Fan Coming On too Much

[Christopher11]

Hi there. I'm having a bit of an issue with my white MacBook, it's a 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM.

I just updated with Software Update, i'm running 10.5.8.

For some reason, the fan has been coming on a lot, practically all the time. This didn't use to happen nearly as much; I'd have to have it right on my lap for a while, or of course on a hot day it would, but it's gotten colder in the last few weeks so i assume it's some kind of issue... maybe hard drive maintenance?

I'm open to any suggestions to resolve this. Thank you in advance.

 

[ayeying]

too much dust clogging the heatsink

 

[maflynn]

What are the temps your computer is experiencing?

They generally come on only when they have too.

Are you running applications now that are a bit more cpu/gpu intensive?

 

[Richard1028]

No, it's not heat sink dust that magically appeared right after upgrading to SL. For me it's SL + Flash + Safari... a little of each IMO. Firefox uses about 20% less CPU resources than Safari for me when browsing the same flash sites.

I really don't understand why all the responders here seem surprised when somebody reports increased fan speeds/CPU heat since upgrading. It's pretty much the consensus that this is directly related to snow leopard and maybe certain GPU's. There are just too many posts like this.

And most users have no idea what their CPU temps are nor "how fast" their fans are spinning. Providing this information is kind of useless because of all the different operating variants.

One can only hope there's an Apple coder sitting at home during his/her off hours watching Hulu (or something) and he/she notices the same thing.

 

[eman]

The OP is running Leopard and doesn't mention upgrading to Snow Leopard. The OP used the software update and the macbook may be indexing, this will cause more heat and the fans to throttle up.

 

[Richard1028]

The OP is running Leopard and doesn't mention upgrading to Snow Leopard.

I see that now. Thanks for the correction eman!

 

[Christopher11]

Thank you guys. Yeah, i only upgraded yesterday using software upgrade as an attempt to remedy the fan coming on all the time. It'd been doing it for two weeks or so.

No, not running any different, more CPU intensive programs, or downloading more stuff. It just started happening, strangely.

Question, is there something i can blow out with compressed air? The intake/outtake area on the back here, for example? Is that safe to do? Or i'd have to take my laptop apart to do it, because otherwise i'd be blowing dust back in? Thanks again for the help.

 

[waynechriss]

Yeah my Macbook blows loud noises quite the same as yours and its annoying (especially when i'm working late at night). It probably is dust. When i ran a lot of applications i never really got the fan.

 

[Christopher11]

I just wanted to follow up on this for you guys. Amazingly, i fixed the problem myself by discovering this:

http://tech.kateva.org/2008/05/my-macbook-fan-was-roaring-why.html

I was astonished to find this was precisely my problem, some kind of left over job from a print queue. I found it in Activity Monitor. If anyone has this problem with a MacBook, this may be why. Thanks for the replies above.