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Macbook Unibody CPU fans don't turn on!

J

jadamcyk

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 25, 2008
14
0
Chicago, IL
I need some advice,

I have a late 2009 Macbook Unibody that get extremely hot. From using SMCFanControl it tells me it's at 80-90 degrees celcius which to me is extremely hot. The fans also do not kick in at all when it gets at this level. When using skype, it skyrockets over 100 degrees celcius which causes my computer to slow down.

Is anyone else having this issue? Do you think it's a hardware malfunction? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
 
How come you got dust in your fan in just a few days?

I have a similar problem with my late 2009 Macbook, only the fan is stuck at 2000 rpm (which may be the idling speed) even when the CPU reaches 90°C and beyond. I brought it to the Apple Reseller and they asked me to run the hardware test... said they were going to call Apple and check with them. The fan noise is extremely low, my only concern is I don't want to fry the CPU.
 
sinophilia said:
How come you got dust in your fan in just a few days?

I have a similar problem with my late 2009 Macbook, only the fan is stuck at 2000 rpm (which may be the idling speed) even when the CPU reaches 90°C and beyond. I brought it to the Apple Reseller and they asked me to run the hardware test... said they were going to call Apple and check with them. The fan noise is extremely low, my only concern is I don't want to fry the CPU.
Click to expand...

Let me know what they say. I seem to be having the same issue with my 2009 Macbook Pro. I can't seem to get a straight answer about when the fans should speed up to deal with the temperature.
 
jaredelguay said:
Let me know what they say. I seem to be having the same issue with my 2009 Macbook Pro. I can't seem to get a straight answer about when the fans should speed up to deal with the temperature.
Click to expand...

On my 2ghz Unibody, the fans start to ramp up from 2000rpm ~65-68C CPU temperature or so.
 
I went to my Apple Reseller and in the end it seems that the Macbook is working fine like this.
My fan works - I ran an extended hardware test (no trouble found) and it finally started to spin up to 2,700 rpm, than after restart it soon went back to 2,000. To make it go faster (by 40 or 60 rpm only!) I had to keep the CPU at 95°C for more than ten minutes. The factor that affects the fan behavior the most seems to be the heatsink temp - it has to be over 70°C for my fan to spin faster.

I will keep an eye on the little white guy and try to enjoy the silence...
 
sinophilia said:
I went to my Apple Reseller and in the end it seems that the Macbook is working fine like this.
My fan works - I ran an extended hardware test (no trouble found) and it finally started to spin up to 2,700 rpm, than after restart it soon went back to 2,000. To make it go faster (by 40 or 60 rpm only!) I had to keep the CPU at 95°C for more than ten minutes. The factor that affects the fan behavior the most seems to be the heatsink temp - it has to be over 70°C for my fan to spin faster.

I will keep an eye on the little white guy and try to enjoy the silence...
Click to expand...

Seems reasonable, I guess, since the fan would be drawing the air out of the heatsink. So If the heatsink isn't hot, then there is no heat to draw out of the computer.
 
jaredelguay said:
Seems reasonable, I guess, since the fan would be drawing the air out of the heatsink. So If the heatsink isn't hot, then there is no heat to draw out of the computer.
Click to expand...

On the flip side though, the CPU core temp is sky high. That suggests poor contact of the core with the heatsink-->poor thermal paste application/over-application...which used to be an issue with some of the MacBooks
 
NewMacbookPlz said:
On the flip side though, the CPU core temp is sky high. That suggests poor contact of the core with the heatsink-->poor thermal paste application/over-application...which used to be an issue with some of the MacBooks
Click to expand...

Also reasonable. I'm trying to decide if it's worth sending in while it's still under warranty and have it checked out.
 
jaredelguay said:
Also reasonable. I'm trying to decide if it's worth sending in while it's still under warranty and have it checked out.
Click to expand...

I most definitely would. IMO heat is one of the biggest enemies of computer hardware in terms of early failure (other than external liquid type issues).
 
sinophilia said:
How come you got dust in your fan in just a few days?

I have a similar problem with my late 2009 Macbook, only the fan is stuck at 2000 rpm (which may be the idling speed) even when the CPU reaches 90°C and beyond. I brought it to the Apple Reseller and they asked me to run the hardware test... said they were going to call Apple and check with them. The fan noise is extremely low, my only concern is I don't want to fry the CPU.
Click to expand...

I have no clue, when i opened it up there was a ton there... I installed smcfancontrol and now i can control the fan speeds, i have it at a constant 4500rpm to keep the temperature down.. im not sure if keeping the fan high always will do any damage though, probably not though. if yours is getting as high as 90 and above you shoudl definitely download this software. good luck!
 
jadamcyk said:
I have no clue, when i opened it up there was a ton there... I installed smcfancontrol and now i can control the fan speeds, i have it at a constant 4500rpm to keep the temperature down.. im not sure if keeping the fan high always will do any damage though, probably not though. if yours is getting as high as 90 and above you shoudl definitely download this software. good luck!
Click to expand...

I must say that I was only able to bring the CPU to over 90 degrees by opening lots of apps and running two HD videos on Youtube at the same time... so if during normal use it stays around 60-70°C with the fan spinning at 2000 rpm everything should be fine. I'm not a fan of fan noise :p and 4500 rpm sounds pretty noisy to me. I had a 12" Powerbook before and I hated that fan...
 
I've decided to just bite the bullet and take mine in. Between this and the annoying buzz that comes out of the left side of the machine, I think it's worth looking into. I'm still under warranty and we have an authorized service provider here.

Wish me luck!
 
Got my Macbook Pro back and they insist there is no problem to be found. I'm not satisfied, though. The fans shouldn't stay at 2000 rpm when the CPU is at 90C!
 
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