Mac Mini Owners - does your fan speed increase with CPU load?

[olnacl]

I have a new Mac Mini (refurb) and have been doing some batch photo processing using Graphic Converter - long story short, I scan at high resolution, then, after editing, run a batch of photos through GC, reducing them to 1600 Pixels high for slide shows, etc. This batch is quite processor intensive and I've noticed that, even with the CPU temp rising to above 70°, the fan speed doesn't increase - stays right around 1500 RPM.

I reset the SMC - no change. I added SMC fan control, and setting the fan to 3000 RPM brings the CPU temp down about 10°. I'm just wondering whether I have a bum fan control or if all Minis run that hot.

I'm going to run the Apple Hardware test now. Maybe that will show something.

[kj4btkljv]

The only time I ever noticed the fan increase in speed was on the old G4 Mac Minis (1.42GHz, and 1.5 GHz) when I would turn on Folding @ Home. The Intel Mac Minis - never noticed a fan speed increase at all.

Jeff

[DRR]

Mine stayed incredibly quiet, even a heavy load did not seem to speed up the fan.

For reference, my 2.8 MBP runs at about 70c with very slight perceptible fan noise increase. It's an elevated temp for sure but I wouldn't be worried unless it's doing something like shutting down, acting funny, etc.

[motopsyco]

Early '09 here, and trans-coding video while playing HD off the cable, surfing/Flash content. I can't hear the fan while the CPU pegging most of the time. I have 2.0 Ghz and 4GB of RAM, running Snow Leopard.

Cheers!

[AllGold]

I have an old 1.66GHz. I was amazed at how low the fan speed was and how high it let the CPU temp get.

[olnacl]

Update - I ran extended HW tests and all passed. I did hear the fans speed up right at the end of the test cycle so they are responding to something - anyway. I guess I'll just use SMC fan control to bump up the speed and keep the CPU temp down when I'm doing those processor intensive operations.

[DRR]

FWIW SMC Fan control is the best fan control app I've used, and I'm pretty sure I tried them all.

[ScottG]

My fan is almost silent, but often running at ~2700 rpm. The cpu is often pegged at about 70ºC, usually because the children leave Firefox with a graphic intensive Flash-based game running on their user account

cheers
scott

[Article Accelerator]

olnacl wrote:
I'll just use SMC fan control to bump up the speed and keep the CPU temp down when I'm doing those processor intensive operations.

Trust The Force, young olnacl. The fan speed will not ramp up until it must, i.e. until the CPU temperature exceeds the manufacturer's maximum operating temperature for that particular CPU model. It seems like that spec for the CPU in your computer is 70ºC, therefore no fan speed increase is triggered.

In other words, don't worry about it.

[RAMd®d]

Oh, yeaaaaah.

My mini's (2.0GHz, 3G RAM) fan will hit 4-5K in a heartbeat if I move some big images around or watch a 720p movie full screen.

Leave it alone and it will be around 1200-1500rpm. I slows down quickly enough if I don't do anything, but it's a little noisy by my standards.

It *is* a lot quieter than my MDD.