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    MBP C2D Fan Question

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Zentox, Jan 30, 2007.

  1. Zentox

    Zentox Notebook Consultant

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    My Macbook Pro has been running cool and quiet under normal use such as web browsing, email, office programs, etc. Even parallels runs nicely.

    However.... As soon as I open up photoshop and start modifying a large image...or playing chess ...or opening a game....the fans start kicking in and eventually hit top speed, even when the computer is not any warmer than it was without the app running. It seems as if these fans are extremely sensitive to cpu-intensive tasks, but there's no point in running them at top speed when there is no significant temperature increase in Istat Pro. After a couple of minutes, the fan speed goes down to normal. Why does it have to do this?

    Even when I play World of Warcraft, the fans go to 100%, however after minimizing for a little then going back to the game, the fans run slower.

    Now this doesn't bother me at home, but when I'm at school in a fairly quiet room, it's kind of embarressing for my computer to sound like a jet plane if I want to play chess, which is not a cpu/gpu intensive task.

    Is there any program I can use to reduce top fan speed or some kind of solution to my concern, or is this going to be something I'll have to get used to? :confused:
     
    Zentox, Jan 30, 2007
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  2. phungy

    phungy Notebook Evangelist

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    When I play games via BootCamp, the fans go crazy.

    Do you have FanControl installed? (not smcFanControl).
     
    phungy, Jan 30, 2007
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  3. Zentox

    Zentox Notebook Consultant

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    No, it seems as if all the fan control software I have seen controls minimum fan speed. I'll try this program and see if it makes a difference.
     
    Zentox, Jan 30, 2007
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  4. Zentox

    Zentox Notebook Consultant

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    No, I don't think this program would do much. What are your experiences with it?

    Does anyone have similar issues with their MBP?
     
    Zentox, Jan 31, 2007
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  5. phungy

    phungy Notebook Evangelist

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    Well I'm currently using TemperatureMonitor with FanControl. Fans are being good at staying below 2900rpms. Last night it did shoot up to maybe 65-70C but then went down. Not sure why...but it does run a bit loud (maybe 4500-5000rpms) when running WinXP via BootCamp and playing BroodWar.
     
    phungy, Jan 31, 2007
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  6. l33t_c0w

    l33t_c0w Notebook Deity

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    Any chance Istat pro isn't reporting the relevant temperatures? In my Macbook, I was using some temperature monitoring dashboard thingy (since lost) that showed something like six different temperatures. When the fans kicked into jet engine mode, some of them hadn't gone up significantly, while the CPU was pretty hot.

    edit: Nevermind. I was using Istat pro. Hahahah. Nonetheless, if you do choose to limit fan speeds, I'd keep a really close eye on the CPU temps. It doesn't seem a wise thing to do...
     
    l33t_c0w, Jan 31, 2007
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  7. lbjazz

    lbjazz Notebook Consultant

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    Just a thought, but perhaps the reason the temp isn't going up is because the fans kicked in.

    My C2D mbp's fans are almost constantly at 2000 rpm, which is very quiet. The did once, for no apparent reason hit 6000 rpm which was quite loud, but still not as loud as my roommates dell p4 laptop when he's not even using it.
     
    lbjazz, Feb 2, 2007
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