Loud Fan on MBP 15" Late 2011
2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Only running Ableton Live and Safari. One Safari window open, this one, so I can post this question.
CPU of 120% on average for Ableton in Activity Monitor. Spikes up to 135% when running extra plug-ins in Ableton but my CPU usage in Ableton is only about 25%. Next highest CPU% in Activity Monitor is Safari at 4%.
CPU load at the bottom of Activity Monitor looks low. Idle is about 80%. Memory pressure, whatever that means, seems low.... 4.38 Gb used out of 8. 2Gb cache.
I have run a couple of tests to see if the fan gets louder when just using headphones plugged into the machine vs using my audio interface and there doesn't seem to be much difference. One other thing I noticed is that attaching the power supply makes the fan fun louder versus no power attached. This I discovered by eliminating the Thunderbolt Display and just using as a notebook.
Any thoughts? Is this normal? Is it the age of the machine? What would be my best alternative to void a loud fan while producing music? I can't have this background noise while critical listening.
Thanks!
MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)