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Macbook Pro Retina fan

G

gabicava83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 31, 2010
264
18
Hi there guys/girls,

Don't tend to post on the forums, more of a reader but having a slight issue.

I've had numerous Macbooks, my trusty 13" Macbook pro (prior to retina) died so I went off and bought myself the base 15" rMBP.

The first one I bought the fans kept on going off, then had some random crashes, and the Facetime camera kept on pausing which was frustrating.

I replaced that rMBP with a brand new one within the 14 days, and this one the fans keep on going off too. (No crashes but have not upgraded to El Capitan)

I am not using anything intensive, currently on Safari, have a couple of CyberDuck sessions going on and that's about it.

The 13" MacbBook pro I had, the fans never went off unless I was doing some demanding stuff on there, or had large number of tabs open on Chrome (not installed on here)

However, on these two laptops I have used, nothing I am doiing is taxing.

Do I go and return this one and try it for the third time or is it a common trend?

Frustrating nonetheless.

Thanks,

G
 
The fans do turn off if the temps are low and the CPU is pretty much idle. That is expected behavior.
 
gabicava83 said:
Hi there guys/girls,

Don't tend to post on the forums, more of a reader but having a slight issue.

I've had numerous Macbooks, my trusty 13" Macbook pro (prior to retina) died so I went off and bought myself the base 15" rMBP.

The first one I bought the fans kept on going off, then had some random crashes, and the Facetime camera kept on pausing which was frustrating.

I replaced that rMBP with a brand new one within the 14 days, and this one the fans keep on going off too. (No crashes but have not upgraded to El Capitan)

I am not using anything intensive, currently on Safari, have a couple of CyberDuck sessions going on and that's about it.

The 13" MacbBook pro I had, the fans never went off unless I was doing some demanding stuff on there, or had large number of tabs open on Chrome (not installed on here)

However, on these two laptops I have used, nothing I am doiing is taxing.

Do I go and return this one and try it for the third time or is it a common trend?

Frustrating nonetheless.

Thanks,

G
Click to expand...

SMC reset. https://support.apple.com/HT201295

jermy4 said:
The fans do turn off if the temps are low and the CPU is pretty much idle. That is expected behavior.
Click to expand...

"Go off" in this context as in "spin up out of control." Similar to the phrase, "my plan went off without a hitch," or, "the gun went off unexpectedly."
 
Can confirm. SMC reset normalised my fans. Normal use now has a temp around 40-50 celsius and no noise from fans.
 
Apologies, Duervo, thank you for clearing up my confusing description. That is exactly what I meant.

New laptop is running a lot better, battery is over 5 hours, which is far better than I was getting.

Will try and carry out the SMC reset see if that resolves it, will update on here just in case someone comes across this and helps them out.

Many thanks doitdata too (good username)

Regards,

G.
 
duervo said:
"Go off" in this context as in "spin up out of control." Similar to the phrase, "my plan went off without a hitch," or, "the gun went off unexpectedly."
Click to expand...
Oops, thanks for clarifying what was being asked. I recently upgraded from a 2011 MBA and the fan was always running so it was weird to me that the fan stops on this rMBP and I have seen a couple of threads where people asked about the fan stopping and I just assumed this was one of those threads.
 
Sadly the issue is still occurring. Happening with both Safari and Firefox, more apparent on the latter.

Things like YouTube (changed to HTML5 instead of Flash) and Vimeo, aid in this machine wanting to take off.

SMC reset hasn't worked, and temperature from the sensors goes off just above 90 degrees.

I don't think swapping it for the third model is going to help, very frustrating.

I'll speak to support and see what they say.

Keep you informed.

Thanks,
 
Sad to hear, but I'm glad I returned mine. I loved it's performance. The fan ... not so much.
 
Spoke to support, tried numerous things and was unable to resolve the issue.

Last resort apart from swapping it for another is to re-install the OS, but I will do that later on, I doubt that will resolve the issue.

