Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Fan noise & Clamshell mode

SDAVE

SDAVE

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 16, 2007
3,620
669
Nowhere
Have the 2011 Early 15" MBP 2.3Ghz, 16GB Ram and Samsung 830 SSD.

Also an external 23" ACD.

When I work from home I'm usually in the clamshell mode...doing a lot of research, it seems that almost everyone has this issue. The fan gets really loud and music doesn't even drown it out completely.

When I do heavy tasks, ie Photoshop, After Effects, it goes berserk.

Tried smcFanControl and a few others to force it to stay at 3000RPM at least, but to no avail.

Anyone doing any workarounds? Besides moving it away from it being next to the computer?

Thanks
 
SDAVE said:
Anyone doing any workarounds? Besides moving it away from it being next to the computer?
Click to expand...
Where is the MBP sitting? And how? Flat on the desk? In a stand of some sort? How is the ventilation around the vents at the rear, near the hinge?
 
GGJstudios said:
Where is the MBP sitting? And how? Flat on the desk? In a stand of some sort? How is the ventilation around the vents at the rear, near the hinge?
Click to expand...

Flat on the desk next to the monitor, ventilation available all around. Room temperature is fairly cool.
 
SDAVE said:
Flat on the desk next to the monitor, ventilation available all around. Room temperature is fairly cool.
Click to expand...
Heavy tasks are always going to cause increased temps and higher fan speed, even without clamshell mode. You might try elevating the rear of the MBP an inch or two off the desk, to aid in heat dissipation.
 
GGJstudios said:
Heavy tasks are always going to cause increased temps and higher fan speed, even without clamshell mode. You might try elevating the rear of the MBP an inch or two off the desk, to aid in heat dissipation.
Click to expand...

That's understandable as well as the heat, but it jumps to 83°c and the fans to 6000rpm even on simple tasks like a simple flash video...and I assume two of the cores are being used in this case.

smcFanControl doesn't seem to do anything.

This laptop is extremely powerful, but the cooling system is fairly bad. Reminds me of HP laptops.
 
SDAVE said:
That's understandable as well as the heat, but it jumps to 83°c and the fans to 6000rpm even on simple tasks like a simple flash video...

smcFanControl doesn't seem to do anything.
Click to expand...
Well, Flash is notorious for consuming system resources. The next time it happens, try this:
  1. Launch Activity Monitor
  2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
  3. Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
  4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
  5. Take a screen shot of the whole Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
  6. Post your screenshots.
 
smcFanControl only changes the minimum Fan speed.
If set to 4000rpm it will run never lower than 4000rpm even if the CPU is at 40C but it will ramp up if the CPU gets hot. It never limits the maximum speed because that would kill the chips.
What did you expect it does?

Cooling in Clamshell mode is worse. I recommend using it with open lid and just shutting the display off. Air intake is just so much worse in clamshell.
Normal Notebooks suck in Air at the bottom, they don't care if the lid is open or closed. Apple Notebooks are different.
 
ive been converting all my AVI movies to MP4 over the last few days, im talking a few hundred movies so its been going for hours and hours, sure there is some fan noise but no more or less than when i was doing some converting with the lid open.


i dont really believe clamshell mode should increase or descrese heat
 
iisforiphone said:
ii dont really believe clamshell mode should increase or descrese heat
Click to expand...

You would be surprised at how much heat actually naturally dissipates up through the keyboard/trackpad/top surface area. ANY laptop I have ever used (Mac or PC) runs much hotter with the lid closed than with it at least cracked open.
 
I would suggest checking out the Twelve South stand for the MBP. I do some pretty heavy tasks (HD video encoding) in clamshell mode and even though the fans are moving, they hardly ever run at max RPM.
 
GGJstudios said:
Airflow is not limited in clamshell mode. The vents are still exposed with the lid closed.
Click to expand...
It is. Open Air can get in and out below the hinge and above it. Air prefers to go up. Closed there is only below the hinge and no dissipation on the really hot part above the cooling blocks.
My own tests just now web surfing.
Lid close clamshell mode on a 1080p monitor. Bit web surfing 2010 MBP on a 330M. 5-15% load.
results in about 2800-3000 rpm at 64-69C
Open the lid only the 1080p monitor active. After 3 min it is down to 2000rpm at 60C. Big noise difference IMO.
 
SDAVE said:
Have the 2011 Early 15" MBP 2.3Ghz, 16GB Ram and Samsung 830 SSD.

Also an external 23" ACD.

When I work from home I'm usually in the clamshell mode...doing a lot of research, it seems that almost everyone has this issue. The fan gets really loud and music doesn't even drown it out completely.

When I do heavy tasks, ie Photoshop, After Effects, it goes berserk.

Tried smcFanControl and a few others to force it to stay at 3000RPM at least, but to no avail.

Anyone doing any workarounds? Besides moving it away from it being next to the computer?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have a similar setup and same issues. Clamshell mode for some reason activates Turbo-Boost and takes the CPU to 3.2GHZ (although it jumps around).

This might help you.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-power-gadget-20

If use it not connected to the TB display, in normal laptop mode, no issues at all. Fan stays around 2000RPM in that case.

Turbo Boost in clamshell is evil. It's unnecessarily heats up the machine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back