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MacBook, Fan Speeds, and Safeness

tsice19

tsice19

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
OK. So my MacBook is fairly new (bought 2 days before Penryn Came out). It was getting hot so I put SMC Fan Control on it. However, I am curious to see if my settings are safe. I don't want to wear out my 'book.

Here are the settings, and please provide and suggestions that will make it cooler/less stressful on the computer.

The settings, since you cant see them all in the pic are:

AC: 3000 RPM
Charging: 3500 RPM
Battery: 2000 RPM
 

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I'm inquiring because I ready somewhere that you shouldn't "crank" your fans.
 
Well, you can keep it low, and the fan will last years.

Ooor, you can go as high as possible as fast as possible in hopes to wear out the bearings before your warranty expires and get a new fan. If you have AppleCare then you can crank it as high as possible. However, keeping it at mid-RPMs might make the fan last to just past your warranty.

3500 though seems a mite high, but that's just my intuition, not any solid proof.

tl;dr: Go all or nothing, conservative or reckless.
 
asme said:
Well, you can keep it low, and the fan will last years.

Ooor, you can go as high as possible as fast as possible in hopes to wear out the bearings before your warranty expires and get a new fan. If you have AppleCare then you can crank it as high as possible. However, keeping it at mid-RPMs might make the fan last to just past your warranty.

3500 though seems a mite high, but that's just my intuition, not any solid proof.

tl;dr: Go all or nothing, conservative or reckless.
Click to expand...

What settings would you recommend? I like it to be quiet and 3000 RPM seems to be there.
I suppose I'll set charging to be the same, however it gets warmer when it's charging so that's why I can rationalize it.

Can anyone else input there settings? I know I'm not the only one with Fan Control
 
What kind of apps are you using? Because my MacBook runs very, very cool. For the most part, only a long Flash video, running a Handbrake encode or booting in to Vista will get heat up and the fans going.
 
I've been running mine at 3k pretty much since I discovered the program. I expect my MB will crack long before the fans do.
 
So what am I doing wrong if I have smcFanControl going and have set it up to run at 3000-ish and it still won't budge past 1800rpm? Doesn't seem to matter what I change in the preferences.
 
xraydoc said:
What kind of apps are you using? Because my MacBook runs very, very cool. For the most part, only a long Flash video, running a Handbrake encode or booting in to Vista will get heat up and the fans going.
Click to expand...

Nothing much when I took the picture. Just iTunes, Mail, iChat, and a few Safari windows.

heatmiser said:
I've been running mine at 3k pretty much since I discovered the program. I expect my MB will crack long before the fans do.
Click to expand...

Do they crack that easily? And what makes them crack? I noticed minor imprints on the palm rests were the "feet" so to speak, of the lid go. If it cracks from that I'll march right down to the Apple Store.

jecapaga said:
So what am I doing wrong if I have smcFanControl going and have set it up to run at 3000-ish and it still won't budge past 1800rpm? Doesn't seem to matter what I change in the preferences.
Click to expand...

You have to click the plus sign and make a new setting "favorite". After you change the setting, hit apply and the fans will sound either louder/quieter depending on the settings. It helps if you tell it to show the RPM and Temp in the menu bar such as I did. Then again, I'm not expert at this program...
 
tsice19 said:
Do they crack that easily? And what makes them crack? I noticed minor imprints on the palm rests were the "feet" so to speak, of the lid go. If it cracks from that I'll march right down to the Apple Store.
Click to expand...

Well, it depends. My last logic board had improperly applied thermal paste that had spread all over the breadboard and was leaking out whenever the fan was at max. It resulted in a huge network of cracks on the underside of where my CPU was and the bottom case getting a yellowish hue and feeling really soft to the touch. I expect this was from running a graphics-intensive game on my Windows side (using Tiger's boot camp beta) for 4 hours a day, three days consecutively. Seriously, you should have seen the thing.

The point is it'll crack eventually. I didn't bother for a while because hey, we all look at the bottom of our laptops so often, but when it started leaking white thermal paste onto my black sofa, well, that's when I went to the Apple Store.

As for the fan, I ran it just last night at 6200rpm (not of my own volition, the system did it for me) for 8 hours while I slept. The CPU was converting all my AVIs to x264 for the Apple TV, with a steady and constant temp of 80 degrees celsius. We're giving every last CPU cycle of the Macs in our house to video conversion. And the fans have been holding up great. I wouldn't worry.
 
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