Constant CPU usage & high fans speed/temp on MacBook

Question

Constant CPU usage & high fans speed/temp on MacBook

Hi everyone,

So, I only started noticing my fan running a bit on the fast side this evening after installing the new Safari 4.0.5 update. I looked at iStat Menus for temp and CPU. And I was seeing about 190 degrees F for CPU temp with lid closed running ext display. Also there was a constant usage of the cpu (about 30% User and 20% System). There's not one particular process I can see in Activity Monitor that acting out of the ordinary and using a lot of CPU. Just stuff like coreservicesd, WindowServer, launchd that are shuffling around and using about 1-4% of CPU.

I ran repair disk permissions and verify disk. Verify Disk found errors and said I need to repair my Macintosh HD, which I have now done successfully.

Nothing has seemed to fix the problem. I'm looking through the System log in Console, but I'm not really sure what to look for. Nothing it constantly repeating or saying it keeps crashing etc.

Now with the lid open, on ext display and on a laptop stand, the temps are still around the 170 F mark.

What could be going on?

Thanks!
William

Message was edited by: William Brawley

black MacBook (Santa Rosa), 2.2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 160GB HD, 4GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.2), 32GB iPhone 3GS White, 16GB iPod Touch, 2G 1GB iPod Shuffle, 4G 20GB iPod

Posted on Mar 11, 2010 8:05 PM

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Answer 1

jaykog

Level 2

225 points

Mar 11, 2010 8:14 PM in response to William Brawley

Maybe resetting the PRAM might help?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

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Answer 2

Mar 11, 2010 8:26 PM in response to jaykog

Nope. I just tried that. A few seconds after booting up again, the same CPU usage and fans symptoms start up again.

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Answer 3

jaykog

Level 2

225 points

Mar 11, 2010 8:33 PM in response to William Brawley

Check the Activity Monitor - Utilities, Activity Monitor, then sort by CPU (column). Look to see what is using the CPU.

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Answer 4

Mar 11, 2010 8:46 PM in response to jaykog

I've already done that. Nothing pops out as problematic. nothing goes higher than like 1-5% for a few seconds.

I don't understand what's going on. I can't pinpoint a problem point.

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Answer 5

jaykog

Level 2

225 points

Mar 11, 2010 8:57 PM in response to William Brawley

Have you tried logging in with different user account to see if the problem is isolated to your user account?

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Answer 6

Mar 11, 2010 8:59 PM in response to jaykog

Yes, I've tried that. I have a test account and I logged into that and after a minute or so, the fans rev up and the CPU usage goes to the unusual level again.

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Answer 7

jaykog

Level 2

225 points

Mar 11, 2010 9:08 PM in response to William Brawley

I am not sure if this applies (from the Leopard days), but check out this post: http://julianschrader.de/20080131-100-cpu-usage-caused-by-syslogd-leopard/

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Answer 8

Mar 11, 2010 9:11 PM in response to jaykog

Hmm, tried that just now.

"sudo rm /var/log/asl.db" - No such file or directory. So, I don't think it works on Snow Leopard. The blog mentions its on Leopard.

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Answer 9

jaykog

Level 2

225 points

Mar 11, 2010 9:24 PM in response to William Brawley

Yeah, I saw that. I downloaded the Safari update (4.0.5) but I can't reboot until mid-morning - I am running a full back up currently. I'll let you know what happens later today (Friday). Unless someone else has something to offer, you might have to reinstall the OS & patch (except for the Safari update).

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Answer 10

rcuprill

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2010 10:58 PM in response to William Brawley

I am experiencing a similar problem since updating to Safari 4.0.5. I ran Activity Monitor and everything seemed fine, until I scrolled thru a long page on Safari, then the CPU usage percentage shoots way up to 81-85%, and after scrolling on the page for a while so does the temps and the fan starts running. Once you stop scrolling, then the CPU usage drops to normal with Safari. This is strange. I never noticed this behavior before.

Try scrolling and see if that is the cause.

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Answer 11

Mar 12, 2010 6:03 PM in response to rcuprill

I woke up my computer and didn't have any apps open and the fans and cpu still kicked in. I re-repaired Disk and Permissions with my Snow Leopard disc (I realized I had done it earlier with my Leopard system disc), but this hasn't helped.

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Answer 12

Dave Stowe

Level 5

5,180 points

Mar 12, 2010 6:08 PM in response to William Brawley

William...when you used Activity Monitor did you select 'All Processes' from the top of the CPU window?...if not some process may not have been listed when you checked before...

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Answer 13

Mar 12, 2010 6:35 PM in response to Dave Stowe

Yes, all processes were shown.

I booted into Safe Boot mode and the CPU usage was at a normal level and the fan did not spin up to high rpms, so there is some software issue related to this.

Also, I ran Apple Hardware Test, which found nothing.

Perhaps I will try restoring from a previous time machine restore point.

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Answer 14

Dave Stowe

Level 5

5,180 points

Mar 12, 2010 7:19 PM in response to William Brawley

System Preferences...(Printing & Faxing)....see if there is an old print job waiting...

Use Onyx or something like it to clean out the System & User caches....

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Answer 15

Dalboy

Level 1

0 points

Mar 27, 2010 3:14 PM in response to Dave Stowe

I was also experiencing the Macbook high cpu temp and fan speeds problem. The fans would run at hight speeds even when the computer was idle and there was no programs running. According to istat menu the fan was constantly running above 6000 rpm.

A common problem appears to be a job in the print queue but this was not the case and there was no obvious culprits in Activity Monitor consuming the CPU ( remember to change it to show All Processes )

I reinstalled Snow Leopard on the MacBook but this made no difference as the fan continued to constantly run at high speed.

The solution for me was a comment buried in this discussion

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=85099

According to the post :

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.

This seemed like an unlikely solution and explanation but I tried it and the fans are no longer running at the high speed.

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