The fans seem to be turning on all the time when they never used to. Whirring and whining sounds. I've never had a quieter computer until recently. I don't know if its the WD scorpio black I installed recently. I checked my istat pro and it's reporting 50% user cpu and about 40% system and it's doing nothing but one or two tabs on google chrome opened - a brower I recently went back to this week. I dont think that's the problem though as it started to get noisy before then. Any ideas? The fans used to hardly ever turn on unless I was playing a dvd/cd or doing some heavy audio work or ripping.
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I'm sure my Late 2008 Has Gotten Way Nosier Very Recently
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The fans are always on, spinning at a minimum of 2000 rpm. If they are spinning up without increased heat, try resetting the SMC. If there is higher heat than you expect,
- Launch Activity Monitor
- Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
- Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
- Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
- Take a screen shot of the whole Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
- Post your screenshots.
When's the last time you opened up your back cover and vacuumed the fans?
Dust could be the culprit
Have a look in the Activity Monitor to see if there are any background processes running
Thanks for the quick reply. It's this mdworker / spotlight. I just finished indexing after an hour or so, and then again and now it's started on something else. Seems to have gone off now. How do I stop it from coming on. Always seems to be indexing lately - I never used to notice, I'm not sure it used to cause any noise at all really. Every little thing I do it seems the mdworker seems to be going nuts at 90 odd% - for instance I just opened a zip file.
Attachments
You may want to reindex and let it complete the process, which can take up to a few hours. Once it's complete, it will only index changes to the drive and it won't consume as much resources as it does initially. Also, you didn't click on the System Memory tab at the bottom, as suggested in step 4. How much RAM do you have and do you have any page outs?
I don't think you can disable spotlight indexing, however it shouldn't be occurring all the time, unless you're moving lots of data around your boot drive? Besides, if you disabled it spotlight wouldn't work properly because your files wouldn't be indexed properly
Yes, you have significant page outs, which indicates you were maxing out your RAM at some point since your last restart. To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.
Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
I do produce music on it quite a lot which can be pretty processor intensive. I also don't tend to shut down my mac fully much. Maybe once every few days or week? I dont know if that tell you anything. I know If I can upgrade the RAM. Isn't 4GB the max for a late 2008 macbook pro?
Go ahead and restart your Mac, then track page outs under normal use to see if you could benefit from adding RAM.
No, the max is 8GB for your model. You can find specs on all Apple products, including maximum RAM:
- By visiting EveryMac.com: Actual Maximum RAM
- By selecting your model on the Crucial Memory Advisor™ Tool to find RAM information
- By using Mactracker
- By entering your serial number here to find specs for your model.
(Be aware that some models can use more RAM than Apple shows. Check EveryMac to verify actual usable RAM.)
Shockwave Flash plugin seems to be the other problem - taking up 30% - 45% when watching something online. Outrageous!
Cool, didn't know about this website. I wonder if it's worth upgrading a 4 year old laptop. You'd think crucial.co.uk, trying to sell more memory would tell you that! Is it easy to fit like the HD? I wouldn't have a clue what RAM to go for. Actually now you mention it my most processor intensive software isn't 64 bit yet but an update is coming very soon. http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listmodule/DDR3/list.html
Will extra RAM make my machine much quieter and faster or if it time for a new laptop?
I'm currently on Leopard. "if updated to Boot ROM Version MBP51.007E.B05" what is this and how do I do this? I actually want an SSD too when I can afford it - I'm obsessed with a silent laptop particularly as I like to fall asleep watching shows on it or movies.
Hopefully with time laptops may become noiseless with the spread of SSD and liquid cooling like this:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/laptop/3346730/asetek-brings-liquid-cooling-for-faster-laptops/
Cool, didn't know about this website. I wonder if it's worth upgrading a 4 year old laptop. You'd think crucial.co.uk, trying to sell more memory would tell you that! Is it easy to fit like the HD? I wouldn't have a clue what RAM to go for. Actually now you mention it my most processor intensive software isn't 64 bit yet but an update is coming very soon. http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listmodule/DDR3/list.html
Will extra RAM make my machine much quieter and faster or if it time for a new laptop?
I'm currently on Leopard. "if updated to Boot ROM Version MBP51.007E.B05" what is this and how do I do this? I actually want an SSD too when I can afford it - I'm obsessed with a silent laptop particularly as I like to fall asleep watching shows on it or movies.
Hopefully with time laptops may become noiseless with the spread of SSD and liquid cooling like this:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/laptop/3346730/asetek-brings-liquid-cooling-for-faster-laptops/
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For Flash-related issues:
- Find your Flash version and make sure it's the latest version available. Never install or update Flash from a pop-up on a website. Always go to Adobe's site to get Flash or updates.
- Install ClickToFlash (Safari), Flashblock (Firefox) or FlashBlock (Chrome) to control which Flash content plays on websites.
- Try using the YouTube HTML5 Video Player to watch YouTube videos, when available. (May impact fullscreen viewing. See link for details.) Some have reported better performance with HTML5, while some have reported worse. Try it and find out what works best for you.
Yes, RAM is very simple to install. The User Guide you received with your Mac shows you how to do it, starting on page 42.
Adding RAM can improve performance and reduce disk activity if you've been paging with your current RAM, as you have been.
I recently opened my MBP after over 4 years of extensive use. There wasn't enough dust inside to have any impact on cooling at all. I doubt it's necessary, unless you work in a dust storm.
Well I guess it all depends on your environment but I know I had plenty of dust only after a year of owning mine, it wont hurt to check and vacuum it out