Ableton Forum

I am currently working on a project on Live 8.1.5b2 (though also tried with 8.1.4), and I am surprised that the fans on my two year old MacBook Pro are just about maxed out when playing back the project.

CPU level on Live is hovering around 30-35%, which I didn't think was that much, yet the fans are blowing air like a politician before election time (6000 RPM, to be precise).

This is pretty annoying, particularly because the music contains some quiet-ish parts.

Anyone else experiencing this? Is it normal to have the fans working this

(btw, I have a EMU 0404 sound card, and I suspect the driver (which is pretty old) is also causing extra CPU usage.)

digid wrote:I am currently working on a project on Live 8.1.5b2 (though also tried with 8.1.4), and I am surprised that the fans on my two year old MacBook Pro are just about maxed out when playing back the project.

CPU level on Live is hovering around 30-35%, which I didn't think was that much, yet the fans are blowing air like a politician before election time (6000 RPM, to be precise).

This is pretty annoying, particularly because the music contains some quiet-ish parts.

Anyone else experiencing this? Is it normal to have the fans working this

(btw, I have a EMU 0404 sound card, and I suspect the driver (which is pretty old) is also causing extra CPU usage.)

You can always check your CPU usage with Activity Monitor and see if it's the driver or Ableton...

Also worth checking your temperatures and see if the fan activity is correctly linked to an increased temperature, i.e. CPU working harder. I use iStat Menus for temp/fan monitoring - really good utility (version 2.0 - the last free version - is also just a google away).

digid wrote:I am currently working on a project on Live 8.1.5b2 (though also tried with 8.1.4), and I am surprised that the fans on my two year old MacBook Pro are just about maxed out when playing back the project.

CPU level on Live is hovering around 30-35%, which I didn't think was that much, yet the fans are blowing air like a politician before election time (6000 RPM, to be precise).

This is pretty annoying, particularly because the music contains some quiet-ish parts.

Anyone else experiencing this? Is it normal to have the fans working this

(btw, I have a EMU 0404 sound card, and I suspect the driver (which is pretty old) is also causing extra CPU usage.)

Which revision of the MacBook Pro do you have?
(If unsure, you can look up the information on your particular unit here: http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html)

Do you also experience that the fans kick in quickly when watching flash movies, e.g. on YouTube?

rin wrote: Which revision of the MacBook Pro do you have?
(If unsure, you can look up the information on your particular unit here: http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html)

Do you also experience that the fans kick in quickly when watching flash movies, e.g. on YouTube?

I have the "MacBook Pro (Early 2008)".

And, yup, I frequently experience that the fans kick in when I watch flash movies, YouTube etc.

The fans also seems rather sensitive in other software as well.

Is this something particular to my MacBook? Has heat dissipation improved in later MacBook Pros? Should I upgrade?

digid wrote:

rin wrote: Which revision of the MacBook Pro do you have?
(If unsure, you can look up the information on your particular unit here: http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html)

Do you also experience that the fans kick in quickly when watching flash movies, e.g. on YouTube?

I have the "MacBook Pro (Early 2008)".

And, yup, I frequently experience that the fans kick in when I watch flash movies, YouTube etc.

The fans also seems rather sensitive in other software as well.

Is this something particular to my MacBook? Has heat dissipation improved in later MacBook Pros? Should I upgrade?

Hi again,

This particular revision shouldn't really be more noisy than average.
Maybe the ventilation is blocked. Sometimes the fans get clogged when operating in a dusty environment.
Remember, it is always better to vacuum dust away. Blowing usually just pushes it further in or spreads it around.

A side note. Your MBP has the notorious NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics chip. If you ever experience a video failure, Apple will repair this outside warranty at no additional cost.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

The more recent MBPs have better performance, also when it comes to fan noise.

Cheers,
Richard

I just reset the PRAM, and that, surprisingly, seems to have made the fans less "nervous" - they don't revv up to 6000RPM as fast as before, and, in fact, seems to linger around 3500-4000 for quite a long time now, even with high CPU usage.

Hoping it will last ...

digid wrote:I just reset the PRAM, and that, surprisingly, seems to have made the fans less "nervous" - they don't revv up to 6000RPM as fast as before, and, in fact, seems to linger around 3500-4000 for quite a long time now, even with high CPU usage.

Hoping it will last ...

Actually, now that you mention the resetting of the PRAM, actually the SMC on Intel Mac, it got me thinking. Have you run the SMC firmware update 1.3?
http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacB ... Update_1_3

If the installer says you don't need it, your MBP SMC is up-to-date.

Seems my machine wasn't eligible for the upgrade, though I am pretty sure I upgraded when this fix first came out - so maybe that's the explanation.

digid wrote:Seems my machine wasn't eligible for the upgrade, though I am pretty sure I upgraded when this fix first came out - so maybe that's the explanation.

No, it just means that you applied the SMC update at an earlier point.

Cheers,
Richard