5500 rpm fan speed on MacBook Pro 17"

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Level 1

29 points

5500 rpm fan speed on MacBook Pro 17"

I've got a MacBook Pro, Core Duo 2.16 GHz at work. It has been working just fine, but for the last six months, the fan speed has gone ballistic! When I wake it from sleep, fan speed is about 1000 rpm, but within ten seconds, the speed builds up to 5500 rpm. CPU use is at 2%, the temperature of the CPU is around 40 degrees.

I've installed smcFanControl, but no matter what I set the fan speed to, it never goes lower than 5500 rpm. If I set it to 6000, it goes up to 6000... I've also reset the PRAM, but with no result

Any hints on this?

Quad Dual Core 3 GHz | iMac G5 2,1 | MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Nov 15, 2007 3:52 PM

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Answer 1

Mac-Medic

Level 6

17,301 points

Nov 15, 2007 7:10 PM in response to Morten Kaada

Try resetting your SMC.

Resetting the System Management Controller >>

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Answer 2

frjpec

Level 1

0 points

Nov 15, 2007 10:04 PM in response to Morten Kaada

I have the exact same issue, 4 to 5 minutes after coming out of the sleep mode the the fans ramp up to 4000 to 5500+ rpm while the cpu temp is only 93 to 98 F and stay there. I contacted apple care, and was told to see the local "genius". I described the issue to several online repair who specialize in Mac repair, all quoted _Very expensive_ repairs costs over $600.00!! I am tempted to restore the hard drive to get rid of the SMC update to see if that is the issue.

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Answer 3

Morten Kaada Author

Level 1

29 points

Nov 16, 2007 2:07 AM in response to frjpec

Yeah... The funny thing is that two days ago, I completely wiped the hard drive and installed MacOS 10.5 (and now updated to 10.5.1) to see if that had any effect on the fans. So far it doesn't seem to have had any effect what so ever.

I've also tried to reset the SMC by following the instructions on the link provided by Mac Medic. Unfortunately that didn't seem to help. The temperature on CPUs are 39 degrees celsius (102 F) and CPU load is around 5%. Fan speed is now 5200+ What is considered "normal" fan speed for the MacBook Pro 17" running just Finder and Safari?

I am starting to suspect that this is a job for my local Apple repair shop..

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Answer 4

frjpec

Level 1

0 points

Nov 16, 2007 5:18 AM in response to Morten Kaada

That is good to know that your system recovery attempt was unsuccessful, at least that way we know that it is not the software, the bad news is that it is a hardware issue, which from all that I have been told, is a very expensive proposition. Furthermore good luck getting to a "Genius" they seem to be booked solid in my area due to Leopard (I think)

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Answer 5

Morten Kaada Author

Level 1

29 points

Nov 16, 2007 11:54 AM in response to frjpec

I'll have to get some geniuses to have a look at it anyway, because today I "lost" my iSight camera as well... Something is wrong for sure.

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