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SR MBP - Do your fans run max when charging?

This has happened to me two or three times before. When the battery has been drained almost completely in all cases. At about 30% the fans speed up but they dont go to max speed, i would say 3500 rpm if i remember. At the time i had the fan widget. Its the one with two spinning fans adn it tells you the rpm. Thats it.

I no longer use that widget, i now use iStat which is excellent. I always suspected that fan widget of being incredibly buggy because whenever i had it running, my temps would be 2 or 3 degrees celcius hotter then when it is not running. I don't know what could explain this because as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't take much processing power to read the temp unless the widget is polling at an insane rate.
 
twynne said:
I don't believe a reinstallation of OSX would touch the machine's firmware. I know you can download firmware restoration from Apple, but it's not clear if this applies to the SR models as it hasn't been updated since 2006. Anyone?
Click to expand...


Dang, I'm paranoid now. Does anyone know if software outside of Apple can modify firmware? Specifically do these fan controlling software even touch the firmware?
 
twynne said:
Cheers, if you get a chance to try the SMC reset please post your results back here.

Thanks,

Tom
Click to expand...

No change.

Out of curiosity does it seem to happen when you are doing anything specific?
What surface are you using it on?
 
wirwzd said:
No change.

Out of curiosity does it seem to happen when you are doing anything specific?
What surface are you using it on?
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing or where it's sitting when charging. I've had it sitting on top of a bed, also on top of a cabinet. There is always adequate airflow.
 
wirwzd said:
Highly unlikely IMHO
Click to expand...

Yeah I am hoping it didn't mess up my machine. But it seems that my fans are constantly running (although at minimum speed). In coparison, my dell only kicks the fan in during load.
 
This stopped happening on my MBP, but at the same time my battery capacity went *way* down (The cycle count seems to increment more rapidly as well):

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4049
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 2318
Amperage (mA): -2019
Voltage (mV): 11313
Cycle Count: 10

Also, when I looked under System Profiler under power at a 17" of the same model in the Apple store, the full charge capacity was much higher than mine ever was.

I have been through multiple SMC resets and two calibration cycles with no correction. Not sure if its the charging circuit or just a bad battery but Apple is giving me a replacement battery so I guess we'll find out.

I'll post back once I get a replacement with results.
 
While on the topic of fans, what speed is normal? Mine seem to always run at 1995-2100 rpms. I can't recall seeing it any higher or lower (according to iStat).

FWIW, I haven't noticed the fans speed up on my computer (17" 2.4ghz, 1920x1200 matte display, 2GB RAM, 7200rpm 160GB HDD), but I haven't paid that close attention while it's charging. I did a reinstall of OS-X last night and had the thing plugged in. I did notice that it had a faint "roar" but I figured that was just the spinning optical drive. I'll charge my MBP tonight and try to check out the fan speed for ya.

Also, where do I find this battery capacity information? I'm curious as to how mine is holding up.
 
klymr said:
While on the topic of fans, what speed is normal? Mine seem to always run at 1995-2100 rpms. I can't recall seeing it any higher or lower (according to iStat).

FWIW, I haven't noticed the fans speed up on my computer (17" 2.4ghz, 1920x1200 matte display, 2GB RAM, 7200rpm 160GB HDD), but I haven't paid that close attention while it's charging. I did a reinstall of OS-X last night and had the thing plugged in. I did notice that it had a faint "roar" but I figured that was just the spinning optical drive. I'll charge my MBP tonight and try to check out the fan speed for ya.

Also, where do I find this battery capacity information? I'm curious as to how mine is holding up.
Click to expand...


That's how my system started runningafter the battery began to go south so I think that's pretty normal. If you want to try to crank the fans run a few instances of
Code: 
yes > /dev/null
in different terminal windows. ctrl-c to stop the commands or just close the Terminal windows.

The battery capacity is under the :apple: menu under "About this Mac"->"More info"->"Hardware"->"Power"
 
My SR MBP (2.4) does not have this issue. I haven't installed any fan or temperature moniters either. (no SMC) I'll try installing SMC and see if the problem occurs
 
Ok, here is an update. The fans came on at about 5800 rpms while charging, but it was after about 20 minutes of charging and only kicked on when I opened Final Cut Pro. They did however stay on until I stepped on the power cord and pulled the magsafe plug on accident. It's hooked back up and as I am typing this the fans are running at 2700 now. When I first plugged it back in they were at the 2000 range. Anyway, hope that helps!

