You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Mac fan won’t stop making noise

Hi. My mac’s fan won’t stop overpeading. It’s been like that all day. I tried to reset the SMC and also checked the activity monitor. The fan however is still very loud and it starts up as soon as I log into my computer. I was wondering if I can still use my Mac even as the fan is being loud and also if I should bring it in to an Apple store. Please let me know.

MacBook Air 13", 10.12

Posted on May 22, 2019 5:58 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 22, 2019 8:57 PM

You can definitely still use your MacBook Air, however the high noise speed can be very distracting and even annoying to have all the time, and will wear out the fan much sooner than otherwise.


I would take it into the Apple Store to see what they say. It's possible the SMC reset didn't really take. It's possible one of the internal sensors on the MacBook Air logic board have gone bad. It's also possible the CPU heatsink/fan has gotten loose (if it takes a minute or a few for the fan to kick into high speed).


You can download a number of free utilities to force the fan speed run slower/quiet, but the risk there is if the CPU activity is actually high and the fan does not keep things properly cool, this could greatly wear out the CPU life.


The first question is if when starting the MacBook Air from a total cold boot where it's been off for 15+ minutes at minimum, does the fan turn onto high speed almost immediately (even before macOS is loaded)? Or does it take so many minutes before it starts doing this?


Does the fan stay in high speed in recovery mode (booting with COMMAND-R)?


Does the fan stay in high speed while in Safe Boot Mode? (booting holding down the SHIFT key)?

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 22, 2019 8:57 PM in response to learitza

You can definitely still use your MacBook Air, however the high noise speed can be very distracting and even annoying to have all the time, and will wear out the fan much sooner than otherwise.


I would take it into the Apple Store to see what they say. It's possible the SMC reset didn't really take. It's possible one of the internal sensors on the MacBook Air logic board have gone bad. It's also possible the CPU heatsink/fan has gotten loose (if it takes a minute or a few for the fan to kick into high speed).


You can download a number of free utilities to force the fan speed run slower/quiet, but the risk there is if the CPU activity is actually high and the fan does not keep things properly cool, this could greatly wear out the CPU life.


The first question is if when starting the MacBook Air from a total cold boot where it's been off for 15+ minutes at minimum, does the fan turn onto high speed almost immediately (even before macOS is loaded)? Or does it take so many minutes before it starts doing this?


Does the fan stay in high speed in recovery mode (booting with COMMAND-R)?


Does the fan stay in high speed while in Safe Boot Mode? (booting holding down the SHIFT key)?

Mac fan won’t stop making noise

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.