MacBook: New HD = Loud fan

[marekkurlmann]

I just replaced the stock Seagate 120 GB hard drive in my MacBook with a new 250 GB Toshiba HD. The new HD is quiet, but the fan is running about 70 percent of the time now--even when simply browsing a Web page. With the old HD, I would guess the fan ran 15 percent of the time. My system info shows that the drive heats up to about 99 degrees Fahrenheit.

My question: is there any way to adjust the drive or fan so that the fan isn't running all the time? The fan is quite loud.

Here are the drive specs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149070)

Thanks!

 

[Eidorian]

Check in Activity Monitor to see if there's a program at work before you blame the drive.

My fans don't spin up from their idle 1800 RPM until around 140-150° F.

 

[marekkurlmann]

There are no programs running now that weren't running before on my old HD. In fact, the fan is running at 6200 RPM fresh off of a boot with no programs running save for the Dashboard programs. With my old HD, there would be silence.

This really was like night/day--the old HD didn't trigger the fan. The new HD does. There are no new programs running. The fan even runs very loudly the second the power button is pressed to boot up the MacBook.

The CPU is running at 130 degrees F.

Any ideas?

 

[heatmiser]

Switch drives and see if the problem goes away.

 

[f1]

Spotlight could be indexing your new drive?? That usually makes the fan go nuts.

 

[marekkurlmann]

Excellent point about Spotlight, though I don't see the notice about Spotlight indexing when I click on the magnifying glass. How do you tell if Spotlight is indexing the drive (especially the massive index it's likely to do on a new HD)?

 

[Eidorian]

mdworker and mds will go nuts with CPU Usage. In addition when you click the magnifying glass it'll say it's indexing and give you an estimate time to completion.

I can't explain why your fans go nuts on boot. You might want to try reseting your SMC.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319

 

[marekkurlmann]

Will resetting the SMC affect anything (hardware or software) except for the power management functions? I'm not sure what is meant by "returning hardware to default settings" as the article linked to above states:

"Performing an SMC reset returns the hardware, including NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory), to default settings and forces the computer to shut down."