Black Macbook Fan constantly running on high

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 49
    anna banna b Posts: 1member
    Thank you. I was having the same problem with a white macbook. The culprit turned out to be not a printer but a solitaire game widget I'd installed into my dashboard. Silence is golden!
  • Reply 22 of 49
    bermedbermed Posts: 1member
    I talked with a specialist because I had the same problem and no program running all the time. It turns out some times the fan gets stuck in the high position. All you have to do to reset it is turn the computer off, remove the battery, disconnect the power adapter, and hold the power button down for 5 seconds. The problem disappears when you start your macbook up again.
  • Reply 23 of 49
    I have had the same problem for a couple of weeks and thanks to this thread identified the issue. I had a Lexmark printer process utilizing 100% of cpu, but you couldn't see it at all on activity monitor. I had to use the terminal program to see it.



    use the following command from the terminal window to see the top cpu process

    top -u -s3



    Identify the offending process by the PID # and remember it.



    Kill the offending process with the following command



    sudo kill -9 561




    replace 561 with the PID from the offending process.
  • Reply 24 of 49
    You guys rock! Rogue print job... back up to five hours battery life... Life saver! Thank You!!
  • Reply 25 of 49
    My Macbook fan has been running constantly for months, even plugged in with the battery out. So I was worried that I was going to have to pay someone to fix it or have to buy a new battery or replace the fan. . . ugh! Then I finally found this thread and deleted the friggin printer and my computer instantly went quite. It was such a relief! Thanks so much!
  • Reply 26 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PB View Post


    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.



    Thanks for the tip about Terminal.. it found a process running at 98% of cpu where Activity Monitor showed nothing of significance.

    I tried your tip on killing it but got the following message :



    WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss

    or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your

    typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.



    To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.



    Password:

    Sorry, try again.

    Password:

    kill: illegal process id: 466-

    Macintosh-4:~ rodkeech$ sudo kill -9 466-

    kill: illegal process id: 466-





    when i tried entering the password no characters could be typed at that spot. Not sure if this was the reason for the message or not . Am stuck now.. any suggestions?? Thanks in advance
  • Reply 27 of 49
    ajayajay Posts: 117member
    My black MacBook used to have this problem when it was running 10.4. there always was some rogue print job or process that would make the fan reach ~6300rpm. but a few weeks ago, i upgraded to 10.6... and after that the problem seems to have automatically gone away. in fact, after upgrading, I've never seen the fan go above 1800 rpm. i'm not saying that the upgrade to 10.6 alone was the reason, but perhaps the clean install might have helped too.
  • Reply 28 of 49
    Thank-you for the tip to show all processes. My culprit was Intego X5 Virus Detection. I installed it a while ago as part of a package I purchased somewhere. I used App Zapper to get rid of it and the fan started to slow down immediately.



    Cheers







    Quote:
    Originally Posted by richter9point6 View Post


    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.



  • Reply 29 of 49
    My fan has been running for so long I was about to go to Apple store today. Then I did a quick search and this thread saved me a trip! Thanks so much. This was totally accurate. I had a print job since the last week of February caught up in there. YOU GUYS ROCK!
  • Reply 30 of 49
    simbagsimbag Posts: 1member
    I am having similar problems, fan is not always on, but nearly as good as!



    As we speak fan is running at over 5000rpm, but is nearly 90% idle. I can fire my macbook up, let it log on, and just leave it on the desktop without doing anything and it will not take long for the fan to kick in.



    I have tried suggestion above, as well as some resets that I have read about elsewhere, nothing has had the desired effect. As it seems my cpu is not being overworked why does it need the fan to be on so frequently?



    What is the temp that the fan should be kicking in at? Currently cpu is 64C. I could shut everything down right now, and it would probably cool down for a very short period, but would then kick again very soon after. I have recently upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2 GB, so its surprising me even more!



    Please help, this is starting to wind me up!!



