13'' i7 fan running way to much...

[gianthobbit]

I own a 2010 11 inch ($999 flavor) and the fan almost NEVER comes on. Only under heavy strain (10ish programs and flash) does it come on. Its very quite too.

Just got the top of the line i7 and the fan seems to run all the time... Just normal use here (5ish programs open) and its running and does not seem to go off. Is this cause for alarm? Is it just "hotter" because the i7 creates that much more heat?

Couple other things to consider:

Docked- I use the computer in the closed clamshell position when its docked to my monitor.

Pandora- Running this in the background occasionally (flash).

P.S. I am running pandora occsinaly, could

 

[bill-p]

I have actually found out that under Lion, the fan comes on far earlier than on Snow Leopard, and it stays on far longer.

You may want to give Fan Control (just regular Fan Control, not smcFanControl) a try. I'm using it to reduce the fan on mine, and I haven't had any problem thus far.

 

[gianthobbit]

I have actually found out that under Lion, the fan comes on far earlier than on Snow Leopard, and it stays on far longer.

You may want to give Fan Control (just regular Fan Control, not smcFanControl) a try. I'm using it to reduce the fan on mine, and I haven't had any problem thus far.

I will give that a shot, is there any potential damage this could cause due to over heating? My 11 inch air has lion and the fan is still fine. I think that maybe the i7 creates that much more heat than the puny dual core...

I just turned it off for a while, let it cool down, did a PRAM and SMC reset and still fan going on. Got the thing open and only 3 programs running...

 

[bill-p]

I haven't had any problem running that way on my 13" 2010 model.

The problem I'm seeing is that... in Coolbook, Lion reports 66 degrees Celsius, but in iStat and Fan Control, the reported temperature is 75 degrees Celsius. And it never goes higher than that for some reason, but it's always consistently 9 degrees hotter in Fan Control and iStat for some reason. Coolbook is more consistent to me under Snow Leopard, so I tend to trust it more.

I think Lion might have some bug with its temperature sensors.

 

[gianthobbit]

Not really sure how to use Fan Control... This is what I got right now:

 

[bill-p]

Do you have anything running in the background? Looks like something is under load.

 

[oneMadRssn]

are you sure it's not something wrong with your particular hardware? I have the 13" i7 and the fan usually hovers at around 2000rpm, which is I think it's lowest speed, I can't hear it at all.

 

[gianthobbit]

are you sure it's not something wrong with your particular hardware? I have the 13" i7 and the fan usually hovers at around 2000rpm, which is I think it's lowest speed, I can't hear it at all.

I got about 10 or so background apps running (menu bar) and 4 or so apps (safari, sparrow, ical, evernote). Is there a way to find out what is causing this?

 

[oneMadRssn]

I'd say get something like the istat widget, and monitor your fan RPMs for a little while, and see if you notice a correlation with a certain app.

If you boot and its quiet (1-2k RPM), then you go watch some youtube and it revs up to a normal 2-4k RPM, then you close the browser and take notes in Evernote and it goes quiet again, thats fine.

If you boot up with nothing running and its already at 6k RPM, then thats bad and I would take it into Apple.

 

[bill-p]

Go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor, make sure CPU is checked (or darkened) down below, and see if % Idle is too low. Usually anything below 50% is too low.

 

[gianthobbit]

Found the culprit, carbonate. Moment I uninstalled it the computer went silent, I even had it in low priority mode, jeez...