MBA fans not that effective?

[hellobenny]

Do any of you guys notice that the mba fan doesn't cool the machine down that much?

I was playing around with my fan speed today using the smc command line utility. What I did was run something intensive enough to heat up the cpu to around 60-65C while running the fans at 6200 rpm. At that point I lowered the max fan speed to 2500 rpm. What I noticed was that the temp only went up 2-3C after I lowered the fan speed down to 2500 rpm.

What this means to me is that the mba fan isn't doing that much in terms of cooling... I'm hoping is that this is just how the mba was designed to be, that is, to be passively cooled and to not rely on the fan too much. If this is the case, then setting the max fan speed to around 4500 shouldn't matter so much, because the fans aren't effective anyway.

I've come to realize a lot of people's complains about the mba are only about fanspeed, but little do they realize that the fan isn't really indicative of much on the mba. I say as long as your cores aren't shutting down and your mba isn't burning you, then your mba is fine.

What do you guys think?

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

i agree with your post. however, i have found that ever since i installed coolbook and smc, but max cpu temperature has increased quite a bit under 100% load. on the stock machine, the max cpu temp would settle around 85C, but with the programs installed, it now goes 100C+. it's really not a problem to me though since i won't ever run the cpu at 100% load (unless i'm stress testing).

 

[eXan]

i have found that ever since i installed coolbook and smc, but max cpu temperature has increased quite a bit under 100% load. on the stock machine, the max cpu temp would settle around 85C, but with the programs installed, it now goes 100C+.

Thats why you don't mess around with expensive equipment, especially if its working fine...

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

it wasn't working fine. the cpu fan would hit 6200RPM constantly before I installed coolbook and smc. now that i have those two apps installed, i'm getting longer battery life and am less bothered by the fan. again, the only time it will hit 100C is under full load. my mba will NEVER get that hot under normal use. most of the time, it idles in the 40s-50s.

as a side note: i wish i didn't have to mess with the mba to get it to function properly, but it is to be expected of a 1st gen machine.

 

[eXan]

it wasn't working fine. the cpu fan would hit 6200RPM constantly before I installed coolbook and smc. now that i have those two apps installed, i'm getting longer battery life and am less bothered by the fan. again, the only time it will hit 100C is under full load. my mba will NEVER get that hot under normal use. most of the time, it idles in the 40s-50s.

as a side note: i wish i didn't have to mess with the mba to get it to function properly, but it is to be expected of a 1st gen machine.

You never thought that its the way Apple meant it to run? Which means it ran fine.

Its your MBA however so do what you want with it.

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

well if apple really designed the mba to increase the fan speed to max on something as simple as a youtube video, there is something seriously wrong. sure the mba ran fine the way it was, but now it runs even better with the few modifications and is great for my needs.

 

[eXan]

well if apple really designed the mba to increase the fan speed to max on something as simple as a youtube video, there is something seriously wrong.

A simple youtube video is not as simple in OS X as you might think. Next time you watch it, monitor your CPU usage. Flash takes ridiculous amounts of CPU % in OS X so its natural that fans start spinning faster.

Its the same with all Macs.