Fan issues MBA 2012

Pavel08 · Dec 28, 2012, 11:21 AM

Hello. In summer I bought the new MBA (2.0 GHz with turbo up to 3.1 i7, 8 GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB).

At the beginning I could never hear the fans spinning. It was completely silent. Its still is, unless i start watching some videos online. Then its just a nightmare. The fans are going crazy and its really noisy. Its been like that for a couple of months already. Im so tired of it.

For example the week after i got my MBA i watched like 30 episodes of Big Bang Theory online and I never heard the fans. But now, if I go to the same website and start watching them again, the fans gets really noisy only after 20 minutes.

I checked activity monitor for 1080p video on youtube. Whenever I view a video in 1080p the Flash Player is always staying at around 107% of CPU. If i pause the video, the cpu is back to normal. Ive attached some screenshots.
What is the problem? How can I fix it? Im so tired of that noise. I would really appreciate if somebody would help me.

wolfpuppies3 · Dec 28, 2012, 02:32 PM

That's normal. Nothing to fix.

Pavel08 · Dec 28, 2012, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfpuppies3

That's normal. Nothing to fix.

Are you kidding me? 107% CPU while watching a video is normal? Then why I never had these issues for the first two months after i bought my MBA?

Even my old crapy windows laptop from 2006 had much less noise while watching 1080p video. Is MBA really that bad?

Pavel08 · Dec 29, 2012, 05:14 AM

Is it really normal?

washburn · Dec 29, 2012, 05:24 AM

i just got a new macbook air replacement and i'm noticing it doesn't run dead quite when idle like the other airs i tried, kinda disappointing

t0rr3s · Dec 29, 2012, 05:47 AM

you could try installing the latest flash player edition from adobe. alternatively, go for the html5 trial on youtube. see if that makes a difference.

do you have smcfancontrol installed? could also help in ensuring your mac doesn't get too warm.

mrsir2009 · Dec 29, 2012, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pavel08

Is it really normal?

Yeah - Flash runs really rubbishy on OSX. It's much better on Windows.

Quote:

You may have heard the word 'Flash' used in the same sentence as 'poor battery life' or 'overheating' when Macs are being discussed. This is because Flash doesn't play nice with OSX, hogging resources and therefore slowing down the computer and causing it to heat up. This was not so much of a problem with desktops, which Flash was designed for, as desktops have good cooling systems and no power consumption issues. Laptops however are another story. They are very small and compact, so don't deal with excessive heat well, and run off batteries, making power consumption critical. For these reasons it is a good idea to avoid Flash Content on your Mac when possible. For more information on how to avoid Flash Content check out this article.

Pavel08 · Dec 30, 2012, 06:59 AM

Thank you very much for your response. Im sorry the old laptop is from 2008, but still its "fat and ugly". I did install ClickToPlugin and I can feel the difference. Atleast youtube is running smoothly now. Ive noticed there were a lot of options in the ClickToPlugin menu. Do I need to do anything more besides the standard options to get a better performance? Are there any drawbacks using ClickToPlugin(like will quality be worse if using HTML5)?

Also is there any way to clean the fans from dust?

micrors4racer · Dec 29, 2012, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pavel08

Are you kidding me? 107% CPU while watching a video is normal? Then why I never had these issues for the first two months after i bought my MBA?

Even my old crapy windows laptop from 2006 had much less noise while watching 1080p video. Is MBA really that bad?

Yes it is normal for flash to use alot of cpu cycles. Theres a reason Apple no long pre installs it. It also leads to horrible battery performance.

Install the ClicktoPlugin for safari and that will disable most flash things until you click on them which should give you the rated battery life. It will also work seamlessly with youtube to try and play most videos in HTML5 if the native youtube player isn't in HTML5 for that video.

I highly doubt that your 2006 laptop can play 1080p video effortlessly as hardware decoders for videos werent that popular yet

Lastly, your fan maybe reacting more to the increased temps because of dust build up. This would explain why the fans could cool the computer down with less speed when you first got it but now it needs to run faster to keep it the same temps due to dust building up.

