Programs causing the fan to crank

[HBlaine]

I have a bad tendency to play with various programs under Classic on my 1.5 Ghz G4 AlBook (with 2 GB memory). I've noticed that certain programs just seem to cause the fan to automatically crank up. The worst offender is FullWrite 2.0.6. The fan will start up within 1 minute of launching the program, no matter what, and run constantly. Nisus Writer is another, though it generally takes a bit longer. Yet, I can load Wordperfect 3.5e, and work in it for hours with no trouble at all.

Is this normal for these programs? Anybody else have this problem? I love the retro feel of working with these programs, but the constant fan running just sets my nerves on edge...

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Open Activity Monitor and select All Processes and then sort by CPU to show you the process(es) slowing down your Mac or speeding up your fans or causing more heat.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

 

[eyoungren]

I use iStat menus 1.3. It shows your CPU usage (and other stats) in the menubar. You can choose what you want to display. I mention it because it will allow you to see in realtime the percentage of CPU that's being used by your programs.



Generally if your CPU spikes to 100% it heats the Mac up fast, which starts the fan. This is probably what's happening here. Different apps use different amounts of CPU.

 

[jbarley]

Open Activity Monitor and select All Processes and then sort by CPU to show you the process(es) slowing down your Mac.

Nowhere did the OP mention that their Mac was 'slowing down', the question was about their Mac's fans ramping up.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Nowhere did the OP mention that their Mac was 'slowing down', the question was about their Mac's fans ramping up.

Sorry, should have worded my question differently. Though the use of Activity Monitor still is a valid source to find the culprit.

 

[HBlaine]

Thanks Guys. Good info all around.

No, there's no slowdown on the system, just the fan starting up and running constantly with certain programs. Which is mildly annoying...

I was more interested if this is typical with these programs, etc. I'm kind of surprised that the programs I'm having the "issues" with have the issues, while others (which do the same thing) don't. Kinda weird...

 

[eyoungren]

I'm kind of surprised that the programs I'm having the "issues" with have the issues, while others (which do the same thing) don't. Kinda weird... *

TenFourFox/Firefox will pull apx. 20-65% of my CPU idling. It will always spike to 100% CPU when loading pages, processing javascript, scrolling or other functions. Seamonkey, Mozilla, Navigator and Camino, all based on Mozilla won't. My other browsers don't pull as much either.
Only Opera will consistently idle at below 20% and rarely goes above 75% on loading pages.
My point is that all of these apps are all browsers (which do the same thing), but some are way more CPU intensive than others.

 

[HBlaine]

TenFourFox/Firefox will pull apx. 20-65% of my CPU idling. It will always spike to 100% CPU when loading pages, processing javascript, scrolling or other functions. Seamonkey, Mozilla, Navigator and Camino, all based on Mozilla won't. My other browsers don't pull as much either.
Only Opera will consistently idle at below 20% and rarely goes above 75% on loading pages.
My point is that all of these apps are all browsers (which do the same thing), but some are way more CPU intensive than others.

Interesting. I just installed TenFourFox on my system. Have to how my milage goes.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised with what's happening. Some of these programs were notorious resource hogs in their day, and I'm running them through the extra layer of Classic emulation. Not surprising at all that the processor spikes and heats up.

 

[skinniezinho]

I use iStat menus 1.3. It shows your CPU usage (and other stats) in the menubar. You can choose what you want to display. I mention it because it will allow you to see in realtime the percentage of CPU that's being used by your programs.



Generally if your CPU spikes to 100% it heats the Mac up fast, which starts the fan. This is probably what's happening here. Different apps use different amounts of CPU.

I just want to tell that I used a old version of istat menus (I guess the one for tiger) and it put the cpus to 100%, better use activity monitor.

 

[zen.state]

I just want to tell that I used a old version of istat menus (I guess the one for tiger) and it put the cpus to 100%, better use activity monitor.

In my experiences istat menus 2.0 uses only about 10-25% the CPU of Activity monitor on 10.5. Even lower with 1.3 back in the Tiger days.

For me Activity Monitor is around 2-3% CPU vs. 0.4 - 0.8% for 2.0 on 10.5. I use 5 istat menus.. CPU, Hard Drive activity and network activity (all update every 0.5 seconds) then temperatures and memory that updates every 10 sec.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks for that! I forgot I could adjust the monitoring times.