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Macbook (polycarbonate) runs hot

S

scrub0bk

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 3, 2008
40
0
Hi, I seem to have a recent problem with my macbook. the back (battery area runs hot almost all the time. Also when i put the computer on my lap, it gets hotter and the fan makes a loud noise. It never used to do that before i was always able to put it on my lap without a heat problem. I just installed an SSD and the problem continues, not that i thought that would fix it totally. I just downloaded a program called "fan control" and it says my right fan is running at -1RPM, and my left one at around 3600.

Anyone have any ideas? I reset the PRAM already and it did nothing. I'm starting to think its a hardware problem but my warranty is up and dont want to pay apple to fix it if i can do it myself.

Thanks guys
 
As the MacBooks only have one fan, one fan is shown as having a negative speed.
And "hot" is subjective. If you have downloaded "SMC Fan Control", them temperature of the CPU is shown too. If not, you can use the free iStat Pro widget to monitor your CPU temps and report back.

Also have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
Acitivty_Monitor.png

Further reading:

You could also try the following, as it is related to the fan speed (thus the name "SMC Fan Control"): Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
 
I think it might be the flash player in safari doing it. its running at 76 right now and jumps to 80 at times. Whats the reason for that?
 
scrub0bk said:
I think it might be the flash player in safari doing it. its running at 76 right now and jumps to 80 at times. Whats the reason for that?
Click to expand...

YouTube or many other video watching sites use Flash.

Adobe Flash Player is CPU intensive, thus more power is needed to feed the CPU, which results in higher temperatures and often higher fan speed(s) on mobile computers. As more power is used due to Flash, the battery life of mobile computers is shortened by a good bit.
To check, if Adobe Flash Player is responsible for less battery time, go to Applications / Utilities / Activity Monitor and select to show ALL PROCESSES and sort by CPU.

There are a variety of Flash blockers for all the four major browsers available.
A Flash blocker does what it says, it blocks Flash content, but via a click on the marked Flash object, the Flash object can be activated and used.

  • Safari: ClickToFlash, for which there is an extension and a plug-in; CTF allows you to download YouTube and other kinds of MPEG-4 encoded video too.
  • Opera: has a built-in Flash blocker
  • Firefox: Flashblock is an add-on to block Flash
  • Chrome: FlashBlock is an extension to block Flash

Also make sure to have the latest Adobe Flash Player version running, you can get it here.​
 
I had a game running almost all the time, didn't realize it was the problem but should have checked after the new hard drive install. I'll install one of these flash blockers and just click on the game when I use it and hopefully it'll cool down. I'm going to upgrade the ram in this machine soon. Think that could
Help alleviate any of the stress on the CPU?

Thanks
 
I know this thread is old but the problem persists. I tried running the same flash content on someone elses computer and the fan did not run as high or as loud as it does on my machine.

I use the flash blocker and i just open the ones i need. I'm not sure what the problem is, maybe ill take it to the apple store and they might know
 
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