Lion Fan Speed

Did some problem solving by using Activity Monitor and found that something called APC PowerChute, a software feature of the APC back up battery power device, that works to provide backup battery power information when the device is connected via a USB cable from the APC battery device to the MacBook, might be the culprit. After an hour of having disconnected the cable, the fan noise and activity stopped totally with lots of other applications being used! Amazing, eh?

Has the 10.7.1 update fixed the fan problem for you? I can't judge it since I downgraded to SL again to be able to do my work.

Regarding my original posting and the inquiry below, here's an update;

1. Recall that in order to try to stop the fan on a MBPro SSD from constantly being one after a Lion upgrade, I disengaged the USB cable that went from the computer to the APC back up battery power device and all of a sudden, the fan stopped misbehaving. So, I thought I had solved the problem at last. But oddly after a couple of days, the problem recurred even though I removed every trace of the APC PowerChute application using an APC terminal suggested removal script. Then it occurred to me that the old is something better than the new: that is, many if not most problems begin with hardware and not software; therefore I disconnected my fireware cable and I disconnect all of my USB cables and I removed all start up applications so the computer would boot into the Lion partition as bare as possible; and that worked: no fan; so, I began adding software applications and that did not affect the situation (still no fan problem) and the I began adding some USB devices one at a time; I am still in the midst of this process and I have yet to connect my multiUSB devices that enabled me to use many more USB devices than the three USB ports on the computer would permit -- I have a hunch that the use of daisy chained extra USB port devices might have been related to the problem); and I removed my fireware multiport device and now I am only using one firewife hard drive directly connected; and overall, so far so good: no fan problem. My overall take on this is that some computers and some hardware don't react well to Lion now; and for others, perhaps the best way to proceed is to do what I did and to go back to basics and take everything off and down and build up again and see what happens. By the way, I tried booting into Lion from a firewire drive and that was a pure boot but with all devices still connected before, and there as no fan problem; and I created a second partition and reinstalled Snow Leopard and left all the devices as before and there was no fan problem; therefore I believe there is some piece of errant software lurking on the Lion partition that does not like the hardware configurations and devices that I used to use before upgrading to Lion and having found an interim solution, I will continue to add devices one by one to see what occurs. Boring but necessary, I suppose.

Has the 10.7.1 update fixed the fan problem for you? I can't judge it since I downgraded to SL again to be able to do my work.

reply continued re: fan alway going

2. Note also that I also removed the device I had used to enable me to use my SD card with the larger slot in the computer and that's still out but eventually I will try to determine if that's the problem; and I also had removed a set of firewire speakers that was connected to the computer (so, lots of potentially troublesome hardware and cables any one of which might have been the culprit but still am puzzled by why the APC cable and software, after removal, seemed to be the culprit and then a couple of days later that theory was dashed).

3. Regarding the softward update that I appreciate your calling to my attention for Lion, I had not installed that update yet and I think I will continue to problem solve before I do so I can find out, I hope, what the offending hardware and/or software was before.

Thanks.

Just an FYI...I called Apple about this and they said there was nothing I could do. Even with a mac that is a year old Lion ***** the life out of it and overworks the system. MBPs get hot and iMacs run the fan to death.

<Edited by Host>

Just off the top of my head, running multiple usb devices causes the SMC to reroute more power to those respective ports. Your innards may be heating up as a result as dissipation. The fan naturally turns on. It's a hardware based cause and effect.

WOW, Apple censored the concerns of a loyal Apple customer? Terrible move. Rather than address the issues as to why Lion has been burning my fan up on my iMac and making my MBP almost impossible to touch from the heat Apple censored my impression that it was comparable to Vista? I'm sorry Apple, but let's get the facts stratight here. My comparison was my perception of your product. Shall I take this censorship (sweeping the problem under the rug) to a site like The Consumerist?

What is Apple doing to fix this obvious problem rather than tell users that we need to upgrade our systems?

--Will this one be censored too?

