Fan won't increase. 2000rpm at 99c!

[steve31]

My fan in my 13 MBP will no longer increase. It just stays at 2000rpm and the cpu is at 99c. Tried to reset pmu and pram but still not working. I have smc fan control installed so I can force the fan to speed up but it is no longer doing it automatically. Any ideas?

 

[Eidorian]

Before you get hit by disturbance caused by a thousand MacRumors users all crying out in pain, yes it's normal.

I've played around with these 13" MacBook (Pros) and the fans just won't spin up until you've hit just short if not 100 C and then they decide to spin up. There are plenty of tools to alter fan operations but the MacBooks just won't spin up anymore. Apple is really pushing a quiet and hot notebook here.

How long are you waiting for the fans to spin up?

 

[Greenman85]

Before you get hit by disturbance caused by a thousand MacRumors users all crying out in pain, yes it's normal.

I've played around with these 13" MacBook (Pros) and the fans just won't spin up until you've hit just short if not 100 C and then they decide to spin up. There are plenty of tools to alter fan operations but the MacBooks just won't spin up anymore. Apple is really pushing a quiet and hot notebook here.

How long are you waiting for the fans to spin up?

dl smc fan control. set it to 3600 rpm

 

[iLog.Genius]

Anyone know if it's Snow Leopard or firmware on the MacBook Pro? Seems like the mid to late-2009 MacBook Pro's fans come on much later and hotter than the late-2008 MacBook Pro's (mine ramps up at around 70 C).

I too would suggest you download some sort of fan control to regulate the fans.

 

[Eidorian]

Anyone know if it's Snow Leopard or firmware on the MacBook Pro? Seems like the mid to late-2009 MacBook Pro's fans come on much later and hotter than the late-2008 MacBook Pro's (mine ramps up at around 70 C).

I too would suggest you download some sort of fan control to regulate the fans.

Snow Leopard appears to be much more aggressive with its fan behavior. In addition if you're a Safari user the plug-ins run separately. You thought Flash was bad before, imagine it now with even more overhead since it's 32-bit running on a 64-bit Safari.

You lose about 30 minutes of battery life as well.

 

[TheTosh]

dl smc fan control. set it to 3600 rpm

If you have Interface Builder (Apple Dev Tool) you can change the max speed like I have done on mine.

 

[tenderidol]

Sorry, I just re-read your post. Apparently, you already have smcFan control and it's not working. Have you tried uninstalling it and running fan control instead? Who knows... that may work? Has this happened recently after a program install, update, etc? If so, can you do a time machine restore to an earlier point?


[the original text below is not relevant to OP's question, but might be useful for somebody else].

Two options for you to run it cool.

1. SMC Fan Control: http://www.eidac.de/?p=134

2. Fan Control: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23137

I use SMC fan control on my MBP 15" because I like to control things manually. This does require you to keep an eye on the temperatures and increase them as you like via different presets. My MBP is extremely silent (due to SSD) and I'd like to keep it that way unless it's necessary to push the fans a bit more (e.g., skype chat, time machine backup, et).

I installed Fan Control on my wife's MBP 13", because she could care less about the temperature of her computer It's one of those "set it once and forget about it" approach. Using a graphical interface, you determine the fan speed at different temperatures. It's proportional (e.g., the hotter it gets, the faster the fans will spin).

Just pick one of these depending on how you use your computer and you wont have to worry about the fans anymore.

 

[vant]

That is not normal. Fans usually kick in around 80c or so for me on my 2.26 MBP13. I usually see fans going as high as 3800 to reduce the heat.