Black Macbook Fan constantly running on high

string333 · March 6, 2008 12:32PM

Recently my cooling fan has been running at what sounds like full speed and never resumes a quiet speed. I have not used it any differently than I have since I bought it (in January) and have not really added anything to it in the way of downloads. Any suggestions???

ozzieboy · March 7, 2008 7:57PM

I'd suggest you call Apple. If you just bought it new or as an Apple refurb, it's got a one-year warranty.

pb · March 8, 2008 8:25AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by String333

Recently my cooling fan has been running at what sounds like full speed and never resumes a quiet speed. I have not used it any differently than I have since I bought it (in January) and have not really added anything to it in the way of downloads. Any suggestions???

Take a look in the Activity Monitor to see if any process stresses constantly the system.

ghosthardware · March 12, 2008 9:52PM

I'm having the exact same problem.

ghosthardware · March 12, 2008 9:54PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PB

Take a look in the Activity Monitor to see if any process stresses constantly the system.

When I opened up Activity Monitor the program itself had the highest CPU reading.

pb · March 13, 2008 3:30AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GhostHardware

When I opened up Activity Monitor the program itself had the highest CPU reading.

Hmm... strange. You can check CPU usage from the Terminal too: just type top -u -s3 (to take samples every 3 seconds) and look at the output.

zekedumke4 · March 20, 2008 1:41PM

The activity monitor showed that the program itself was the highest consumer of the CPU, but by using the code in terminal that PB pointed me to (thanks PB) it turned out that 99% of the CPU was being used by the print manager that was trying to print to a non connected printer. If you check the printer setting and kill the process my fan dropped and CPU cooled almost immediately.

msp68 · March 30, 2008 9:47AM

I have been having the same problem with my white macbook and found this thread while doing a search to figure out what's wrong. Thank you for the suggestion on checking the activity monitor, oddly enough I found the same thing - an old printer that is no longer connected (which I thought I had deleted) had the highest CPU reading. I forced quit the program in the activity monitor and the fan stopped immediately. I have since then searched and deleted from my hard drive anything relevant to that printer.

obiobson · March 31, 2008 8:06AM

I want to thank you guys for your extremely clever and absolutely to-the-point suggestions. My girl friend had the exact same problem with her MacBook, fans running at full speed all the time (which was a major source of frustration). So I searched all kinds of forums and was given all kinds of inadequat advice (even suggesting a broken connection on the mainboard ...).

So I was lucky stumbling over your exchange of thoughts and - well - the print job thing did the trick! My appretiation.

fish2live · April 16, 2008 1:49PM

My new macbook has been running its fan on high and sucking the battery down very quickly. I solved the problem with the same solution?opening activity monitor to view the cpu load?but I found a different culprit. I have Mail set up to download email from a hotmail account, using the httpmail plugin. It only works intermittently but it appears that Mail never stops trying. My activity monitor showed a kernel task that used over 50% of the cpu on both cores and beneath it the Mail app was showing the same cpu load. I had to force quit Mail too. When I tried to quit normally the app froze and the cpu load rose slightly.

After quitting Mail my cpu showed about 95% idle, even with a slew of other apps open.

It seems like a good general rule that if your fan runs constantly there must be a load of some kind on the cpu. My activity monitor showed the problem, but I think the real pearl of wisdom is in that Terminal command.

harpie · August 5, 2008 5:59PM

You guys, are amazing. Thank god I found this post.

Incidentally, what printers were you all using? I wonder if it's an inherent problem with one particular printer manufacturer. Mine was for a wireless lexmark machine.

And yep, the fan just wound down in seconds, blissfully quiet again.

Only problem is, how am I going to tell my partner that I think we need to send her lovely new printer back?

hey ho.

thanks again

drazztikka · August 9, 2008 10:51AM

I have an app called 'menumeters' which shows CPU, network and RAM activity in the menubar.

Always handy to see if a process hangs and is using up useless cpu cycles.

U can get it from versiontracker.com

spinnerlys · August 9, 2008 1:04PM

You can also use iStatMenues from iSlayer.com.

There is an option to show the temperatures of many components like CPU, Airport, Battery and HDD. And a MacBook runs a lot hotter under the same load as an iMac, due to the enclosure.

The fan is therefore heard more often.

dimbulb771 · September 24, 2008 9:12PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PB

Hmm... strange. You can check CPU usage from the Terminal too: just type top -u -s3 (to take samples every 3 seconds) and look at the output.

I found the to offending processes in the terminal but the do not show up in the activity monitor and I dont know how to end them from the terminal. also they are for a lexmark which i do not own and never have

brocksampson2008 · September 30, 2008 8:44AM

I started having the same problem and the solution seems to be the same. A printer that is ot even hooked up. I wonder if there is a way to get the computer to notify you about issues like this to make problem solving easier?

mp3mp · October 3, 2008 12:45AM

thanks so much

pb · October 3, 2008 3:53PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dimbulb771

I found the to offending processes in the terminal but the do not show up in the activity monitor and I dont know how to end them from the terminal. also they are for a lexmark which i do not own and never have

Oh, while still in Terminal, you can get the PID number for the processes through top (the first column from the left in the top output). You enter then "kill -9 PID number". For example

kill -9 1293

if the process you want to kill has 1293 as PID in the top output.

rokcet scientist · October 6, 2008 3:44AM

I just posted a warning about what sounds like this same problem and what I did about it. You may recognise some stuff.

wadesteele · March 4, 2009 6:56PM

I am having all the same issues that I am hearing others hear describe. I did what was recommended and I only see one issue, it is a kernel task and it will not let me kill it. I even tried to stop it from the Activity Monitor but it will not let me.

I understand that the MacBooks run a bit hotter but all I have to do is open Safari and the fan fires up - this is not normal nor has it been in the past. I have had Leopard for about a year now and it only recently, the past 6 months, that this started up. Thanks for any input!

markyboy81 · May 4, 2009 4:57PM

Just wanted to say thanks! Fans have been running at a ridiculous speed for ages now and hadn't been able to figure it out....was about to send it to apple for an out of warranty repair, but discovered a rogue print job hiding in the background thanks to your advice.

Muchos Gracias

Mark

richter9point6 · May 11, 2009 4:37PM

Yes I found a print job sitting in the print queue of my airport express-connected printer. I tried to print something and the printer was off so it just sat in the queue.

Interesting to note that I'd rebooted my Macbook several times since too but it was still sitting there waiting to be deleted.

Btw with Activity Monitor, don't forget to change it to show "All Processes" in the drop-down toolbar. This helped me diagnose the print queue issue.

Black Macbook Fan constantly running on high

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