do i need more memory?

[Funkyboss]

Hey guys, this is my first post here. Hoping you guys can help me out a little bit. I bought a macbook pro a few months ago and everything is fine except it that it makes noise every so often and i'm wondering if its because it working really hard and could use more memory. it's 2.2ghz intel core i7 with 4gb 13333 mhz ddr3.

I'm not sure if its the fan or what but here a few instances where the fan or harddrive start to get a little loud.

1. i rendered a 15 second clip in final cut pro.
2. you can watch NBC's sunday night football online. i had it up for a while and then forgot that I left it up and after a while I heard the fan or whatever.
3. I was on Skype just now doing a video chat and it began again.

The final cut pro render didn't last too long so the noise went down after a bit. i closed the media player for the football game and then the noise went down for after a bit. i was on Skype for a while and the noise didn't stop for the duration of the call. but a few days earlier i was on Skype and i didn't get fan noise at all.

Maybe its normal but I'm hoping more memory can fix this because i had a pc that made noise and it just drives me crazy. all the previous pc's i've had always got vicious malware and viruses and would make so much noise. one the reason for switching over was to avoid that. Also i just get mad when at work i've seen older macbook pro's capture, export, render video without sounding like hurricane is inside of it or seeing a co-worker with an older macbook pro doing after effects projects without any noise as well.

i'm hoping boosting memory fixes this. any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The sound you heard were the fans, as rendering in FCP X, watching a video via Flash and video chatting in Skype is CPU intensive, thus the CPU gets hotter, thus the fans spin faster to cool the MBP.

You don't need more RAM, unless your Mac pages a lot, but more RAM will not mean less CPU usage and less fan spinning.

Adobe Flash Player is CPU intensive, thus more power is needed to feed the CPU, which results in higher temperatures and often higher fan speed(s) on mobile computers. As more power is used due to Flash, the battery life of mobile computers is shortened by a good bit.
To check, if Adobe Flash Player is responsible for less battery time or the heat, go to Applications / Utilities / Activity Monitor and select to show ALL PROCESSES and sort by CPU.

There are a variety of Flash blockers for all the four major browsers available.
A Flash blocker does what it says, it blocks Flash content, but via a click on the marked Flash object, the Flash object can be activated and used.

• Safari: ClickToFlash, for which there is an extension and a plug-in; CTF allows you to download YouTube and other kinds of MPEG-4 encoded video too.
• Opera: has a built-in Flash blocker
• Firefox: Flashblock is an add-on to block Flash
• Chrome: FlashBlock is an extension to block Flash

Also make sure to have the latest Adobe Flash Player version running, you can get it here.​

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Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit is FCP X, Skype and Flash.
Also check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example

Further reading:

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Making The Most of Activity Monitor
What Is Activity Monitor (or How to Take Your Mac's Pulse)​

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Helpful Information for Any Mac User by GGJstudios​

 

[Funkyboss]

thanks for the response! i'll look into those flash blockers. what does page mean? you said don't need more ram unless my mac pages a lot.

so basically theres no way to limit or avoid the loud fan?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

thanks for the response! i'll look into those flash blockers. what does page mean? you said don't need more ram unless my mac pages a lot.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

so basically theres no way to limit or avoid the loud fan?

Yep, that is correct. As the MBP is quite small and CPUs get hot, the fans are louder due to their faster spinning.
A desktop would be more silent.

 

[thundersteele]

A desktop with good cooling would be more silent.

Fixed that. Most desktops are noisy as hell. And don't even start with high end GPUs... they go up to 60 db.


@OP
you can try to use gfxcardstatus (google it) to force the computer to use the internal GPU. This takes away some heat production, and could reduce the fan noise with Skype and when watching movies.
Video rendering will always be loud however.

 

[Jake99]

Graphics intensive stuff is always going to generate heat and fans will kick in, desktop, laptop, whatever. Any laptop you buy will get noisy under load. TBH though on my macbook pro when the fan kicks in full blast, I don't think its that loud at all really.

 

[Funkyboss]

TBH though on my macbook pro when the fan kicks in full blast, I don't think its that loud at all really.

Yeah, it doesnt last forever and it isn't that loud. but i'm scarred for life dealing with my old PCs. I just cant stand loud fans

 

[Jake99]

I don't blame you Funky, I prefer my PC's to be more or less silent too.