One thing you can try is to uninstall flash then reinstall the newest version and install Clicktoplugin for Safari. This should give you the best battery life and performance.

micrors4racer · Dec 29, 2012, 05:15 PM

Just ran a test for you to show you the different between using flash and HTML5. The native HTML5 player for youtube can be found here http://www.youtube.com/html5

I still highly suggest that you install clicktoplugin so that anything you may come across can be played in HTML5 even if the website doesn't have a setting for it.

First one is flash playing a 1080p video and the 2nd is HTML5 playing the same 1080 video.

Dec 28, 2012, 11:21 AM	#1
Pavel08 macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Fan issues MBA 2012 Hello. In summer I bought the new MBA (2.0 GHz with turbo up to 3.1 i7, 8 GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB). At the beginning I could never hear the fans spinning. It was completely silent. Its still is, unless i start watching some videos online. Then its just a nightmare. The fans are going crazy and its really noisy. Its been like that for a couple of months already. Im so tired of it. For example the week after i got my MBA i watched like 30 episodes of Big Bang Theory online and I never heard the fans. But now, if I go to the same website and start watching them again, the fans gets really noisy only after 20 minutes. I checked activity monitor for 1080p video on youtube. Whenever I view a video in 1080p the Flash Player is always staying at around 107% of CPU. If i pause the video, the cpu is back to normal. Ive attached some screenshots. What is the problem? How can I fix it? Im so tired of that noise. I would really appreciate if somebody would help me. Attached Thumbnails
	0

Dec 28, 2012, 02:32 PM	#2
wolfpuppies3 macrumors 6502 Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Virginia, USA	That's normal. Nothing to fix. __________________ 2012 MBA 13, 2 Ghz i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD; 2011 MBA 11, 1.8 Ghz i7, 4 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD; 2010 MB Pro 15, 2.66 Ghz i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD; two iPad 3s and a mini, two iPhones and a bunch of iPods
	1

Dec 29, 2012, 05:47 AM	#6
t0rr3s macrumors 6502 Join Date: Dec 2010	you could try installing the latest flash player edition from adobe. alternatively, go for the html5 trial on youtube. see if that makes a difference. do you have smcfancontrol installed? could also help in ensuring your mac doesn't get too warm. __________________ Mac Pro 3,1 3.2 GHz Octocore 12GB Radeon HD 5770 4TB 30" ACD MBA 2012 11" 1.7 GHz 8GB 128GB
	0

Dec 29, 2012, 05:15 PM	#10
micrors4racer macrumors 6502 Join Date: Apr 2012	Just ran a test for you to show you the different between using flash and HTML5. The native HTML5 player for youtube can be found here http://www.youtube.com/html5 I still highly suggest that you install clicktoplugin so that anything you may come across can be played in HTML5 even if the website doesn't have a setting for it. First one is flash playing a 1080p video and the 2nd is HTML5 playing the same 1080 video. Attached Thumbnails
	0

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Dec 29, 2012, 05:14 AM	#4
Pavel08 Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Is it really normal?
	0

Dec 29, 2012, 05:24 AM	#5
washburn macrumors 6502 Join Date: Apr 2010	i just got a new macbook air replacement and i'm noticing it doesn't run dead quite when idle like the other airs i tried, kinda disappointing
	0

Dec 30, 2012, 06:59 AM	#8
Pavel08 Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Thank you very much for your response. Im sorry the old laptop is from 2008, but still its "fat and ugly". I did install ClickToPlugin and I can feel the difference. Atleast youtube is running smoothly now. Ive noticed there were a lot of options in the ClickToPlugin menu. Do I need to do anything more besides the standard options to get a better performance? Are there any drawbacks using ClickToPlugin(like will quality be worse if using HTML5)? Also is there any way to clean the fans from dust?
	0