My macbook fan is almost constantly on, running hot and sluggish

[oakiegu007]

I have a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo macbook. I'm running it with 2 GB of ram and on 10.5.2. In the past couple of months, my fan seems to run whenever I do anything. As a result, and I assume it slows down the cpu, everything grinds to a halt. If I view video, I get a few frames every few seconds. As I'm typing, the text is lagging. I have nothing running and my activity monitor says I have around a half gb of memory free and 40% of my cpu is idle.

What's going on here...

 

[Eidorian]

The CPU produces more heat under load and then the fans spin up. What processes are using CPU time in Activity Monitor?

 

[oakiegu007]

hmm

although I think I'm confused between Idle cpu and unused cpu. Under Safari, it reads 99.9 cpu. Regardless, this happens with many programs.

 

[Eidorian]

although I think I'm confused between Idle cpu and unused cpu. Under Safari, it reads 99.9 cpu. Regardless, this happens with many programs.

Unused?

What are you doing in Safari when this happens? What about other programs? Have you tried reinstalling OS X?

 

[oakiegu007]

...

nevermin about the unused comment.

it depends. before i was just on the macrumors site. if i start up warcraft, go on youtube, open photoshop, run NeoOffice...

I haven't tried reinstalling. I probably should wipe my system.

 

[MacAodh]

My macbook began doing this too for a while. Tried reinstaling and everything and nothing worked... till one day it just worked again... odd

 

[SubliminalMac]

Memory/CPU usage fixes

You could try to run a utility that automates your cron scripts, which is what probably happened to make your computer work well again.

Try running cocktail or something of that nature 2-3 times a week. It will keep your computer working well. Always make a backup as well(time machine) just in case it is an issue that this wont fix, you can restore.

 

[PeggyD]

I have a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo macbook. I'm running it with 2 GB of ram and on 10.5.2. In the past couple of months, my fan seems to run whenever I do anything. As a result, and I assume it slows down the cpu, everything grinds to a halt. If I view video, I get a few frames every few seconds. As I'm typing, the text is lagging. I have nothing running and my activity monitor says I have around a half gb of memory free and 40% of my cpu is idle.

What's going on here...

It could be the fan is failing. I just recently had to have the right fan in my 2-year-old MacBook Pro replaced by AppleCare. If you live near an Apple Store, make an appointment with the Genius Bar & have them take a look.

 

[Eidorian]

You could try to run a utility that automates your cron scripts, which is what probably happened to make your computer work well again.

Try running cocktail or something of that nature 2-3 times a week. It will keep your computer working well. Always make a backup as well(time machine) just in case it is an issue that this wont fix, you can restore.

I don't see any reason to do this.

nevermin about the unused comment.

it depends. before i was just on the macrumors site. if i start up warcraft, go on youtube, open photoshop, run NeoOffice...

I haven't tried reinstalling. I probably should wipe my system.

Are you running all the application simultaneously?

YouTube would be Flash, Warcraft would be a game, and NeoOffice would be loading an entire suite of applications.

It could be the fan is failing. I just recently had to have the right fan in my 2-year-old MacBook Pro replaced by AppleCare. If you live near an Apple Store, make an appointment with the Genius Bar & have them take a look.

This could be possible as well but the user needs to inform more of their CPU usage given their applications.