Fan and Big Sur

DaveS

Well-Known Member
Has anyone else noticed that the computer fan running more after upgrading to Big Sur? I did the upgrade last night, and now the fan seems to run constantly since.
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
Not on my 2017 iMac but apps sure do open more slowly. I can hardly wait for the next update that may improve such things. Otherwise all OK here, as far as I can tell.
 

DaveS

Well-Known Member
In addition the constant fan running (presumably) drains the battery in record time. Curiously, looking back with a search on secd (a cpu hog according to the activity monitor), this complaint seems to crop up with every major system upgrade. I, too, hope there is a fix with the next upgrades.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
I have only just updated to Big Sir on my 2019 15-inch MBP and am not seeing this, but what it is is a security process tied to iCloud and the syncing of Keychain. A solution that appears to work for others is to sign all the Macs out of iCloud syncing, then sign them back in.
 

DaveS

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the reply. I found the suggestion of rebooting in safe mode and then back in regular mode. I gather that clears a few caches and it seems to have stopped the syncing that was stuck. Anyhow, the fan is not running now, so I think the problem is fixed,
 
I updated a 2015 MBP this week, and have no fan issues. Big Sur's running fine, but getting it installed was painful! The download is 12.2 GB, after which 35-ish GB of free space is needed; few write-ups say so. Even after I moved the installer to a removable drive, the installer would eventually show I didn't have enough free space, without indicating how much or how much more, space was needed until I got fairly close to having enough.

After moving loads of files off of MacintoshHD, I used Manage Storage to see what else to target, and uninstalled a number of apps that I could later reinstall from the App Store (plus GarageBand sound libraries), and deleted thousands of email messages. The ultimate upgrade and everything since has gone great!

I could imagine extra activity to back up or sync new app versions and files, but I haven't yet restarted TimeMachine. While making room, I deleted some local backups, but the space they freed was negligible compared to what was needed.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
Messages such as that one are indicative of the fact that you are too close to filling up your hard drive. A Macintosh needs a fair amount of free space at all times — not just install times — in order to operate efficiently. As a general rule of thumb, between 10 and 15% of the hard drive should always be kept open at all times.

Things that tend to take up a lot of space, primarily photo and video libraries, are best kept it on external drives (which also need to be backed up, don’t forget) or stored on cloud storage for easy accessibility.
 
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