Macbook Pro Mid 2009 fans staying at 2K RPM...

[davidlv]

Isn't 100C kind of too high for the fans to START going faster? This really has been going on for a few months...I just really started noticing it recently...

I believe the issue here is the implementation of Apple's design parameters, putting priority on the "quiet" aspect rather than running cool. Of course the engineers know their stuff and the design of the 2009 MBP will not allow the machine to overheat itself. However, on my MBP (2009 with only 1 fan), I can not even hear the fan until it revs up past 3,500 rpm. In the hot ambient temp here in Japan, it is quite normal to see the temp shown by SMCfancontrol run up to 50 degrees C with the machine at idle (default fan speed 2,000) and even a little CPU load will drive the temp up to 80. So if you are concerned, run smcfancontrol and set up a higher than normal default or favorite fan speed (2,500), and then a set ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 for intensive work.
This will effectively override the design parameters set by Apple, and still allow the fans to speed up to max if necessary (smcfancontrol only sets the minimum fan speed).
http://www.eidac.de/

 

[LonezWolf1991]

I mean like one user said, I did stress test to see if they work and the CPU did spike up in temperature quite fast. I did look at the temperatures during the process and noticed that once the heatsink hits 60C, the fans start spinning up, so I have faith in it that it's doing it's job. If anything, some Arctic Silver MX-2 that I have should make it better if I get paranoid again

 

[shardey]

I mean like one user said, I did stress test to see if they work and the CPU did spike up in temperature quite fast. I did look at the temperatures during the process and noticed that once the heatsink hits 60C, the fans start spinning up, so I have faith in it that it's doing it's job. If anything, some Arctic Silver MX-2 that I have should make it better if I get paranoid again

Get the fan control utility for preference pane here and turn the upper temp threshold down so that the fans will kick in at lower temps. See if that helps.


That is the reason why my 2011 mbp's fans kick in higher at lower temps. It really helps out on heat, but not as much on battery.

 

[svkrzn]

I know this is a 2year old thread, but i have the same problem. WHen exporting photos from RAW to JPEG in Lightroom 4 CPU hits 100°C in about 10 sec and the fan of my MBP mid 2009 stays at 2k rpm. SO i manually switch the fan speed to medium using iStat. But i noticed that sometimes when watching youtube videos and CPU temp is about 80°C for some minutes, my fan's speed grows up to 2,7-3k rpm slowly. They do work, but they are a bit late/slow.