MacBook Pro Retina Fan Issues

Hacker News thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5322416

Many people reporting issues with modern macs -- seems apple quality has fallen in recent years.

My new retina MacBook Pro (one week old) is doing the same thing. The fan spins up to full speed for no reason and then spins down. All random. The model I own is the 15.4in 2.8GHz with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. Whether the Intel 4000 or the GeForce video card is active, the fans just spin up crazily for no reason. It's getting to be a real annoyance. Is this MBP defective??

that is pure cheese but please do it just for payback for my heartache.

Apple and AppleCare has really gone downhill in recent years, and I've been a customer for more than 15 years.

I really hope that, one day, I get a machine that works for two weeks without any strange quirks

i get the exact same thing, however i have noticed that if i copy the same file within a VM* of Win7 the fans do not kick in.

*I am using Oracle Virtualbox

I have a 2008 macbook core duo 2.4 ghz with measly 2GB RAM, old-school FUJITSU MHZ2250B 250.06 GB hard drive, and I've had intermittent fan issues like the one described here for most of it's life. Don't remember when it started. It happens sometimes when I have minimal activity or CPU utilization. It happens sometimes with torrent downloads. I've been on the phone with AppleCare and we did resets, looked at Activity Monitor, there was never an easy way to replicate the problem.

the 'e' key is now failing on the keyboard, and at 5 years old is showing its age. I was about to pull the trigger on the 13" MBPr until coming across this thread after the news hit the bigger blogosphere. Now I'm really just disappointed. Don't want to spend almost as much on a non-retina MBP. Don't want an Air.

fwiw, I've downloaded and played the lossless music file link from this thread, but that does NOT kick my fans.

I was brought here by the MacRumors story, because I've noticed the issue sporadically. By sporadically, I mean maybe 3 times in the almost 4 weeks I've had my rMBP. Got it on launch day 2013, 2.7/16/SD512E. Again, very rarely, but that song got the fans spinning ~5500rpm about 1:40 in.

As for Apple's quality control, it has definitely suffered in the past couple of years. I've been a customer for over 15 years, and have had a PowerMac G3, iBook G3, black MacBook, and now this rMBP. No issues on any of those other Macs, but my first iPhone 4 had a faulty microphone that would allow me to be heard on speaker phone, but not on standard phone-to-ear talking. I also suspect the ambient light sensor on my iPhone 5 may be faulty. But that's small potatoes.

Apple needs to be more experience-centric and less profit-centric. They got almost $150 billion in cash. I think they can afford to be more cautious before launching a product.

/sorry about my long rant

just tried to replicate the fan issue by copying 8GB of photos from an external HDD to my rMBP (i have the 256GB SanDisk early 2013) and no fan issues... weird coz when i copy ssd to ssd the fan goes crazy or when i play that song everyone is refering too.

Mine is a 15" late 2012 bought in Feb.

It has this exact problem and is equipped with the SanDisk SSD.

The very day I unpacked it and set it up the problem began for no apparent reason.

Idling I had just begun to surf the web. The only application open was Safari, suddenly the fans went wild revving up to a roar. Staying like that for a few minutes, then slowing back down to normal speed at idle.

This is a very frustrating problem. Every single day I use it, the problem occurs no matter what I am doing.

I have purposely advoiding doing some of my resource intense work, as I don't want it to overheat and ruin something. Since I bought it for work purposes, it's nearly useless this way.

I have the same problem, hope they will come up with a software fix!

same problem here as well... the fan on my MBP Retina runs at the drop of a hat. I can be just checking my email then suddenly have it on at full throttle! I have gone back to using my MBA for quickly surfing the web or checking email because the fan noise is loud and disruptive.

Another case here. 15" rMBP early 2013 with SD512 drive. Here's the iStats evidence. I was downloading a game from the app store with no other apps open.

I have 2 weeks old Mac Book Pro Retina with 512GB SSD and it is also racing up the fans for no apparent reason.

This is why we think it's related to the Sandisk SSD:

Macbook Pro Retina 2012 with a Samsung SSD = no problem

Macbook Pro Retina 2012-2013 with a Sandisk SSD = problem

New Macbook Pro Retina 2013 with Sandisk SSD = problem

New Macbook Pro Retina 2013 with Samsung SSD = no problem

I just had the same issue of fans too. ME664, 2.4/8/256