what just happened? my fans went flying! (mbp)

i was just sitting here watching some video reviews of a phone with headphones on when i hear this loud fan sound, i couldnt figure out what it was until i took off the headphones and realized it was my macbook pro! smfancontrol wasnt even on and i dont have my RPM's raised over 3,400 but i turned it on and realized my fans were spinning at 6,000 RPM! my cpu temp was 45 so i dont think it was much hotter than that in the previous 10 seconds or so they started running, any ideas why my fans would just increase so much for no reason?

 

Depending on your environment, and the complexity of a video, the processor can become quite warm while decoding video. So the fans may have kicked in to cool it down.

Edit: I love how people think fans are noisy. I have my ceiling fan, bathroom fan, and air conditioner running near constantly and I can't SLEEP or concentrate without fans running. So I make my MBP run it's fans at 6k RPM constantly. Otherwise, it just doesn't sound right. *laughs*

 

how hot does the cpu have to get to make the fans spin at 6,000?

you really make urs 6k to sleep? lol

 

*laughs* Yeah, I do. If there's no noise to be heard, my ears will ring and bother the hell out of me. So I always have constant noise, and my favorite constant noise is wind/fans.

I don't know what temperatures activate the fans at certain speeds, come to think of it. When I learned the fans could be manually activated, I ran them at 6k ever since. Eventually they'll burn out, I guess.

Honestly, when I turn the fans back down to 2k I think "Oh god, the laptop will slowly over heat and bake to death without the air flow!" So, honestly I don't like turning them off.

I did the same thing with my DELL Inspiron 8600c. The first thing to fail? The chassis and hard disk. The fan still worked, hehe.

 

Wow, I have to give you props, I can never sleep or concentrate with fan noise or any other noise other than silence. I hate it when people start whispering in the no talking zone at the library, I hate it when the cleaning lady uses her machine, I hate it when theres any kind of noise when trying to concentrate or sleep.

You are truly unique and I have never heard of anyone that needs noise to focus. Really cool.

 

<----------- i sleep better with a somewhat audible fan on as well. good thing, im encoding 350 dvds with handbrake

 

I can't sleep with no sound either, I need the tv on, or music, or whatever on, because then the little sounds that occur with total silence are annoying. Like little creaks, or something like that.

 

my fans go to 6k sometimes, actually quite often, when I render video and stuff like that. cpu is usually around 75 degrees I think (CPU A gets the hottest I think, the others are around 60 or 65)

 

I need music to write essays and come to think of i actually like to sleep with my 6 year old dell dimension 2350 running haha.

 

Wow, I can't sleep unless its pitch dark and absolutely silent!

Anyways, I'd say its just a random "glitch". Sometimes the processor gets worked up for no reason; try quitting applications, or even restarting the Mac.

Normally, the fans go to 6000 RPM if the processor reaches 70 C or higher.

 

lol thanks for the insight everyone =)
i used to sleep with music on, but i do find that the idea of fans helping is kinda odd, but understandable haha

 

Wow, you guys are amazing .

 

My MBP did the same once. It was some weird offset spinning at 4000 RPM instead of 2000 when cold(40°C) and soon going up to 6000 @ 48 °C.

I solved it by resetting the SMC-Controller.

.)Turn off the Notebook(Shutdown not Sleep).
.)Take out the battery and unplug the AC-Adapter @ magsafe connection.
.)Hold the Power Button > 5 secs

This procedure aso resets NVRAM, which isn't bad really.

The official SMC resetting procedure statetement:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319

HTH
dsp_

EDIT:
Also I don't think it's going up to 6000 normally at all. Without this glitch occuring the highest RPM was about 4200 @ 80°C.