MacBook Air

Teri

Well-Known Member
I purchased my MacBook Air Retina, 13inch 2018. at London Drugs in November, of 2018. I do not use it on a daily basis. I noticed the last few times that the fan comes on and it gets a bit hot. This usually happens when I am doing a jigsaw puzzle from a site called freejigsawpuzzle.com I have it on a cork place mat on a thin metal riser with holes in it. I also notice it runs the battery down after a few hours use. Is this normal for the age of this laptop? What should I do?

thanks
Teri
 

DaveS

Well-Known Member
You don't mention what system it's running, but after I upgraded my MacBook Air to the newest OS (Big Sur), there were routines running in the background for quite a long time (weeks). If you have been shutting down your computer for the stretches of time when you're not using it, these routines will take much longer to complete. I suspect that is why you're finding it is running warm and the fan is running a lot. If that's what it is, you don't need to do anything, Eventually, the routines will be complete and it won't need the fan.

Dave
 

Teri

Well-Known Member
You don't mention what system it's running, but after I upgraded my MacBook Air to the newest OS (Big Sur), there were routines running in the background for quite a long time (weeks). If you have been shutting down your computer for the stretches of time when you're not using it, these routines will take much longer to complete. I suspect that is why you're finding it is running warm and the fan is running a lot. If that's what it is, you don't need to do anything, Eventually, the routines will be complete and it won't need the fan.

Dave
Thanks Dave. I forgot to mention I'm running Big Sur, 11.4. I rarely shut it down. Maybe I should do that and see if that helps. My MacBook updates automatically. I'll give it some time then.
Teri
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
When a site is causing your fans to start running, that usually means it is datamin8ng or worse, cryptomining in the background (surprise, now you know why it’s free).

i would immediately download a copy of MalwareBytes and give that a run to be sure the site (or some other site) hasn’t given you some malware.
 

Teri

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the warning Chas. I did what you asked and it showed I have no tracking or whatever. Scan came up with nothing devious happening on my laptop. I hope this is true. I long for the good ole' days when I used to brag about not needing any type of virus protector or such for my computer. That being said. I wonder why that jigsaw puzzle site is free? Could it be mining and it not be detected? Could it be possible that it is just a site that allows free players with lots of ads? I guess I'm asking should I stop playing on this site? I have used it for years.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
If Malwarebytes says your machine is clean, it’s clean. So that’s good.

Macs are still incredibly resistant to viruses, but certain kinds of annoying malware like browser redirects, browser hijacks, and other scams (like alerts that you must call a certain phone number because Apple is going to shut down your computer, etc.) can still happen.

If the fans tend to run a lot only when you’re visiting this particular site, they’re using some kind of outdated technology that’s having to work your machine much harder than it normally would, perhaps by serving up those ads.

The machine feeling warm to the touch is not unusual, that’s part of how it disperses heat, and the reason why the body is made of metal. Other things I can make max work harder than they normally do include storage being close to full, lots of tabs open in a browser (especially Facebook, I’ve noticed), or programs that are still running in the background that you thought you’d closed.
 

Teri

Well-Known Member
Left FaceBook years ago. My storage is more than enough. So I'm going to monitor the next time and I have a feeling it was I had other tabs open. Thanks for all the good info!
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
One thing I noticed from your original post was your description of how the MB Air is mounted...

"on a cork place mat on a thin metal riser with holes in it."

I am trying to picture this. If there is a sheet of cork between the MB Air and the thin metal sheet with holes in it, the metal sheet with holes won't be effective as the cork is a pretty good thermal insulator. If you can remove the cork sheet and sit the MB Air directly on that metal sheet with holes, that would give it a chance to transfer heat from the laptop to the metal sheet and it might run a lot cooler.
 

Teri

Well-Known Member
Hi Dave.
I keep my MBA on a cork place mat when I take it off my metal stand with the holes to take it to my easy chair where I put it on a big pillow while I sit, to aid air flow. The other thing I did not mention was I have a plastic protection case that clips on and although it has the slits on the underside perhaps it could disperse the heat better if it was not on but I’m trying to protect the case.
 
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