Today, i began to notice that my MBP was running a bit slower than usual. After a couple hours of use, I also noticed it was running a lot hotter than usual. My laptop was running at 170F with only 30% CPU usage. I didn't make too much of it, and considered it an anomaly. Later on in the day, I noticed began to realize that my fan was running a lot slower than usual at higher temperatures. It was only running at 2000-3000RPM regardless of the temperature of the laptop or how much intensive activity I was doing.
My first thought was "Oh great, the fans must be broken and I'll have to bring it into a shop and go through all that again...". I just had my fans die on my old MacBook, and I didn't want to deal with this again. To test the fans, I downloaded smcFanControl and manually set the fans to run at 6200RPM. Sure enough, manually setting it to 6200RPM sped up the fan. Now I knew that the fans themselves were working and could reach the higher speeds.
What next? I tried a restart. Nothing changed.
What now? Well, I obviously knew that smc involved the fan/temperature control, and I could reset it. So I did that. I reset my smc. Still no change.
I started playing around with the fans using smcFanControl and noticed that no matter what minimum speed I would set it to at what temperature, it would always go with the minimum. If it was 5000, it would use 5000. If it was 6200, it would use 6200. If it was 2000 at 190F, it would use 2000.
What should I do from here? Where should I go? If it was easy for me to get to an Apple Store I would just go there, but transportation is an issue and the store is a ways away, so I'd rather fix it on my own. Obviously, the fans can go up to the normal 6200RPM, but they won't for some rason.
Other info:
- All temperature sensors are working and seem to be reporting accurately
- There has been no physical damage to it lately. No spills, drops, or other impacts.
- It's a 13-inch, Late 2011 model
My first thought was "Oh great, the fans must be broken and I'll have to bring it into a shop and go through all that again...". I just had my fans die on my old MacBook, and I didn't want to deal with this again. To test the fans, I downloaded smcFanControl and manually set the fans to run at 6200RPM. Sure enough, manually setting it to 6200RPM sped up the fan. Now I knew that the fans themselves were working and could reach the higher speeds.
What next? I tried a restart. Nothing changed.
What now? Well, I obviously knew that smc involved the fan/temperature control, and I could reset it. So I did that. I reset my smc. Still no change.
I started playing around with the fans using smcFanControl and noticed that no matter what minimum speed I would set it to at what temperature, it would always go with the minimum. If it was 5000, it would use 5000. If it was 6200, it would use 6200. If it was 2000 at 190F, it would use 2000.
What should I do from here? Where should I go? If it was easy for me to get to an Apple Store I would just go there, but transportation is an issue and the store is a ways away, so I'd rather fix it on my own. Obviously, the fans can go up to the normal 6200RPM, but they won't for some rason.
Other info:
- All temperature sensors are working and seem to be reporting accurately
- There has been no physical damage to it lately. No spills, drops, or other impacts.
- It's a 13-inch, Late 2011 model