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new air owners, what apps triggers your fan?

J

jayo123456

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 29, 2010
213
0
I'm pretty big on silent pc's (need dead silent, love my curr ssd), wondering what apps gets the fan going?


apps I need dead silence:
pdfs'
word '11
webbrowsing
calendar

all the above multitasked, does the fan come on?
 
Just seeing that Apple logo glowing gets my inner fan going every time.....

Serious answer:

Flash and Steam will get my fans running almost immediately on my 13" MBA...slow whisper at first for Flash, but with enough use, they rev up. Steam will peg them at max almost immediately upon executing a game. Skype will also get them running...really the only time it annoys me as the sound of the fans is loud enough to distract me during Skype webcam calls, particularly since the microphone on the MBA is situated on the same side as the fan exhaust port.

Running Parallels won't trigger the fans until I get a few Windows apps loaded in same.

Otherwise, while just browsing, using MS Office apps, even PowerPoint or Keynote....silent.
 
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Anything that warms up the CPU. It can be an intensive app or a couple of apps running in parallel, like it can be environmental factors (lack of proper cooling due to high ambient heat). Apps themselves don't trigger the fans.
 
i can live with having the fan on using flash..


but can anyone else confirm? running word11, borwsing, n itunes..... the fan never comes on?

this is basically the tipping point for me. If this aspect is good, I'll be ordering in a day or two.
 
My fan has only come on twice and both times I was running iTunes. Last night I was making playlists and doing a lot of searches for different songs in my library and in the iTunes Store.

I had Firefox, Mail, and iTunes open during these times. EDIT: And Yahoo Messenger.

13 inch, 1.86, 4GB, 128SSD
 
FLASH, FLASH, FLASH, and more FLASH!
Clicktoflash has been a Godsend.
 
Not sure if my hearing just isn't very sensitive, but I haven't heard the fan yet on my 11". The only time it happened was when I tried watching a youtube video at 1080p.

I've used Pages, iTunes, iPhoto, and even Skype without the fan. Did color adjustments on Photoshop CS5 with nothing. However, the bottom did get warm.

Just warm, not even hot. I love my Air.
 
Which MBA? I've found the 13" will get the fan going faster and louder than the 11" (but of course it's running faster). It takes a lot to get the 11" fan spinning enough to notice. I don't use Word 11, but unless you visit lots of flash sites, none of the apps you listed will cause the 11" or 13" to rev up.
 
anyone mind running a test for me?


im on my mbp right now, with 7 pdfs open, Macrumors in firefox, 2 word docs, 1 excel, ical, and iTunes open.

smcFanControl shows 53 degrees C, and 2000rpm, completely silent.


if someone could run that on a 13" MBA I would greatly appreciate it.
 
Sorry to revive an old thread and hijack it at the same time but I'm wondering whether there's something wrong with my MBA 11.
No matter what I do, I never get the fan spinning faster than the default ~2000rpm (according to SMCFanControl). That's why I just ran a Prime95 torture test, which brought the CPU to 71°C/160°F – and the fan still didn't kick in.

Does anybody know how high the CPU temp has to be on the MBA 11 for the fan to kick in?
 
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