MBA running too hot, after previous 6 months of cool.

[yegon]

I've a 2011 13" 1.8ghz i7, bought at launch. Until about a week ago, it'd typically run at about 50-55 degrees c when I'm using just Safari & iTunes, fans at default 2000rpm. Now it's ALWAYS at about 85+ and the fans are spinning up to about 3200. If I quit everything its still staying 80+. Battery, inevitably, is taking a massive hit. Suggestions?

All else fails, I'll have to take it to the Apple store

 

[simsaladimbamba]

______________________________________________________
Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.
Also check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example

Further reading:

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Making The Most of Activity Monitor
What Is Activity Monitor (or How to Take Your Mac's Pulse)​

______________________________________________________​

 

[yegon]

And like THAT, it's solved! Cheers.

Duh, can't believe I hadn't tried that already.

Aah, running at 42 degrees now, lovely.

 

[matthewHUB]

And like THAT, it's solved! Cheers.

Duh, can't believe I hadn't tried that already.

Aah, running at 42 degrees now, lovely.

What was it?

 

[TheRealDamager]

What was it?

This! What was it - let us know...

 

[yegon]

It was something called KiesWifiAgent, no doubt related to the (ghastly) Kies software I installed last week after getting a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 (the latest one with the 1280x800 Super Amoled Plus Display).

The WifiAgent was using a shocking 90% CPU time in the background. What had stumped me was that it survived reboots, just have to remember to kill it when I restart, or dig around in the preferences to disable it. Given I reboot about once or twice or month, it's not an issue. Its nice having my icy cool mba back though, can't believe I stupidly ignored it for a week and forgot the most obvious solution!

 

[jterp7]

It was something called KiesWifiAgent, no doubt related to the (ghastly) Kies software I installed last week after getting a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 (the latest one with the 1280x800 Super Amoled Plus Display).

The WifiAgent was using a shocking 90% CPU time in the background. What had stumped me was that it survived reboots, just have to remember to kill it when I restart, or dig around in the preferences to disable it. Given I reboot about once or twice or month, it's not an issue. Its nice having my icy cool mba back though, can't believe I stupidly ignored it for a week and forgot the most obvious solution!

for me it was always something in dashboardclient. Ironically I used to have task manager on the pc open constantly, so keeping activity monitor opened isn't a large change. I guess I'm disappointed that this is necessary on a mac at all.