Same issue here and it seems to be Flash related. All is well with my 2011 iMac until I start watching Flash videos (like Hulu). This did not happen with Snow Leopard, so it shouldn't be happening on Lion. In fact, I never even heard the fans until I made the upgrade!

C'mon, Apple... push out a fix.

I'm experiencing the same overheating/loud fan issues following the upgrade to Lion. I tried resetting the SMC (shut down, take out the battery, hold down the power button for a few seconds, replace the battery and power on), but the problem returned the next morning. It also appears that I don't have a com.citrix.agadminservice.plist file in /Library/LaunchDaemons, so I'm out of luck there (per this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191543?start=60&tstart=0). I wonder if we're all looking at the correct issue for a long-term fix for this issue? If it's one process running out of control, that's easy. But for those of us still experiencing the problem even without Citrix installed, is it a larger problem with Lion not managing runaway processes well enough?

Does anyone have a working fix for those of us without the Citrix .plist file?

Thank you!

I'm experiencing an issue with my iMac shortly after installing Lion. A few days after installing Lion I noticed that after having it run on standby a short while, I came back into the room and noticed the rear system fan running at full speed. The system felt cool to the touch and restarting the Mac didn't help. It proceeded to run at a very high speed. I shut down the system and the fan problem went away. I took the Mac to the Apple Store for repair since I bought the SquareTrade warranty. We ran a basic diagnostic check and nothing came up. Duplicating the problem in front of the tech didn't happen and would have to do some stress tests. After about a week, the Apple Genius tech told me that the hard drive was failing. They replaced the drive and I took the system back home. Several months later, I returned from a trip and booted up the Mac. After several hours of it running at idle, I came back into the room and found the system fan again running at high speed. I recorded the event on my iPhone on video and via Recorder. I took it back to Apple to do more repair. Provided the video, but the store was too loud to hear anything. Nothing came up during basic diagnostics. After another 2 weeks, I picked up the iMac. The genius was not able to find anything wrong with the system. According to the notes; they did some permissions repairs and a few other things, but were not able to duplicate the problem. Its been a few weeks now and it has not happened yet. I'm not confident that the problem has gone away entirely. As a first time Mac owner; I'm actually disappointed by this event. Now I'm having problems with the darn iTunes Match replacing my explicit music with clean versions. D@mn you!

If anyone finds a fix for the fan. We'd love to here it. Othewise, I'll keep researching. Thanks.

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac9,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Boot ROM Version: IM91.008D.B08

SMC Version (system): 1.37f3

Adding my voice...

When I went to the Genius Bar to address my concerns over the non-stop fan, ridiculously hot MacBook Pro, and burning power brick, I was told simply that my MBP wasn't built for Lion. That was it. Period. End of discussion. My fault.

I ended up going to a reseller and he taught me the SMC reset which works, but I don't want to jump through those hoops on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

I calmed down part of the problem by - believe it or not - making sure the brick is well ventilated. Currently, I'm sitting next to a staircase with the brick kind of dangling. The fan has run on and off, the laptop has been hot, but for the most part, it's been usable.

It'd be nice if Apple could provide a real fix for this seeing how it's been around since Lion first came out. This got old way too quickly and the fact that there still isn't an answer from Apple is just... I have no words.

That sums it up pretty well. I'm really disappointed and I'm finally turning my back to Apple.

So the SMC fix doesn't work for you guys? I reset the SMC once when I first installed Lion, and that fixed it for me. I've never had to do it again. I think that's the fix for most people...

my mac mini with lion 10.7.3

processor 2.5 gig intel core i5

memory 4 gig 1333mhz ddr3

was running fan speed of 4800rpm very loud

ran activity monitor and it showed an HP photosmart c4580 scanner process running at 100% cpu

quit process and unplugged usb cord for now and immediately fan is at quiet 1800rpm

and cpu temp is down from 200F to 150F ouch ***

am keeping it unplugged for now

have not reset SMC yet but will try later