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Lion Fan Speed

My MacBook Pro fan is running extremely fast after installing Lion. Indexing is finished. It keeps going at top speed even after the screen saver is on. Anyone have a similar problem?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 12:29 AM

Reply
44 replies

Jun 29, 2018 8:00 AM in response to Radek

Thanks to my AppleCare Protection Plan I was able to talk to the Apple support on the phone. They want to talk me through a couple of performance tests next week to see what causes the problem. Attesting that my 2,5-year-old MacBook 2.1 GHz with 4 GB RAM fulfills the hardware requirements, they also implied that Lion needs significantly more resources than Snow Leopard. I won't tell you at this point what I think about an OS that doesn't run properly on a 2,5-year-old machine (built by the very same company).

Jun 29, 2018 8:00 AM in response to William Crosby

Just read through the reviews on the Mac App Store: There's a considerable number of MacBook (Pro) owners reporting this kind of behavior of their systems after the installation of Lion. Obviously, there is a problem – no matter, if the majority of MacBook (Pro) owners, in fact, may not have experienced any problems. Now, it would be nice, if there was an official statement (maybe on the official support forums? *cough*).

Jun 29, 2018 8:00 AM in response to William Crosby

In the part that got deleted, Wiliam compared Lion to Windows Vista stating that he has the impression that Apple is trying to force the purchase of a new system. Firstly, I really disapprove of such kind of censorship. Secondly, unlike Microsoft, Apple provides both the hardware and the software, which means that the developers know exactly what they're dealing with – or decide to not deal with. As a professional user, I'm really disappointed by Apple. I still remember having to wait several weeks for my € 1.600 PowerBook to ship, because Apple was producing iPods rather than PowerBooks at that time. The situation hasn't improved since then.

Jun 29, 2018 8:00 AM in response to Daryl DuLong

Hi Daryl, thanks for joining this discussion. Looks to me like Apple has no idea how to fix this issue. I mean, why wouldn't they have done it already? I doubt there's anything we can do but boycotting Apple's new policy and letting them know about it.

Jul 21, 2011 2:40 PM in response to DanFreebairn

I got the fix from that thread I posted above. I'm no expert but, it you


Open finder

On the bar above click GO, then Utilities

Open the Terminal utility

Then paste the command in and hit enter

It will prompt you for your password so, enter it and press enter again.


The process will stop and your fan will slow down after your computer cools down.

Jul 21, 2011 2:49 PM in response to jamesfromosseo

I appreciate that the terminal fix seems to be working, but over at Ars Technica they state that some apps appear to quit but their processes remain running:


'As if all of this isn't enough, Lion features one final application management twist. When an application is terminated in Lion, all the usual things appear to happen. If the running application indicator is enabled, the small dot will disappear from beneath the application's Dock icon. The application will no longer appear in the command-tab application switcher, or in Mission Control. You therefore conclude that this application's process has terminated.

A quick trip to the Activity Monitor application or the "

ps
" command-line utility may dissuade you of that notion. Lion reserves the right to keep an application's process around just in case the user decides to relaunch it. Upon relaunch, the application appears to start up instantly—because it was never actually terminated, but was simply removed from all parts of the GUI normally occupied by running applications.'


All of these processes are bound to cause the CPU to work and therefore produce heat. Might explain the poorer battery life some MacBook users are reporting.

Lion Fan Speed

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