My fan keeps spinning. How to find out why? What CPU temperatue is too high?

I've noticed in the last few months that the fan is on an aweful lot.
Michael Levin wrote on :
Hi all. I'm running the latest update of Panther on a 17" G4 laptop. I've noticed in the last few months that the fan is on an aweful lot. I don't think it was this way before. Is there any way I can find out why? I have one of those apps which measures CPU temperature and it says 50.3C. Is that high? What's the upper limit? Any way for me to know what the hell is going on? This happens while I'm reading email, not burning a DVD or any high-intensity computation. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!
George Williams replied on :

Michael Levin wrote:

Hi all. I'm running the latest update of Panther on a 17" G4 laptop. I've noticed in the last few months that the fan is on an aweful lot. I don't think it was this way before. Is there any way I can find out why? I have one of those apps which measures CPU temperature and it says 50.3C.

That's not too hot - 122 F. Maybe the battery is overheating. What percent of CPU is being used when the fan is on? (in activity monitor)

Michael Levin replied on :

On 8/14/04 12:35 PM, in article 411E3F4F.3C690AD6@redacted.invalid, "George Williams" nyar1ath0tep@redacted.invalid wrote:

Michael Levin wrote:

Hi all. I'm running the latest update of Panther on a 17" G4 laptop. I've noticed in the last few months that the fan is on an aweful lot. I don't think it was this way before. Is there any way I can find out why? I have one of those apps which measures CPU temperature and it says 50.3C.

That's not too hot - 122 F. Maybe the battery is overheating. What percent of CPU is being used when the fan is on? (in activity monitor)

activity monitor says about 80-90% of CPU for system, 20-10% for user (it keeps shifting within those bounds). Very odd - what could the system possibly be doing? I'm just writing emails! Any suggestions for tracking this down?

Thanks!

George Williams replied on :

Michael Levin wrote:

activity monitor says about 80-90% of CPU for system, 20-10% for user (it keeps shifting within those bounds). Very odd - what could the system possibly be doing? I'm just writing emails! Any suggestions for tracking this down?

Bad VM management? Is HD nearly full? Check number and size of swap files (in Finder: cmd-f swap, visibility=all)

Michael Levin replied on :

On 8/15/04 1:53 PM, in article 411FA2FB.92984879@redacted.invalid, "George Williams" nyar1ath0tep@redacted.invalid wrote:

Michael Levin wrote:

activity monitor says about 80-90% of CPU for system, 20-10% for user (it keeps shifting within those bounds). Very odd - what could the system possibly be doing? I'm just writing emails! Any suggestions for tracking this down?

Bad VM management? Is HD nearly full? Check number and size of swap files (in Finder: cmd-f swap, visibility=all)

I've got 6 Gigs free on the disk. I see two swap files - swapfile0 and swapfile1, both 64 Megs. Is that normal or bad?

George Williams replied on :

Michael Levin wrote:

I've got 6 Gigs free on the disk. I see two swap files - swapfile0 and swapfile1, both 64 Megs. Is that normal or bad?

It's better than average. Something else is causing system to use 80-90% of cpu time. Maybe some hardware item.