Fan speeds up whilst watching HD Movies

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Level 1

6 points

Fan speeds up whilst watching HD Movies

Hi!

I recently purchased a 2011 MacBook Pro 15" (i7), and all is well apart from one thing which i'm curious to why it happens.

When I either watch a 720p movie or stream one from Netflix on my MBP the fan tends to speed up, stay loud for about 10 seconds and then go back to normal. Just wanted to know if this is a normal occurence in MBP's? Does the same for 1080p Movies but I kind of expected that, but just a bit weird as this laptop is so powerful. My desktop does this but it's nowhere near as powerful as my MBP and it's a PC, so that's obviously expected.

Anyway any insight into this would be great, not so much a problem just me being all curious!

Thank you,

Affan

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 30, 2012 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Jan 30, 2012 1:39 PM in response to Fozii

This should not make you nervous. Watching high definition video put a fairly high load on your CPU and that results in heat. The fans then do the job that they are supposed to by expelling that heat and keep your MBP from overheating. If you are so interested, open your Activity Monitor and look at the CPU output bar before and after you start watching a video. There will be a dramatic difference.

Ciao.

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