    Thanks
  • Reply 31 of 49
    I was having problems of the fans spinning up on my MacBook after a few minutes of logging in (cutting my battery life from 4hrs to 1&1/2 hrs) and was convinced there must have been some process that was responsible for this. Checking Activity Monitor or using top showed that no process was using more than 5% CPU and yet in top ~40% CPU was assigned to User and ~20% was assigned to System.



    My problems had started after I reinstalled Adobe CS3 on my system so I was convinced that this had something to do with the problem. I noticed that Adobe Version Cue had installed as a login item and as I never used this removed it from my login items. This in itself didn't help but undeterred I decided to remove the entire application - this involves running the uninstaller from the CS3 DVD. After doing this my fans have now returned to their normal behaviour and I'm now getting my 4hrs of battery life again.



    It seems that Flash isn't the only pos battery chewing application that Adobe deem fit to charge us vast amounts of money for - it certainly makes me want to look for alternative applications to those Adobe CS tools that they milk vast sums of money for from Mac users on a regular basis.















    Quote:
    Originally Posted by simbag View Post


    I am having similar problems, fan is not always on, but nearly as good as!



    As we speak fan is running at over 5000rpm, but is nearly 90% idle. I can fire my macbook up, let it log on, and just leave it on the desktop without doing anything and it will not take long for the fan to kick in.



    I have tried suggestion above, as well as some resets that I have read about elsewhere, nothing has had the desired effect. As it seems my cpu is not being overworked why does it need the fan to be on so frequently?



    What is the temp that the fan should be kicking in at? Currently cpu is 64C. I could shut everything down right now, and it would probably cool down for a very short period, but would then kick again very soon after. I have recently upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2 GB, so its surprising me even more!



    Please help, this is starting to wind me up!!



    Thanks



  • Reply 32 of 49
    Greetings everyone! I have done everything under the sun to try and fix the fan from running continuously. It seems that all i have to do for it to go full blast is to simply turn on the computer. Needless to say, its driving me MAD!!! right now i only have running firefox and the fan is @ 6192. I have done the terminal thing to verify all processes only to find that there are no process actively running taking more than 1.4% of the CPU (Other than the Firebox bin and window server (which right now are taking an average of 20% of the CPU between the 2). I tested quitting some processes using the terminal command (while not using the internet) and the fan kept on @ full blast while the CPU allocation ranged between 2-4% to user and 3-5 for the system (idle averaging around 92%). I have even removed all of the background running apps like Checkup, Ifreememory, and Iantivirus and cleaned my dashboard of unnecessary widgets. I did the resetting of the PMU and the SCM. Again no result. I frankly do not know what to do. Other than the annoying sound of the fan the computer runs fine. I did upgrade the memory to 4gigs and changed the drive to a 500(7.4k rpm). could these upgrades have anything to do with the problem? What other factors could cause the cooling fan to behave like this?



    here are my comps specs:

    Model NametMacBook

    Model IdentifiertMacBook3,1

    Processor NametIntel Core 2 Duo

    Processor Speedt2 GHz

    Number Of Processorst1

    Total Number Of Corest2

    L2 Cachet4 MB

    Memoryt4 GB

    Bus Speedt800 MHz

    Boot ROM VersiontMB31.008E.B02

    SMC Version (system)t1.24f2

    Sudden Motion Sensor:

    StatetEnabled
  • Reply 33 of 49
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Appleinsiders View Post


    Other than the annoying sound of the fan the computer runs fine. I did upgrade the memory to 4gigs and changed the drive to a 500(7.4k rpm). could these upgrades have anything to do with the problem? What other factors could cause the cooling fan to behave like this?



