Macbook fans won't calm down!!

[TooFastForLove]

Hey guys (and gals), hoping someone can help:

My Macbook (2.2ghz White Santa Rosa model, 4gb RAM) has it's fans kicking into high gear and they don't seem to calm down until I shut the machine down...

When I first turn it on (or wake from hibernation) iStat records my CPU usage at over 50% at times - with the fans climbing to an eventual 6000+ rpm - and I haven't even done anything yet! If I had a combination of Photoshop / Illustrator / iTunes / Safari / Adium running then this might make sense, but I've literally JUST booted into OS X.

Being that it's only my secondary machine, I have no problem reformatting the drive with a fresh install incase it's a memory leak / software issue, but does anyone know what else this could be, or how to fix it?

*phew* sorry for the long post. Just VERY frustrated.

 

[eXan]

Most likely its some printer process stuck at 100% CPU usage. Check Activity Monitor (make sure you select to show "All Processes" from the drop-down menu) and see if there's something bogging your cpu.

 

[psxguru]

It might be spotlight going mental?

type 'top' in a terminal window and look for mdworker hogging all the cpu

 

[TooFastForLove]

(@eXan)

WOW, that's the last thing I would have checked for, but it makes so much sense now. That ended up being the problem: I tried to print something to a printer attached to my AEBS and there was a paper jam. I got lazy and left the house, figuring I'd fix the jam later.

Many thanks!