Oh, and fwiw, here is my battery info:

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6288
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 3282
Amperage (mA): 3313
Voltage (mV): 11603
Cycle Count: 10

How is that?
 
Ha, my battery has has gone insane:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 65336
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 65336
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12552
Cycle Count: 10
 
wirwzd said:
Ha, my battery has has gone insane:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 65336
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 65336
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12552
Cycle Count: 10
Click to expand...

I wish my battery had that capacity! :eek:
Let's hope your new one is better.
 
Now I can't keep the system unpugged for more than 5 minutes before it shuts down.

Good thing I will be able to pick up a new battery tomorrow eve as it has arrived at the apple store...
 
Things have been much better since the battery replacement.

My fans no longer spin up in a way I would not expect them to.
 
DoFoT9 said:
wow thats great news!!! i wonder what was causing it... im hoping that i can get my battery replaced soon as well
Click to expand...

Are you experiencing the same issue as far as the capacity dropping?

Mine will still spin up a bit if charging but only if the battery is low and I am using it on my couch (which I would expect as it is a soft surface which hiders airflow and heat dissipation). When I pick it up for a bit or move it to a hard surface the fans come back down.

Someone else posted that their fans spin up when their memory controller temp increases, I haven't looked at the specs but i have a suspicion the memory controller may be near the battery compartment or charging circuit? This may cause the fans to kick in more readily when charging a battery.

When I had a bad battery it was probably constantly trying to charge it causing the circuit to heat up and the fans to eventually spin to max.

Just a theory though.
 
I don't appear to have any issues with my battery, but the fans still behave as described in my original post... regardless of what surface it's sitting on. I'm convinced there's an issue there.
 
My fans do not turn on when charging, at least not at first like you described. I was using it the other day while charging it and after maybe 10-15 minutes they sped up to about 4500 or so and after a few minutes they dropped back down to 2000. I think you got something going on there.
 
wirwzd said:
Are you experiencing the same issue as far as the capacity dropping?

Mine will still spin up a bit if charging but only if the battery is low and I am using it on my couch (which I would expect as it is a soft surface which hiders airflow and heat dissipation). When I pick it up for a bit or move it to a hard surface the fans come back down.

Someone else posted that their fans spin up when their memory controller temp increases, I haven't looked at the specs but i have a suspicion the memory controller may be near the battery compartment or charging circuit? This may cause the fans to kick in more readily when charging a battery.

When I had a bad battery it was probably constantly trying to charge it causing the circuit to heat up and the fans to eventually spin to max.

Just a theory though.
Click to expand...

yea my capacity was under half that of my original capacity.. it was down to about 2700ish. was only getting about 1hr45 with screen dimmed to minimum and cpu at like 7%. it was insane.

everything will be ok tho, i took my battery back yesterday..nice 45min drive with dad up to the apple store on the gold coast :) ill get it back in a coupla days and ill be fine.
 
same issue

I have a 15" SR MBP. Just noticed this issue and came to the forums to make sure I'm not alone and found this thread.

I was running on battery power, with just a few safari windows open, fans were slow. Went down to 7 or 8% power so I plugged in. Fans immediately started spinning very fast (~5500 rpm). I am using istat pro.

I don't think this issue has anything to do with the migration assistant as I did not use it at all.

I am up to 25% battery power now and the fans are still spinning fast but have come down a bit (~5000 rpm).

This seems like a bug to me, don't see why the fans have to spin up this quick when under charge.

I haven't noticed this before, although it's very possible it has happened. I have also rarely, if ever, let the battery power get this low so maybe that has something to do with it.

I just unplugged to see what would happen and the speed dropped almost immediately, I'm at ~2000 rpm which is normal.

I just plugged back in and the fans are slowly spinning up to a high speed (right now at 4300 rpm and rising).
 
Not gonna lie, I have an SR MBP 15" and this same thing happens to me. I run the battery down somewhat low, plug it in and the fan starts running faster and faster and faster; freaks me out sometimes. Is there any definitive resolution to this?
 
just wanted to post my thoughts
This strange phenomenon is happening to me to. Battery power got really low, plug my charger in and 10 min later the fans start shoot up (it didn't go up to 6000+ rpms thank goodness, but it got close). It later went down back to the normal 2000 rpms
I am starting to think it has something to do with how low you let the battery run because as I recall, this has never happened before and the two times it did happen I had let the battery run down into the red zone(can't remember exact charge)
 
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