G5 desktop fan runs constantly with some programs

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tnmiketnmike
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I have a G5 dual 2.7 running 10.4.11 (Tiger) and the fan runs constantly when a program is using over 30% of the CPU. I can see this in the Activity Monitor. Nothing else is taking up any substantial amount of CPU (0.10% here and there.)

I opened a fairly small program today and it was taking 99% of the CPU. How is that possible?



The number of threads per Process Name is 1 to 6, but with the "kernel_task" the # of threads is 50. Is this normal?



When I go into the energy saver and set the performance to "reduced" the fan goes off but the CPU% is still the same for these programs. One of my programs calls for this setting to be set to "Highest". When I set it to "highest" the fan runs full throttle constantly. Any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks...



p.s I have taken the cover off and cleaned out the dust with a can of compressed air. There was a lot of dust I might add.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    tnmiketnmike Posts: 21member
    I have set the performance setting down to "reduced" and the fan is not running at all...nice, but I don't want to burn up my computer when I am running a program that takes 99% of CPU power (shown in the Activity Monitor.)

    Will my computer be safe from damage?

    Thanks...



    p.s Program is MasterWriter (songwriting program) if that means anything.
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  • Reply 2 of 4
    tnmiketnmike Posts: 21member
    Well, just to follow up. I have reinstalled Tiger 4.11 and the fan still speeds up and runs most of the time while a simple application is running (Safari, Mail, etc.)

    I ran the hardware program on the install disk to check logic board, memory, drives etc.

    Everything checked out OK.

    This seems abnormal for the fan to run fast when the slightest bit of cpu is used. I have 2.5 gigs of RAM. Computer is a G5 2.7 gig Dual PPC.

    Anyone having this problem?

    Thanks for your help.

    Mike
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  • Reply 3 of 4
    futurepastnowfuturepastnow Posts: 1,772member
    That's one of the liquid-cooled models, as I recall. Maybe she's sprung a leak.
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  • Reply 4 of 4
    tnmiketnmike Posts: 21member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FuturePastNow View Post


    That's one of the liquid-cooled models, as I recall. Maybe she's sprung a leak.



    Didn't know it was liquid-cooled. Haven't notice anything inside that is suspect.

    Maybe it is jusy the way these Macs run. Really weird that it revs up to high speed fan to open the Mail or Safari, or Simple Text.
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