fans full blast.
On iStat, temps reading low and yet the fan is still running at 6200 rpm:
CPU A 38°
Heatsink A 32°
Enclosure Bottom 25°
Airport Card 29°
Power supply 1 38°
HD: 27°
Fan, Exhaust: 6200rpm

I've got an appointment for the Apple Store genius bar tonight -- first time having to use them. Hopefully they will either have a nice, simple fix, or a replacement Air for me to walk home with! Other than the incessant whirring, I love this thing!

Unfortunately there is no fix for the high spinning fans. I spoke with both Apple care and had the Genius appointment an the fix was to replace the unit. My replacement is great and the fan is now hovering around 2500 RPM. So much better and great piece of mind considering how much I spent. Take it back and get your moneys worth on a working MBA.

 

[kamranwpi]

Really?? This just shows that you're a troll. I actually owned a TZ and the fan noise is worse than the MBA. Enjoy the TZ especially in a couple of weeks when all the plastic starts squeaking.

My Tz is Carbon Fiber, kicks az.. Sony's hardware is much much much much better than this..

I am running Win XP, (much faster and quieter)

With MBA it wasn't just one thing.. I really needed eathernet connector cuz at our work there isn't any wifi for security reasons...

also only 1 freaking USB .. wtf was apple thinking?? It's just annoying carraying all these accessories

 

[BWhaler]

I have this problem too. Just noticed it yesterday.

Fans blow non-stop when the computer is idle. Apples quality is pretty horrific nowadays.

Such a bummer.

 

[duffyanneal]

My Tz is Carbon Fiber, kicks az.. Sony's hardware is much much much much better than this..

I am running Win XP, (much faster and quieter)

With MBA it wasn't just one thing.. I really needed eathernet connector cuz at our work there isn't any wifi for security reasons...

also only 1 freaking USB .. wtf was apple thinking?? It's just annoying carraying all these accessories

Actually, the palmrest is plastic on the TZ. It will begin squeaking in a couple of weeks. The case will creak when the display is lifted. How is the power adapter working out for you? I know mine and many others had issues with the machine going to battery power when the adapter plug was rotated or bumped. Do you ever use the machine in a dimly lit room? If so you also know that you can't see the key markings due to the poorly chosen color. A light up keyboard like the MBA would come in handy. The display lid will also start wearing the finish off the plastic palmrest. If you had yours for a while and haven't been using a protective cloth you probably have a nice shiny wear line on the front edge. If your company is so worried about security why are they allowing personal computers on the network? Ever heard of a USB hub?

 

[liaonet]

Fan noise

Just to confirm that the fan on my Air is really noisy a lot of the time and I have the Nand drive which is nice and quiet and I have to say that is not the reason to have nand, the reason to have nand is that it doesn't crash and loose all your data.

 

[Masquerade]

I must say that my standard Macbook Air preety much has the fan going full bore if I am running just Safari (with a Java window open) and MS excel 2004. That is 6200 rpm per iSTAT pro widget. I did not think this would be the case, but after two days of productivity, normal use, that fan is on at max almost 90% of the time. CPU temperature seems almost always above 135 degree F. Yes, the computer is on a flat surface and vent is NOT blocked.

I am wondering if this is normal use situation or if I have a bum Air?

Also, I am noticing the hard drive clicking sounds, which I didn't know still happened with modern hard drives....

I was expecting a quiet experience, but it is not the case at this point. My Air is moving too much Air.

6200 rpm are 103 rotations per second thats insane !

 

[cbr]

The fan noise really bothers me. It usually starts quite soon after starting the Air. 5-10mins of casual web surfing and the fan goes to 6200rpm. (or having 15-20% cpu load for 5-10 min.)

What really bothers me is that the fan will not slow down after I stop doing whatever I'm doing. It takes 15-20mins to slow down while having 0-1% of cpu load while having quite cool cpu with 40-50C.

From my experience the best way to get the fan slower is to close the lid and wait until I can hear the fan to slow down, then open the lid and the fan stays slow until you start to generate cpu load.

And yeah, I've tried SMC-reset etc. and none have helped.

 

[mlar]

I might have found the solution..

I have the SSD version of the MBA (1.8). When I used the MBA at work, the fan always worked at high RPMs (4000-6200rpm, mostly pegged at 6200). At home however, it never went above 2500rpm. The other thing I noticed was that if you disconnected the charger, the fans would slow down.

I have two power supplies. I keep one at work and one at home. I decided that the only variable that was different between home and work was the power adapter. So yesterday I switched them around. After several hours of testing, I can now conclude that it is the power adapter. The fan now runs slow at work, and fast at home.

Second thing I noticed. The power supply that has the LOW fan RPM, charges the laptop very slowly. It seems to take 8 hours or so to charge the computer. The power supply that causes the fan to run at HIGH RPM charges the battery much faster (almost twice as fast it seems).

Third thing, the CPU temperature now goes much higher (which is no surprise considering the fan runs slower). With the bad power supply, the CPU temp used to be around ~35C, but with the good power supply, the temperature seems to be ~60C with the same usage pattern (which seems to be in line with the CPU temperature on my MBP).

So, if you are having problems, it might be a good idea to have the power supply exchanged rather than the computer.

 

[dthree36]

I have had my replacement MBA for a few days now and the fans only spun up past 2500 for the first few hours. I guess it was spotlight but now it is soooo much better. I was getting kind of Pissed Off because I dropped a lot of money for a laptop when I could have dropped it elsewhere and got more machine.

Well, now that this replacement notebook is working the way it should, I am calm and can report that my experience has improved with each day. For those of you who have your MBA with fans that are being hammered when nothing is running, I urge you to take it back and get one that works. My battery was normal with the first one but with the fan spinning at 2500 all the time, my battery life has increased.

I can also report that my fans spin at 2500 unplugged and plugged in. The MBA is not for everyone. I know several windows based laptops that are almost as thin and have integrated DVD drives and ports will be available soon if not already but I just love this notebook. What will my opinion be when and if the new MBP gets a redesign, I don't know, but I can't wait to see what happens.