Resolved How should a MacBook react to a broken fan?

[edvayne]

My (early 2015) Macbook Pro's fan got broken. I first noticed the computer getting awfully slow when stressing it a bit. Also the Kernel Task went up to a few hundreds to thousands percents of cpu usage. After I noticed the fan reportedly was basically idleing around at the same time I ran the Apple System Diagnostics, which confirmed there might be a problem with the fan. I opened it up and yes, it was blocked, couldn't spin. I ordered a new one and now everything works as fast as I expected.

But: I'm wondering why the mac did not shut down, but instead just got much slower? I assume the cpu got clocked down. I still could work almost normally with a little (sometimes much) more patience needed from time to time.
Is this intended? How exactly should the mac react to a not working fan? (Even with no fan, the cpu never got above 95 degree celsius.)

 

[Queen6]

CPU will throttle down to maintain a manageable temperature, system will only shutdown in the event of overheating to the point of exceeding the maximum permissible CPU temperature around 105C. I've seen 15" MBP's running high 90's, low 100's for days on end. I doubt it's the best way to use the notebook, equally it illustrates the durability to some extents, at least in the short term.

Q-6