Macbook Pro 13" Overheating

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Macbook Pro 13" Overheating

Macbook seems to be overheating. The hot spot is in the back right corner. The fan seem to be running and responds to rpm changes. I downloaded smc fan control which reported the temperature to be 172*F. I bumped the fan speed to 3200 rpm and the temperature dropped to 162*. Then I ran the fan speed to 4000 rpm and the temperature dropped to 142*. All of this started a couple of days ago without heavy usage. I usually only check email or browse the internet and the like, no gaming. Any thoughts?

Wes

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Jan 10, 2016 7:35 AM

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Answer 1

867

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Jan 10, 2016 12:40 PM in response to wesnjen

use activity monitor and see what is using the cpu

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Answer 2

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Jan 10, 2016 12:40 PM in response to wesnjen

In addition to inspection Activity Monitor set to ALL PROCESSES and CPU to display values from high to low, reset the SMC:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Run Apple diagnostics. It may offer a clue:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

Ciao.

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Answer 3

wesnjen Author

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Jan 10, 2016 12:15 PM in response to wesnjen

So the 2 things that stand out on the activity log are SymDaemon @107.0% and kernal_task @ 59.7%. A quick Google tells me that Symantec anti-Virus has known issues on Mac which cause high CPU usage. It's strange that it just started heating up, as this has been installed since June. I guess I might try uninstalling it and see what happens.

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Answer 4

wesnjen Author

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Jan 10, 2016 12:23 PM in response to wesnjen

I turned off all the anti-virus settings I could and I forced quit SymDaemon and the CPU usage dropped to 2%. So not only did Symantec stop but kernal_task dropped to 1.7%

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Answer 5

wesnjen Author

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Jan 10, 2016 12:26 PM in response to wesnjen

Temperature dropped to 88* @ 4000rpm

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Answer 6

wesnjen Author

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Jan 10, 2016 12:45 PM in response to wesnjen

I added back everything except the Idle Scan and Automatic Scans, so far so good. Thanks for the help, really thought I had a hardware issue but it appears to be Symantec.

Wes

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Answer 7

867

Level 1

40 points

Jan 10, 2016 11:29 PM in response to wesnjen

your welcome

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