Hi Josh, I doubt you have to worry. You may want to check the processes under /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, but in a lot of cases that single process is the only one causing the fan to make that much noise. You can stop it by disabling Spotlight using the Terminal and the following command: sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist Note: This requires your user password. Incidentally, you can also use the older indexing method which only turns off indexing: sudo mdutil -a -i off To enable Spotlight again, just enter load instead of unload, like this: sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist To enable the indexing once more, just replace "off" with "on" though you may get a Spotlight Server Error message, so use the above command to load them both.
Remember that if you turn either of these functions off then back on after a while, it will take longer to index as it discovers new files, and this applies to any external media you plug into your Mac. if you find the fan noise becomes a problem for you, you may want to consider checking the CPU usage of the various processes running. If it turns out not to be mdworker, but a third party application, you can of course feel free to notify them of possible issues with their app. Regards, Nicolai On Jul 4, 2012, at 5:27 PM, josh gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > Hmmm... quite interesting stuff... the fan speed seemed pretty high if > I could hear it, I've never heard it that high before. But, as long as > nothing serious can happen, I think we're ok, :) thanks all for the > advice, it's greatly appreciated! > > On 7/4/12, Nicolai Svendsen <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi Lynne, >> >> Depending on what application he used to play music (we'll assume iTunes,) >> some processes in OS X sometimes run very resource-hungry tasks. One >> resource to watch out for in particular is mdworker. What this stands for is >> Metadata Server worker and it ensures that your files are Indexed using >> Spotlight, and is the core technology behind the search engine. It generates >> its index using metadata making it possible to find files instantaneously >> using Spotlight. It's very much known to take up a lot of CPU, so this is >> probably what happened. It tends to really start working when you, for >> instance, plug in an external hard drive. Keep in mind that it tries to >> index all of the new files that it discovers, so depending on the new files >> found it may take longer than you expect. Also depending on the workload it >> will work harder, but the high CPU usage is totally normal. Other processes >> may increase your CPU usage, like Voiceover, but if VoiceOver does this >> often you need to do some tro >> ubleshooting. VoiceOVer is designed to hardly eat up any resources. You can >> review the CPU usage of your processes through >> /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app or by using Terminal commands. >> >> A kernel panic is something entirely different and actually causes your Mac >> to freeze, and even third party programs can cause this, although kernel >> panics should be extremely rare. it is an internal fatal error for which >> your operating system cannot recover, and is often related to hardware >> problems though some software particularly in the operating system itself >> may trigger the behaviour. It's a safety mechanism which aims to prevent >> data corruption and the risk of data breaches, and attempts to facilitate a >> diagnosis of the error. For those familiar with Windows, this is what most >> users even consumers call the "blue screen," or "Bug check." >> >> Regards, >> Nicolai >> On Jul 4, 2012, at 1:22 PM, Mrs. Lynnette Annabel Smith >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hello Josh and Sarah >>> >>> There are occasions where you can run into what I believe is a "Panic" at >>> a very low level. These "Panics" or "Kernel Panics" can cause symptoms >>> such as the fan speed increasing or hard drive access becoming sluggish. >>> >>> In a lot of cases, you can help your Mac recover from these "Panics" by >>> simply shutting it down and then restarting. I'm lead to believe that some >>> or all of these "Panics" are logged and can be sent to Apple as a report. >>> Of course, somebody may know better than I; in fact they probably do. But >>> having read a lot of stuff on Apple's technical pages I think this is the >>> kind of situation you're running into. >>> >>> Lynne >>> >>> On 4 Jul 2012, at 02:18, josh gregory <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Is it anything to seriously worry about? Like will anything happen to >>> my mac from it? >>> >>> <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> >>> >>> To reply to this post, please address your message to >>> [email protected] >>> >>> You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum >>> at either the list's own dedicated web archive: >>> <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> >>> or at the public Mail Archive: >>> <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. >>> Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: >>> <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> >>> >>> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus >>> and worm-free! >>> >>> Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting >>> the list website at: >>> <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> >> >> <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> >> >> To reply to this post, please address your message to >> [email protected] >> >> You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at >> either the list's own dedicated web archive: >> <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> >> or at the public Mail Archive: >> <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. >> Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: >> <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> >> >> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus >> and worm-free! >> >> Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting >> the list website at: >> <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> >> > > > -- > Ways to Connect with me: > > facebook.com/evercuriousmasteryodo > > twitter.com/joshg93 > Skype: joshgregory93 > FaceTime, iMessage and iChat: [email protected] > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> > > To reply to this post, please address your message to > [email protected] > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at > either the list's own dedicated web archive: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> > or at the public Mail Archive: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. > Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > > The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and > worm-free! > > Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting > the list website at: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. 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