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dthomas250

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2020
5
0
Long-time lurker here, in need of some help!

I finally decided to upgrade to Catalina from Mojave yesterday afternoon (it seemed sensible for security reasons, etc.). Everything was going smoothly until a Zoom meeting in the evening, after which the fans (?) came on, and they have remained on since, making a very annoying (almost ticking) sound (video attached). Perhaps this is normal, but before updating I never noticed any sort of noise, full stop; the machine was completely silent. And I have been having regular Zoom meetings, so I don't that's the cause of the issue. It's also worth noting that the noise does not stop when the iMac is on sleep; it's continuous.

In an attempt to silence things, I have reset the NVRAM/PRAM (which worked for about 10 minutes), reset the SMC (no change), and booted in safe mode (no difference; noise present as before).

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Any suggestions/advice/reassurance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

dthomas250

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2020
5
0
List the processes in Activity monitor that takes CPU time. It maybe indexing which is a long process on platter based iMac (Fusion Drive).

Thanks for the reply! I've been closely monitoring the activity and it's not been doing anything particularly intensive. I should probably have mentioned that it has a 512GB SSD rather than a Fusion Drive, so indexing was a relatively quick process.
 

pldelisle

macrumors 68020
May 4, 2020
2,248
1,506
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Thanks for the reply! I've been closely monitoring the activity and it's not been doing anything particularly intensive. I should probably have mentioned that it has a 512GB SSD rather than a Fusion Drive, so indexing was a relatively quick process.
Then I really don't know. My MacBook Pro heats too on Zoom. Is the app up to date ? 5.3.2 is the latest version. Make sure hardware acceleration is checked : https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360037870291-Advanced-desktop-client-settings
 

dthomas250

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2020
5
0
Then I really don't know. My MacBook Pro heats too on Zoom. Is the app up to date ? 5.3.2 is the latest version. Make sure hardware acceleration is checked : https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360037870291-Advanced-desktop-client-settings

Just updated Zoom, so I'll see if that helps, though to be honest I don't think the issue is related to Zoom because the noise has been continuous and I haven't had a meeting since Tuesday afternoon. Thanks for the suggestions, though!
 

DeLacy

macrumors member
Oct 23, 2019
38
57
Love those muddy waters...
I followed the Nvram Pram reset instructions and my fan is taking a rest. However, I noticed that my apps went back to crashing. I am going to run the Terminal fix for that and hope for the best.
 

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,697
1,425
Try stopping spotlight and Time Machine for a bit and see. Also check your launch agents and launch daemons folders under library, and also user login items in preferences to see what's up there.
 

dthomas250

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2020
5
0
Try stopping spotlight and Time Machine for a bit and see. Also check your launch agents and launch daemons folders under library, and also user login items in preferences to see what's up there.

I'll give that a try! As suggested, I've also checked the other folders and there are no login items and only a few Microsoft Office .plist files in the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons folders.
 
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