2011 Macbook Pro Fan noise?

Download smcFanControl along with iStat Pro. It will keep track of your rpms and also help you set what rpms you want to run at!

I agree, its extremely annoying. I do music recording and the laptop is all but useless given this. I may sell it and go back to my ancient 2.4 Dual processor, which ran much cooler.

Perhaps some OEM will figure out a fan / heatsink combo that can keep the i5 below 70 degrees C without having to rev the fan up above 2k RPM.

Same here, 2011 15" Quad Core, when there is heavy CPU load (compiling a project) suddenly within a second or two the fan winds up to very high RPM, very loud, and after around 10 seconds it slowly goes back down to 'normal' low-RPM state.
It seems like the fan control firmware needs tweaking, it should probably slowly and gradually raise the RPM at lower heat levels, but then again I'm not the engineer who designed the system, so there may be a legitimate reason for having the existing behavior. Nevertheless it is very annoying.

hey guys,

There's apparently a few of these complaints around the internet. I had my mid 2009 MBP start giving trouble a few months after I got it. It ran on full power quite often because I'd play games on it, and it put a lot of stress on the fans. Soon after my left fan started rattling a bit, and then degraded to a loud buzzing/shredding noise. Because I was under warranty when it happened the fan was fixed for free but a year after it gave way again. A quick search on google recently found this:

http://nofilmschool.com/2009/02/how-to-fix-a-noisy-macbook-pro-fan/

It's a DIY and will save you some money and time. It worked for me and the computer is now silent like when I first got it. A little advice; use 3-in-1 lube, not WD40. My first time trying the above solution didn't work either, the fan was still rattling but I opened it back up, added a little more lube, and it ran perfectly.

Although it's an easy fix, I wouldn't recommend you do this if you're under warranty. Apple will fix this quickly and for free.

Good Luck.

Same thing here. Macbook pro i5 13". Mine is less than a couple of weeks old. I spoke on the phone with an Apple technician. We did logic board reset (turn off, hit shift+control+optoin+power button). It didn't help.

I took the compture to the genius bar today. They ran some diagnostic tests and said that there was nothign wrong with it but I should be able to have the laptop replaced. It suck because I can't return it as I am travelling soon and since I oredered it online with special configuratoin, I was told I must ship it to... (****)

This is really ANNOYING!!

Seriously?? the fan freaks out when I am watching a youtube video???? WTH is this, Apple?

Sincerely

There seems to be a lot of complaints of fan noise with the new Intel Sandy Bridge laptops. There is a long forum on the Lenovo (Thinkpad) forums about loud fan noise as well.

My 2011 15 inch MBP sounds like a plane taking off when running heavy tasks.

Same here as well. I just bought a MBP with i7 1.8 GHz and I can't believe the sound the fan does when it starts up. But here is the issue, it seems to be only connected to stream applications in my case. I didn't run any games or apps that require much of the graphic card other than streams though. Nevertheless, when I look at a stream or use the webcam, it won't take much more than 4-5 minutes before the fan kicks in and when it does, it just won't stop and keep a high rev for hours if I leave the stream on. I do music as well and although the software requires some CPU power, the fan never start up when I use my sequencer. So anyway, I agree with you all, this is a real big issue and totally disappointing considering the price tag of this machine.

Same. I have a brand new 2011 13" 2.3GHz i5 MacBook Pro (4 days old) and whenever I play a game, the fan goes insane. Same thing with my previous 2008 MacBook.

im having the same experience on my 5 days old macbook pro MC700. the fan starts to kick in at a very high RPM rate when its used for several hours. noise subsides when it cooled off.

do you guys think it needs to be replaced?

Same issue here... I have this problem on my Macbook Pro 2011 i7, APPLE is not going to do anything? We pay $ for 2PC to get 1 MAC for this shabby laptop

you guys have pretty much convinced me not to get a MBP.

i'd run the machine 800% (with HThreading) for hours on end every day.

is it hopeless? do we have to use 2011 i7 mbp with high noise?

Hi guys,

Re: Macbook Pro 2.7GHz Intel Core i7, 8GB 1333 MHz, DDR3, 500GB, Lion 10.7.2 purchased in October 2011

I've recently purchase what it is my very first Apple computer, a Macbook Pro. I did so for a number of reasons, fedup with windows etc but most importantly because of the fan noise my old laptop made since day 1.

Now I have just receive my Macbook Pro and after a few days I have realised that the fan does not stop. Okay it's not a massive noise but it's annoying nevertheless and also I did not spend £1,500 to have yet another bl00dy noise computer.

I have download a fan control called smcFanControl which indicates that my laptop is right now 44 degrees and the fan is running at 2000 rpm, sometimes even less.

Is this a noise I will have to live with? It's not the grinding noise I've heard on some youtube videos, it is just a fan noise running normally but I find it annoying, specially when I am not doing anything on the computer like gaming, just surfing the net or even not doing anything at all. It is just frustrating.

I have also updated the software so it is all up to date and everything. Any views? Should iVisit an Apple Store? Any help would be appreciated. 😕

Just to add my voice to the world. My 2009 Macbook Pro was also suffering from fan noise - not just due to spinning, but the grating kind of noise described by others here. I followed the instructions on iFixit described above and cleaned and lubricated the fan and wow...all is as it should be again! Thanks for the pointer people, and this was much cheaper than getting Apple to replace - or worse yet, my laptop dying due to overheating from a failing fan