MacBook Heat, Fan Speed, and Noise

Posted on June 3rd, 2008 - Hardware, Issues

I have been a laptop user for a few years. I started off with an IBM Thinkpad R50e, but my current primary laptop is an Apple MacBook.

Heat has always been a concern when I was working with my laptop. Unfortunately, it has become more apparent recently with my 16-month-old MacBook. The fan speed would go up to maximum of 6214RPM (rotations-per-minute) for just going to a few websites, especially when playing flash video.

The temperature, when new, would max at around 65-70℃. It is closer to 85-90℃ now. This would especially happen when I hook up an external monitor to it, which I do often at my desk. This is expected because it is using an Intel Integrated Graphics Card (GMA950). What I am using to measure the temperature is smcFanControl2, a donationware application can adjust the minimum fan-speed as well as monitor the temperature.

Typical Temperature and Fan Speed:

Fortunately, all of these temperatures are within Intel’s Processor Thermal Specifications of 100℃ (MacBook & Thinkpad). Therefore, it shouldn’t damage the CPU. But, I am just not used to having a loud annoying fan running all the time when I’m trying to concentrate on what I’m doing. Maybe that is just how I tend to work and it may not be as annoying to others. Recently, I have been using my Thinkpad a little more often for some Windows work and it is near silent even under load. Remarkably, even if it’s running a second monitor at 1680×1050 resolution.

Specs:

Apple MacBook Late 2006 Edition (Core 2 Duo T7200 - 2.0Ghz)

Idle: 45-50℃ (4400RPM, set using smcFanControl2)
Load: 85-91℃ (6200RPM)

IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad R50e (Intel Pentium-M 725 - 1.6Ghz)

Idle: 35-40℃ (silent; managed through Notebook Hardware Control)
Load: 70-77℃ (near silent)

If anyone has thoughts on this or similar problems, please leave a comment. I’m exercising my options to see whether I will do some repair work on my MacBook, as it likely has too much thermal paste appied (similar to: Air & Pro).

3 Responses to “MacBook Heat, Fan Speed, and Noise”

neverlosty Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Hey Eugene,

I have the exact same problem. I’ve got a early 2007 edition (maybe the same or next iteration).

I’m just browsing and its at 83℃ and fan going maxed out.

Kinda just happened all of a sudden

If you do find a fix, please keep me informed.

cheers.
neverlosty Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Hi,

I found out the issue in my case it was syslogd maxing out one of my cores.

Killing syslogd cooled down my comp in a few mins by 30 degrees.

sudo killall -9 syslogd

Still researching on why it happened
eugened Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@neverlosty

That program seems to provide system logs, I believe it’s something Mac OS X runs frequently to log errors.

Another application that maxes out my cores would be mdworker (Spotlight Indexer).

What’s worse is that Apple doesn’t seem to disable things from running that would decrease battery life if we’re not plugged in.

One day, I was down to 1 hour of battery because I didn’t realize that something was running at 100% for the past 30 minutes.

So far.. I’m trying to figure out a way to disable these system tasks when I’m on battery.

Hope I helped I’ll keep you posted.