Hi Kari, The podcast Chris refers to is about buying a chill mat to keep the laptop running cooler, especially because the user runs it for long times on her lap against cloth, instead of on a hard surface. In your case, where there's a sudden change in behavior and overheating, it's more likely that you have a run away process that is thrashing and causing your CPU to peg at a very high level. Other possibilities are that you're low on memory (or in the case of a laptop, one of your memory cards has become slightly unseated -- not likely, but it can happen), or that you're very short on free disk space and that some caching processes are spending a lot of time swapping.
Load up the Activity Monitor tool that's in your Utility folder (Command-Shift-U in Finder to navigate there, press "a" or "a c" to go to "Activity Monitor", then press Command+Down Arrow to launch. If a window does not automatically come press Command+1 to bring up the main Activity Monitor window. Navigate past the tool bar and processing information table to the tabs, which are for "CPU", "System Memory", "Disk Activity", "Disk Usage", and "Network". Select (VO-Space) "CPU", which is probably already selected if this is the first time you've launched Activity Monitor. Navigate past the tabs to get a summary of CPU usage by User, System, and Idle, along with number or threads and processes. If your user CPU usage is high, for example 50 or 60 per cent while you're not actively running much, navigate back to the process table (VO+Left Arrow), interact, and take a look at the CPU usage of what's running. The table lists the process ID number, process name (e.g. "Safari", "Mail", "iTunes"), user who owns the process, per cent CPU, number of threads, and real and virtual memory used. Take a look at the per cent CPU of your processes to check whether any of these are running high -- like over 90 per cent. If you highlight a process with high CPU usage, there are buttons in the toolbar that will let you inspect that process and also quit it. So stop interacting with the process table and navigate back (VO+Left arrow) to the toolbar, interact, and then navigate to and press (VO+Space) the Inspect button if you want to monitor this process in more detail for a while. There is also a "Quit" button at the end of the inspect process window, which will be named for the process you are monitoring, and that will let you quit this process. In some cases some totally unexpected app may be running with high per cent CPU usage -- for example, GrowlHelperApp. You can just quit or force quit that runaway process, and see whether your problems are resolved. Activity Monitor is a good way to check for processes that are runaway CPU and memory hogs, since you can identify them, quit them and restart. In the case of a Macbook suddenly running very hot, it's likely this is a runaway process that is hogging your CPU. If this is a recurrent problem, and you need to send in information to Apple or to someone sighted for diagnosis, you can take a screen shot of the Activity Monitor menu. Command+Shift+3 will take a screen shot and save it to your Desktop labeled by date and time. This image can be sent as an attachment in an email, if needed. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Jun 28, 2011, at 02:23, johns.kary wrote: > Hi, > I can't get the link to work, it refuses to load. > Thanks, > Kari. > On 28/06/2011, at 9:56 PM, Christopher Wright wrote: > >> Hi, >> Someone did a podcast on this. Go to >> >> http://gwenna.podbean.com >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "johns.kary" <[email protected]> >> To: <[email protected]> >> Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 7:20 AM >> Subject: Mac book pro running very hot >> >> >>> Hi guys, >>> >>> I've got a strange problem hear, and I'm really hoping it's software not >>> hard ware. >>> >>> A couple of days ago my Mac book pro started running hot, the fan would >>> kick in a short time after start up, and would pretty much run constantly >>> from there until I shut down again. >>> Now, it's the middle of winter hear in Australia, so the temperature hardly >>> get's above 20 Celsius, Even with the heater going my lounge-room is >>> definitely not hot enough to up set the MBP. >>> I checked all the usual culprits, Things I'd forgotten to remove from the >>> finder, apps running in the background, ect, no deal it still happened. >>> >>> I ran a permissions repair, worked for about a day, then started all over >>> again. >>> >>> So I went deeper and had a look at the activity monitor. >>> Most things are running at 0.0 or or not much higher, except for one. >>> Something called "applespell.service" was varying between 84 and 99%. >>> I quit it, and it went back to 0.0 and my MBP immediately started cooling >>> down. A short while later it started heating up again and the fan cut in >>> and remained on again. I went back and checked, and sure enough >>> applespell.service" was running at 99%. Once again I quit, and things >>> cooled down again. It's been running at 0.0 for a bit over an hour now, >>> the Mac is a lot cooler, and the fan hasn't kicked in once. So I'm >>> assuming I've found my problem. The thing is it seams to be reoccurring >>> frequently. >>> Does anyone have any idea what's going on hear? Do you guys think I've >>> found the problem, or am I completely off the mark? >>> >>> I'd really like to fix this my self, not only for the satisfaction, but my >>> nearest apple store is an hour and a half away, and finding transport for >>> that long a trip can be tricky at best. :). >>> >>> Thanks in advance for any thoughts-help. >>> >>> A very! frustrated, >>> Kari. >>> Ps all software is up to date. >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