    Although a faster hard drive may release some more heat, more memory could reduce hard drive access. Fan activation depends also on ambient temperature and airing of the machine. If you are using it on a duvet instead of a hard desk surface, you can expect more intense fan activity. And on cold winter days the odds are that under moderate load the computer will be reasonably silent.
  • Reply 34 of 49
    I seriously doubt its the recently installed hardware. I also doubt its the ambient temperature issue. My Girlfriend's Macbook is the same model and it does not behave like mine at all. Can a software glitch cause the fan to run constantly? e.g. missing, erroneously deleted, and/or a potentially corrupt system file? Say I reinstall the OS. If I import my current systems (the one with the apparent problem) applications, settings and preferences after reinstalling the OS, will it potentially import the problem as well? C'mon peeps some1 must have an answer to this riddle.
  • Reply 35 of 49
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Appleinsiders View Post


    I seriously doubt its the recently installed hardware. I also doubt its the ambient temperature issue. My Girlfriend's Macbook is the same model and it does not behave like mine at all. Can a software glitch cause the fan to run constantly? e.g. missing, erroneously deleted, and/or a potentially corrupt system file? Say I reinstall the OS. If I import my current systems (the one with the apparent problem) applications, settings and preferences after reinstalling the OS, will it potentially import the problem as well? C'mon peeps some1 must have an answer to this riddle.



    OK, if you can re-install the OS just do it, this will show if your problem is software-related (which is a possibility) or not. Just import only your home settings after that and not system wide ones.
  • Reply 36 of 49
    bodavbodav Posts: 1member
    Try a "false startup". Remove the battery and disconnect from the power supply, then attempt startup (hold the button down for at least 5 seconds). This resets the machine's power allocation controls to default levels. That fixed my incessant fan.
  • Reply 37 of 49
    mockymocky Posts: 1member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bodav View Post


    Try a "false startup". Remove the battery and disconnect from the power supply, then attempt startup (hold the button down for at least 5 seconds). This resets the machine's power allocation controls to default levels. That fixed my incessant fan.



    This SO WORKED!!!!!!!!!!! The silence is deafening!!! I absolutely can't believe how quite my little corner home office is now . Sigh........... ..what was that!! .... I actually heard myself sigh...



    Ah...... ah... oh sorry.. I got carried away..forgot where i was



    Gracias mi amigo, mi hermano....
  • Reply 38 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PB View Post


    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.



    Spot on fix! My Antivirus program was hogging up to 96%! It was under "iavd" After I disabled the antivirus program the fan slowed to a halt within minutes. Thanks so much!
  • Reply 39 of 49
    Hi there, thank you for a great thread and forum!



    I have gone through all the suggestions above, on how to make my MacBook a less noisy experience. How ever, I have tried them all and the problem remains. I even upgraded to Mac OS 10.6.6 from my latest version on Tiger. (Now, my programs needs urgent upgrades!)The computer is 3,5 years old and maybe I expect to much...but since you pay around 2 000 dollars each time you have to get a new Mac computer, I am still looking for other options. Shall I bring it to service? Would it be worth the eventual cost? Anyone else with this experience? I am tired of break downed Mac computers and wonder, will a new MacBook give me same headache in a while? Is it worth the money? I love the interface but expect more from Apple computers hardware. Any ultimate trick or suggestion on this? (Sorry about the eventual negativeness, but this fan is driving me nuts!) Thanks for your help



    My config:



    ModellnamntMacBook

    ModellidentifieraretMacBook2,1

    ProcessornamntIntel Core 2 Duo

    Processorhastighett2 GHz

    Antal processorert1

    Totalt antal kärnort2

    L2-cachet4 MB

    Minnet2 GB

    Busshastighett667 MHz

    Boot ROM-versiontMB21.00A5.B07

    SMC-version (system)t1.13f3
  • Reply 40 of 49
    I have the same problem with my MacBook2,1 (2GHz, 4GB Ram). The CPU is OK because I only use light apps, the laptop has a lot of free memory, but the temperature is very high and of course the fans go crazy even with just a few apps.



    I have the 10.6.6 version, I've made a fresh install and the fans are clean. I must use a lot of websites with flash content but I also use click2flash



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