Sick of insane overheating and fan noise on 2018 i5 Mac mini

[ArmouredBear]

I've had my Mac mini for 3 years, a 1.0TB model, I upgraded the RAM to 32GB myself.
This year it's driving me mad with fan noise, under certain conditions (e.g. choosing "translate" in Safari for a website, within seconds the fan is at full blast.
I had a look with MacFanProControl and I can see that as soon as I click on "translate", CPU temp jumps to 90-100 deg C and due t than fans quickly spin at 4000rpm.
I'm aware I can set a custom fan profile don't see how it would help much, is it normal for the CPU to get so hot so quickly?

Is this related to Ventura? I don't remember so many issues previously.

I'm more and more tempted with an M2 Mac Mini and getting rid of this thing, I'd like to understand why it has these issues though.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Jon Gotow]

Problems like this are usually caused by some system service or other background process running amok. To diagnose the details, launch Activity Monitor (it's in /Applications/Utilities). Click on the CPU tab in its window, then click on the header of the "% CPU" column to get the process list sorted with the process using the most CPU at the top. Also, double-check the View menu to make sure the display is set to "All Processes".

Once you've got that set up, wait for the fans to go nuts and then look at Activity Monitor to see what process(es) are using the most CPU. Generally, you'll see something using close to 100% CPU - that's usually your culprit. Once you know what it is, googling for it will often lead to other reports and possible solutions.

If you can't find a way to fix the issue, you may be able to just force the process to use less CPU using App Tamer (disclosure: I'm the developer of App Tamer). This approach only works if throttling the guilty process doesn't impact the performance of other apps, though.

Post what you find out and we'll see what the issue is.

- Jon

 

[3166792]

I'm aware I can set a custom fan profile don't see how it would help much, is it normal for the CPU to get so hot so quickly?

My experience with Mac minis would say that it's not normal at all. If it were a standard tower PC, I would be inclined to say that the heatsink has been shifted or isn't making full contact with the CPU because that's exactly the symptom you would experience if that were the case.

You upgraded the RAM yourself so you've been inside the case. Is it possible something shifted in the process or perhaps a cable or sensor is unplugged? But if it's only happening under certain conditions, this may be pointing to something in software as @Jon Gotow suggests.

 

[watakoola]

My i7 2018 Mac mini cooked itself to death. I replaced it with a M2 Pro mini and could not be more satisfied.

 

[ArmouredBear]

My experience with Mac minis would say that it's not normal at all. If it were a standard tower PC, I would be inclined to say that the heatsink has been shifted or isn't making full contact with the CPU because that's exactly the symptom you would experience if that were the case.

You upgraded the RAM yourself so you've been inside the case. Is it possible something shifted in the process or perhaps a cable or sensor is unplugged? But if it's only happening under certain conditions, this may be pointing to something in software as @Jon Gotow suggests.

I don't think anything is unplugged, I upgraded as soon as I bought it. The fan noise wasn't like this before, seems to have gotten worse recently.

 

[ArmouredBear]

Problems like this are usually caused by some system service or other background process running amok. To diagnose the details, launch Activity Monitor (it's in /Applications/Utilities). Click on the CPU tab in its window, then click on the header of the "% CPU" column to get the process list sorted with the process using the most CPU at the top. Also, double-check the View menu to make sure the display is set to "All Processes".

Once you've got that set up, wait for the fans to go nuts and then look at Activity Monitor to see what process(es) are using the most CPU. Generally, you'll see something using close to 100% CPU - that's usually your culprit. Once you know what it is, googling for it will often lead to other reports and possible solutions.

If you can't find a way to fix the issue, you may be able to just force the process to use less CPU using App Tamer (disclosure: I'm the developer of App Tamer). This approach only works if throttling the guilty process doesn't impact the performance of other apps, though.

Post what you find out and we'll see what the issue is.

- Jon

mobileassetd (76%cpu) and translationd (26%cpu) cause fan to go from 1700rpm to 3500rpm very quickly.
My M1 MBA (mostly used by my partner handles the same task effortlessly.

 

[Someirishguy]

Did you check the fan blades for dust? Something similar happened to my previous Intel Mac, turned out the fan had dusk caked all over the blades. Problem resolved after clean.

 

[frou]

Did you check the fan blades for dust? Something similar happened to my previous Intel Mac, turned out the fan had dusk caked all over the blades. Problem resolved after clean.

Heh, I actually took a photo of that just the other day. Had a ring of compacted dust like this, both on the inside and outside of the blades.

 

[Someirishguy]

Heh, I actually took a photo of that just the other day. Had a ring of compacted dust like this, both on the inside and outside of the blades.

Did removing it help?

 

[frou]

Did removing it help?

In fact I didn't have a heat/noise issue even with that dust in the fan. The only reason I was opening the Mini was to remove the RAM!