MacBook fan keeps turning on

Wow, so does it mean that fans should not be on all the time? When I keep my Macbook idle, the CPU usage is 1-2% but the fans are still at 1998 rpm (iStat). So, should they be @ 0 rpm?

Message was edited by: tartarsauce

Message was edited by: tartarsauce

Run Activity Monitor, show all processes, and report which one is out of control.

TheTechGuys100 wrote:
What should I sort it by?

Hi: Hopefully etresoft doesn't mind me stepping in. Click the CPU tab at the bottom and the CPU% column to sort at the top.

Stedman

I'm also having the same problem and nothing in my activity monitor is showing an unusually high cpu. could it be that the fan is simply faulty?!

I had this issue years ago with a Black MacBook and there is a thread then as well as many since - unaccounted fans wind-up. Search these forums and a few theories come up. Resetting PRAM NVRAM was a fix for many people, but others found "stuck" printer software (in the background), still others found it was a Flashplayer glitch. For loads of people the PRAM NVRAM reset did the trick. I'm not sure if there is a down-side or caveat about these remedies (user beware), but it should show up in the threads or on Google.

Or was it reset SMC that worked ? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US (More likely)

nothing i seem to try is working? should i now do the smc thing or just take it to an apple store?

If you have high CPU activity you need to figure out what is causing it. Click "Go" on your toolbar, click Utilities, click Activity Monitor, click CPU on lower left, click CPU on upper left, click it again and see which Process Name is causing the trouble. Either you will know what to do (kill the process, delete it or investigate it, tweak it or whatever) or you will not know. But you will have something to tell the Genius when you visit Apple. If your CPU is high then that produces heat, which only means your fans are on high for a reason. In other words your fans are NOT faulty, but you are not managing your OSX effectively.

The SMC is free and do-able, and it DOES address fans (they are listed in the article) but like all of these maintenance operations they can potentially cause trouble. Only do these operations if you have cloned your OSX to an external hard drive, or if you are using Time Machine (same thing). Or if you don't mind losing all your data and wind up re-installing OSX from scratch.

* Kind of a side-issue: Open System Preferences and get into your System Accounts, click Login Items and see what is there. Myself, I pretty much remove everything using the + and - signs. These items will place themselves there without you knowing - sometimes you benefit, but rarely. And they can run in the background without you knowing.

* Kind of a side-issue Part II: Open System Preferences, open Print & Fax, open Print Queue, delete any jobs that might be there. The field under 'Status' should be empty.

Message was edited by: NA Smith