Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> MacBook Fan Runs All the Time

Jim Ventresca - Jan 4, 2007 - 6:58 am

I just got this new MacBook. After working on it for a few days and installing documents, pictures, music and a few programs, the fan started running almost all the time. The activity monitor, which was almost off when I got the MacBook, now reads 50% or more all the time. In the activity monitor I see mdimports using between 21 and 99% of CPU all the time. The fan is bothersome, and the machine is bogging down. Can I just quit the mdimport process? Any suggestions? By the way, I'm fairly new to macs.

philippe99 - Jan 4, 2007 - 10:02 am

Hi and welcome to macosx.com

mdimporter is the Spotlight's background process which indexes "on the fly" the content of your drive.
In System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy, you can add folder/volumes not to be indexed.

The first indexation of Spotlight (as I saw on my G5) can take one or two hours and, yes, solicits the drive, then the fans..

But all the time ??? Strange !

Even when I add in one shot two or three Giga of photos on my drive, Spotlight indexes them in a few minutes.

You can kill the process... for the current session, but it will come back next login.

Try to add your whole disk (or the Documents, the Images, the Music) in the Privacy area of Spotlight to see if it changes. If no, the problem is elsewhere.

Another idea: a DSL/broaband connection which permantly creates/deletes huge log files ? (very rare)

Regards
Philippe

Jim Ventresca - Jan 4, 2007 - 10:14 am

Thanks for the info. I'll try it.
This is a great service. Tanks Again!

philippe99 - Jan 4, 2007 - 10:49 am

Post back the results. I searched the Web for a similar issue but found any.
I'm not sure that mdimporter is something to do with the issue.
I know that some macbook (Pro ?) face fans problem, but I guess there is a latest firmware to correct the problem

Philippe