So my 15″ MacBook Pro seems to be heating up quite a lot. The fans are usually running at 6000 rpms or more. It does not seem to be any processor intensive program like Aperture or something. How would you suggestion going about troubleshooting this?
— Todd Peperkorn
First, which MacBook Pro do you have? What year? If this is a new one, I would be concerned. But old ones, like my 2007 model, always seem to run hot.
Use Activity Monitor to see what is using processor time. Don't assume that big applications are intense and small apps are not. A poorly-written program, even though small, can use a lot of processor. See what background processes you have and your login items, etc.
Does it run like this when you have no applications running at all? Try it and give it 10 minutes to cool down. Then add only one running application at a time.
Things like that -- be a detective and try to deduce what is causing it.
You could always go to the Genius Bar and have them take a look.
It's the mid-2009 model. I've tried checking through Activity monitor, and I don't see anything obvious. For example, I put the computer to sleep about 4 hours ago. I just woke it up and plugged it back in. The fans are funning 6000rpms and it is hot to the touch after 10 minutes of use.
Well, FWIW my older MacBook Pro was always hot to the touch. Remember it should shut down on its own if it gets too hot.
I also used a USB fan pad thing that sat under my MacBook -- those work pretty well.