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Will running my fans at 6200RPM do damage?

Zanaros

Zanaros

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 11, 2013
9
0
Birmingham, United Kingdom
I recently purchased a 13" Macbook Pro with the i7 and 8gb of RAM.

I run certain games on this machine including World Of Warcraft, I crank up the fans to 6200rpm via SMC Fan Control to prevent the CPU from reaching high temps (up to 100c).

Will running the fans at 6200rpm for a few hours everyday do any damage?

Thanks
 
Beecker

Beecker

macrumors member
Feb 4, 2013
46
0
Michigan
Zanaros said:
I recently purchased a 13" Macbook Pro with the i7 and 8gb of RAM.

I run certain games on this machine including World Of Warcraft, I crank up the fans to 6200rpm via SMC Fan Control to prevent the CPU from reaching high temps (up to 100c).

Will running the fans at 6200rpm for a few hours everyday do any damage?

Thanks
Click to expand...

The only thing I can see happening is a shorter life on one or both of your fans. Might happen. One other thing I just thought of is dust. What you take out must have first came in. So if your running your fans at that speed all the time your going to find dirt and dust collection allot faster then normal. I'm not sure how much they might be to replace however.

On kinda the same note I installed SMC Fan Control. I like it.
 
Interstella5555

Interstella5555

macrumors 603
Jun 30, 2008
5,219
13
Zanaros said:
I recently purchased a 13" Macbook Pro with the i7 and 8gb of RAM.

I run certain games on this machine including World Of Warcraft, I crank up the fans to 6200rpm via SMC Fan Control to prevent the CPU from reaching high temps (up to 100c).

Will running the fans at 6200rpm for a few hours everyday do any damage?

Thanks
Click to expand...

It's not necessary and will likely damage your fans if you continue to do this for the long term.
 
M

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
Damage as in sudden catastrophic failure? NO.

Shorten fan's life? YES. Will it fail BEFORE u grow tired of this notebook? UNKNOWN. But then fans are relatively ez to replace.
 
Quazimojo

Quazimojo

macrumors regular
Apr 4, 2010
211
0
Auburn Hills,Mi
It only takes a few minutes to replace a fan so i will take that over cooler running temps .

That is also of course if your fan fails after the warranty ends in which case Apple will fix it if within the warranty period .

I blast my RMBP fans full blast and have on all my other machines never a problem so do not even think twice about it as long as your happier with cooler temps vs worrying about a fan or 2.
 
alphaod

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
I used to run a bunch of folding computers, many with CPUs that run at 100ºC all day, everyday—never had any issues.
 
Queen6

Queen6

macrumors G4
Dec 11, 2008
10,881
10,911
Flying over the rainforest at dawn - Priceless
Switch to UltraFan it`s a far better solution, yes fans will incur greater mechanical wear & tear, however very marginal. What you are more likely to do is pull in more dust into the cooling system and this will degrade it`s efficiency over time depending on your environment. The fans are highly unlikely to suddenly quit, rpm`s may drop and fan noise will be come noticeably different.

The elevated CPU temp wont in general be an issue, however a high cyclic rate from very hot to cold will in time degrade the electronics up to and including hardware failure, this is systematic of thermal stress/shock which is a frequent killer of electronic`s

More on MBP cooling here, "there are more way than one to skin a cat" ;):
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16346518&posted=1#post16346518

UltraFan is long depreciated Macs Fan Control is the better solution as of 2016

n.b. no affiliation with CRYSTAIDEA
 
Last edited:
Interstella5555

Interstella5555

macrumors 603
Jun 30, 2008
5,219
13
Zanaros said:
I don't think it's a good idea to run this machine at 90-105c for long periods of time. I just thought this would be a better solution.

I'm running the fans at that for about 3 hours a day
Click to expand...

It's perfectly within the operating temperatures of the machine and will additionally shut off automatically before internal components are damaged by heat, in my 10 years of experience with Apple portables I've never seen this happen.
 
yusukeaoki

yusukeaoki

macrumors 68030
Mar 22, 2011
2,550
6
Tokyo, Japan
I would run my Mac around 90C rather than running the fans at 6200 3hours/day.

That would definitely shorten the life of your fans.
I would get Apple Care if you are still under warranty.
 
L

linguist

macrumors member
Mar 31, 2009
91
14
Zanaros said:
I recently purchased a 13" Macbook Pro with the i7 and 8gb of RAM.

I run certain games on this machine including World Of Warcraft, I crank up the fans to 6200rpm via SMC Fan Control to prevent the CPU from reaching high temps (up to 100c).

Will running the fans at 6200rpm for a few hours everyday do any damage?

Thanks
Click to expand...

replacing the fans wear every 2 years is preferable usage compromise, much cheaper and easier than replacing broken motherboard/chip. The fan itself may still be operational over time but the bearing would get noisy.
 
M

Mildredop

macrumors 68020
Oct 14, 2013
2,478
1,510
Zanaros said:
I recently purchased a 13" Macbook Pro with the i7 and 8gb of RAM.

I run certain games on this machine including World Of Warcraft, I crank up the fans to 6200rpm via SMC Fan Control to prevent the CPU from reaching high temps (up to 100c).

Will running the fans at 6200rpm for a few hours everyday do any damage?

Thanks
Click to expand...
There's some free software at derman.com which lets you control the speed of the fans. Try that.
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
Mildredop said:
There's some free software at derman.com which lets you control the speed of the fans. Try that.
Click to expand...
The fans are kicking in because he's a playing a game that is driving up the temperature of the MBP, I'd not recommend using software to slow those fans down. He'll risk cooking his MBP.
 
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