Macbook Pro Fan Speed

Don't change the speed or temperature with third party software. Despite all assurances to the contrary third party software is merely a placebo. If you had reason to do it because of crashing that software specs say shouldn't happen, run the hardware test that came with your Mac. If it shows nothing is wrong, suspect the RAM*: http://www.macmaps.com/badram.html

70ºC is just fine - just about what my MacBook Pro runs 'normally'. I wouldn't try revving up the fan speed too much - I don't use any fan-regulating at all; I trust the Apple engineers with my fans speeds. When doing processor-intensive work, my fan speeds have gotten to over 6,600rpms - as my CPU temps rise.

So while you're not going to do any 'damage' at 5,000rpms, I don't know that you shouldn't just let the mbp do it's 'thing' and not worry with fan-regulating apps.

Just my 2¢...

Clinton

No, that shouldn't be happening. You might have a problem with the fan sensors. If I were you, I would take the machine to your local Apple Store or an AASP and have them check it out. Whe playing games, those fans should be pushing some air!

Clinton

Revving up the fan speed will shorten its life. Non-Apple software used to modify the fan speed to do what the machine is not designed to do is not smart. You might as well be putting jet fuel in a car, expecting it go faster, or be over clocking your Mac. Do so on your own terms. If the machine dies in the middle, don't expect Apple to repair it.

just for what its worth,

your CPU is a semi conductor so it must heat up to be effective there is a propper operating temperature and I can assure you a company that pay's as much attention to detail as apple has not overlooked this.

a cold computer is not always a happy computer or a faster computer, its thermal runaway that is truly dangerous.

I've heard a lot of people warn about the risk of using fan controller software, but haven't seen any documented evidence of this. I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually had their MBP fan break down from overuse.

I personally think that as long as long as you don't do anything crazy like keep the fans at 6,000 rpm 24/7, fan controller software shouldn't dramatically decrease the life span of the fan, but could improve the life of the circuit board / CPU. For me, I've noticed that during regular usage OR at 100% CPU consumption (like CPU stress tests), there's no difference between the fan controller software and stock in terms of fan speeds and temps (I've checked this several times using iStat). But it's the middle gray zone (i.e., during gaming) that I've seen up to a 10 degree difference 100 vs 90. Just my 2 cents.

I have the newest 15 inch pro, retina with fully upgraded. ssd 1 tb etc etc. I do use it for many different tasks one of which being playing a few different games when I travel. All of a sudden the past 3 days whenever i login to warcraft, after about 5 minutes of play time the fan speed kicks to full blast and does not decrease. The center of my keybboard also gets much warmer. i installed smc fan app and temp didnt get above 144 degrees f. I was dissapointed to see though that you cannot set the maximum speed. Only increase the min. It is just so loud its almost annoying so i was hoping to be able to lower the max. Lemme know if you guys can help!

It's almost funny how people trust that Apple has full knowledge of what is happening in your computer. Macbooks HAVE temperature problems, and it's not something that Apple has under control. Just look at all the 2011 macbooks suffering an early death because of temperature problems. If your computer is at 90 degrees celsius it is not good. Not for any computer, from any brand. For example, MY macbook 2011 originally ran at 50-60 degrees celsius under moderate load and got up to 90-100 when doing graphic intensive tasks. After the warranty period was over, first thing I did was to open it up and change the thermal paste. Afterwards, the computer now ran at 35-40 degrees under moderate load and 60-70 under heavy load. Those are healthy temperatures. And by the way, those who've opened their computers and have some kind of knowledge about hardware, you can immediately tell that Apple has done really bad job at applying cooling paste, really terrible.

"Holy thermal paste! Time will tell if the gobs of thermal paste applied to the CPU and GPU will cause overheating issues down the road." - Ifixit, 2011 macbook teardown.

Eventually my computer broke after 2 years of use, due to thermal issues still present, even with the change of thermal paste. Hm

If your computer is boiling at 90-100 degrees celsius, do something about it. Quick.

Maybe so, but novices can actually put on too much thermal paste, so it becomes an insulator, rather than a coolent. And the programs used to measure the heat use it based on presumed guidelines, that Apple has not published. If they guess it right, it is as much a pot shot as guessing it wrong. If you have managed to reliably and successfully isolate heat issues, maybe you should start your own shop and website with directions, so people get it right. I would not encourage people to do it who are doing guesswork. I've heard of people burning down their houses with overheating iMac G5s. No doubt there are machines overheating, but I would not attempt to modify something I don't know if I'm going to overdo or not, without some official guidelines. And 2 years if you are smart, you are still under AppleCare. They'll even replace the machine after several times getting it wrong on the same issue.

If you find a certified Apple shop that isn't doing it right under AppleCare, please contact AppleCare directly, and report them to Customer Relations, a branch of AppleCare so they can lose their certification.

I am seeing a lot of negative talk about third-party software to control fans:

Istat menu 5 is good.

It conforms to apple's SMC; this means that it will never allow the fans to go slower than what SMC is asking, thus your computer will be safe using this software.

In contrast I have a Macbook Pro fan controller for bootcamping Windows 7 called MacFanx64.exe (64 bit) that requires you to understand command prompt.

It's nothing difficult, you just need to make sure that you enter parameters properly.

The only way I see one of these damaging any hardware components would be if you accidently told the fan to spin faster than the max speed.

I would agree that for OS X you aren't going to really need this because the engineering on the SMC isn't terrible, but if you happen to have SMC screw up like it sounds like you had, there's no way to know it unless you feel it getting really hot like that which I'm sure isn't great for your MBP.

Therefore having a monitor system is helpful because you can see the temperatures constantly.

Now for Windows 7 bootcamp it's a whole different story.

There is something wrong with the drivers that control SMC for bootcamp because the computer will get hot fast even in idle.

I was marking temperatures around 60-70 C just in idle - the fans still stay at 2000 rpm.

If someone finds something better than MacFan for Windows 7 bootcamp let me know.

Moral of the story, if you pick a good third-party application you're not going to harm your computer.

Think of it like a second line of defense.

Last but not least, if you're still having this problem do an SMC reset.

Apple has instructions on how to do it, just note that you need to pay attention to whether your MBP has a removable battery or not when doing SMC reset.

Cheers

"I trust the Apple engineers"...with the way Apple has been heading these past few years...I surely do NOT trust their engineers(ing).