fans going crazy

[JustOneQuickONe]

My Macbook plastic/white keeps running the fans after a couple minutes of use, with minimal programs running. What should I check? whats going on? I can give you guys reading but I don't know what to look at.

My macbook is a 2GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB memory.

 

[hamzab]

Download Istat by Islayer nifty little widget to help monitor everything from Fan RPM to CPU temp

ALSO AND I STRESS THIS POINT LOUDLY, DONT DOWNLOAD ANY FAN CONTROL SOFTWARE, ESPECIALLY FAN CONTROL 1.2 These things seriously mess up your Default fan settings, I had to go through a lengthy process to get my fans back to default and I'd rather post on here and save other people the trouble

Download Istat and give out your readings that way everyone on here can guide you better

 

[MattyK]

Download Istat by Islayer nifty little widget to help monitor everything from Fan RPM to CPU temp

ALSO AND I STRESS THIS POINT LOUDLY, DONT DOWNLOAD ANY FAN CONTROL SOFTWARE, ESPECIALLY FAN CONTROL 1.2 These things seriously mess up your Default fan settings, I had to go through a lengthy process to get my fans back to default and I'd rather post on here and save other people the trouble

Download Istat and give out your readings that way everyone on here can guide you better

+1

If you do get iStat, check out the memory usage, see what's taking up the ram, the CPU usage, if it's maxing out (you can click on it and see which program is taking up the most % of the CPU.)
and finally check out the rpms of the fans, if they're abnormally high at some stages, definitely go get your computer checked out.

 

[Consultant]

Activity Monitor
view All Processes
Sort by CPU usage

 

[hamzab]

+1

If you do get iStat, check out the memory usage, see what's taking up the ram, the CPU usage, if it's maxing out (you can click on it and see which program is taking up the most % of the CPU.)
and finally check out the rpms of the fans, if they're abnormally high at some stages, definitely go get your computer checked out.

Also, if you do find them to be abnormally high take it to the Apple store and Complain but in a calm and pleasant way, dont go all strutty otherwise they wont give a damn

Im about to go in tomorrow and get it repaired not only for the heat issue, but Ive also got a cracked keyboard, faulty LCD, Loose Hinge, Loose Side which is bulging and also for some reason, an airport card which is always on like 64 degrees, If you dont mind would you post you Airport card temp so I can compare

Thanks

HamzaB

 

[miggitymac]

ALSO AND I STRESS THIS POINT LOUDLY, DONT DOWNLOAD ANY FAN CONTROL SOFTWARE, ESPECIALLY FAN CONTROL 1.2 These things seriously mess up your Default fan settings, I had to go through a lengthy process to get my fans back to default and I'd rather post on here and save other people the trouble

I use smcFanControl v.2.1 on my early 2008 MBP (OS X 10.5.6) and haven't had any issues with it.

Without it my temperatures would go into the 70-mid 80 degree Celsius range. With it I haven't been over 60 degrees. I only use it when I'm gaming, running Reason (or similar high-demand apps) or when I'm putting it on my legs when typing (i.e. when I don't have a table top available).

[Edit] to the OP: If your problem is that your fans seem to be running faster than usual all the time due to a heat issue, I don't think smcFanControl and similar apps will help you. These kinds of programs are usually used to control/prevent high temperatures by forcing the fans to increase their RPMs...it won't be able to slow down your fans to a normal rate (~2000 RPM) until the temps decrease.

 

[hamzab]

I use smcFanControl v.2.1 on my early 2008 MBP (OS X 10.5.6) and haven't had any issues with it.

Without it my temperatures would go into the 70-mid 80 degree Celsius range. With it I haven't been over 60 degrees. I only use it when I'm gaming, running Reason (or similar high-demand apps) or when I'm putting it on my legs when typing (i.e. when I don't have a table top available).

Hmmmm...Dont know about SMC Fan Control Mate as Ive never used it but Fan Control 1.2 is a little beasty, belive you me

When taking it off if you dont apply the proper procedure (such as killing the activity in activity monitor, deleting it from preferance pane and startupfolder Appls and then running the reset patch) the application actually embeds itself in the BIOS or sets its own parameters for the fan So i would HIGHLY UN RECOMMEND not to install Fan Control 1.2

 

[miggitymac]

Hmmmm...Dont know about SMC Fan Control Mate as Ive never used it but Fan Control 1.2 is a little beasty, belive you me

When taking it off if you dont apply the proper procedure (such as killing the activity in activity monitor, deleting it from preferance pane and startupfolder Appls and then running the reset patch) the application actually embeds itself in the BIOS or sets its own parameters for the fan So i would HIGHLY UN RECOMMEND not to install Fan Control 1.2

Yea, that point had me worried a bit, so I did some research before installing. Here's what it says from their site:

How do install and uninstall smcFanControl?

smcFanControl is just an application. So after downloading, and unzipping it, drag it to wherever you want (e.g. the Application Folder). To uninstall it, just drag it into the trash. smcFanControl installs no permanent background processes or daemons.
All changes smcFanControl does to the fan controlling get lost after you shutdown your computer (power off, not restart) or enter standby mode (as far as you don't have smcFanControl running) . Minimum fan speed then falls back to the system defaults values.

 

[hamzab]

Yea, that point had me worried a bit, so I did some research before installing. Here's what it says from their site:

How do install and uninstall smcFanControl?

smcFanControl is just an application. So after downloading, and unzipping it, drag it to wherever you want (e.g. the Application Folder). To uninstall it, just drag it into the trash. smcFanControl installs no permanent background processes or daemons.
All changes smcFanControl does to the fan controlling get lost after you shutdown your computer (power off, not restart) or enter standby mode (as far as you don't have smcFanControl running) . Minimum fan speed then falls back to the system defaults values.

Sounds good mate, might have to look into this when I get my Macbook back from repair, but hopefully God willing Apple will have repaired the issue and if it still persists im going to be on the phone to Apple customer relations faster then a Eurofighter at Mach 2!

 

[JustOneQuickONe]

I'll try to get that downloaded here soon. I'll also post up the activity monitor reslults in the mean time but of course the computer is running fine now with no overuse of the fans since I put up the thread (even though the past 3-4 days its been running fans a lot). So when/if (hopefully it was just something odd happening) it starts to act up again I'll post up the readings right away.

 

[hamzab]

Nice one, if you dont mind could you PM me and I think maybe the other poster as this thread will have moved down by tomorrow and dont want to lose it especially as your going to post your findings

 

[paolo-]

Just open the activity monitor, there's probably some app trying to divide by zero or something

That happened to me twice, once it was spotlight that was going hay-wire(99% of cpu usage). The other, it was an app in my dashboard that synced tapped BPM to iTunes and was making iTunes run at 65% of my cpu.

You might want to check the temperature of the cpu afterwards, as there is a small possibility that the fans are going crazy.

My guess is that there's something wrong with an app, not with the fans.