It's apparent that any video rendered via a browser, it has issues with. On any browser, I don't understand as I never had this issue with my old MBP (none retina)

The support technician was fantastic, I did act as I was not technical and he was very clear and precise, accurate answers to all the questions I threw at him and did not make any stuff up. This was a pleasant experience.

I'll re-install the OS tonight, if that doesn't work, I will go to the store for a possible replacement, depending on how I feel I might scrap it and ask for my money back.

Not sure what other device I will get, Surface Pro 4? :s

Love Mac Hardware, i've had so much stuff from them over the years, so many laptops, Mac Pro, Mac Mini's and so on. But having to ask for my third laptop and possibly same issue of the fans going nuts, it's driving me nuts. Not only the cost but also the amount of time.

Thanks all, apologies for the rant.
 
Are you near an Apple Store, Best Buy or other reseller? Why not take a trip to the store and do some things on their demo units to see if the fans start increasing. Before getting my 2015 15" MBP from an online retailer, I went to the local Apple Store and put their demo unit through its paces. I opened up FCPX, Photos, multiple browser windows, etc. - anything to test the performance. The fans ultimately kicked in when doing more CPU-intensive tasks (like they do on the one I eventually purchased), but were very quiet when doing the type of activity you describe.

Sounds to me like you got 2 bad ones, as mine is very quiet until I start doing something like importing lots of images and creating previews in Photos, or rendering/exporting video from iMovie. Other than that, it's quiet.
 
My 2015 15 rMBP runs at ~60C with normal use (of course it will get lower if I close all apps and do nothing). However, running Flash (e.g. Twitch) always starts the fan.

Never had this problem with my MBA, but then again, it ain't retina. I've noticed retina really pushes the machine.

My 3 solutions so far has been
1) Don't do a lot of torrenting. Quite cpu intensive
2) Uninstall flash. Luckily, both Youtube and Twitch works great now without flash. Don't forget that Chrome comes with flash built-in, and Chrome can overall be quite cpu intensive even with flash disabled.
3) Install the free version of Turbo Boost Switcher http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com. I know 3rd party apps shouldn't be needed for a silent computer, yet I had to use CoolBook for the early MBA's back in the days and now I use Turbo Boost Switcher.
 
poobear said:
My 2015 15 rMBP runs at ~60C with normal use (of course it will get lower if I close all apps and do nothing). However, running Flash (e.g. Twitch) always starts the fan.

Never had this problem with my MBA, but then again, it ain't retina. I've noticed retina really pushes the machine.

My 3 solutions so far has been
1) Don't do a lot of torrenting. Quite cpu intensive
2) Uninstall flash. Luckily, both Youtube and Twitch works great now without flash. Don't forget that Chrome comes with flash built-in, and Chrome can overall be quite cpu intensive even with flash disabled.
3) Install the free version of Turbo Boost Switcher http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com. I know 3rd party apps shouldn't be needed for a silent computer, yet I had to use CoolBook for the early MBA's back in the days and now I use Turbo Boost Switcher.
Click to expand...

One minor note: Giving credit where it's due, Google has made a lot of improvements with Chrome's CPU/RAM usage starting with v45. So, it no longer is the CPU/RAM beast that it once was.

Latest stable is v46, which mostly was released to update Flash (no surprise.)

Anyway, the whole Chrome point is kinda moot for this thread anyway, since the OP stated that they aren't running Chrome on the new system (they were running it on their older 13", which didn't sound like it was ready to take off.)

Can't really compare fan noise between 13" and 15" though, because the 13" will always be more quiet. Why? Because the 13" has only 1 fan. The 15" has 2. Therefore, by design, the 15" will always produce more fan noise.
 
My Mid-2012 fan kept going on and making this annoying sound, this happened when I dropped my 5S on the keyboard, I'm guessing someone dropped the box when still sealed, causing damage to the inner fans.
 
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