Fusion 7 Macbook Pro Retina fan issue

[mrchainsaw]

I use my Mac for developing and as such run multiple versions and flavors of Windows 7/8/8.1 32-bit and 64-bit. I noticed with Fusion 7 the fan seems to always run no matter if the VMs are idle or if they are being used. The VMs themselves don't show any utilization and are configured nominal, 2vCPU and 2GB memory. I tried using 1vCPU and the performance was too poor for my testing purposes. I have tried everything I can think of, enabling/disabling hard disk buffering, enabling/disabling 3D graphics, removing any unnecessary drivers, disabling anything unnecessary services for VM OS. Nothing seems to change the fact that the fans want to run all the time. OSX itself show barely any load. Typically, i run 2/3 VMs at a time, though only one will be active while the others idle.

Processes: 249 total, 3 running, 15 stuck, 231 sleeping, 1393 threads                                                                                               19:53:18

Load Avg: 1.67, 1.88, 1.84  CPU usage: 1.95% user, 13.91% sys, 84.12% idle  SharedLibs: 14M resident, 14M data, 0B linkedit.

MemRegions: 93350 total, 2983M resident, 116M private, 917M shared. PhysMem: 16G used (7676M wired), 38M unused.

VM: 635G vsize, 1064M framework vsize, 86927(0) swapins, 102927(0) swapouts. Networks: packets: 1977986/1940M in, 1344288/328M out.

Disks: 1647143/43G read, 657878/36G written

Any idea what to check? I deleted the .vmx files and created new ones thinking maybe there was a bad value, but that changed nothing.

[wila]

Hi mrchainsaw

Maybe a silly question, but if you stop VMware Fusion do the fans stop running as well?

FWIW I run a similar setup and in my case Fusion uses less resources and the fans are certainly not running more as before.

--
Wil

[mrchainsaw]

If I disable fusion, the fans stop and everything goes back to normal.

[ColoradoMarmot]

what is the host hardware?

[mrchainsaw]

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name: MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,3

  Processor Name: Intel Core i7

  Processor Speed: 2.6 GHz

  Number of Processors: 1

  Total Number of Cores: 4

  L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

  L3 Cache: 6 MB

  Memory: 16 GB

  Boot ROM Version: MBP112.0138.B08

  SMC Version (system): 2.19f12

[thinkV]

I would like to jump on board here and say that I am experiencing the same issue, upgraded to vmware fusion 7, and running XP and Windows 8 on my Retina 15inch and having serious fan issues.

[wila]

Hi user

The hardware looks fine.

The load also doesn't look impressive enough for the fans to kick in, something out of the ordinary seems to be causing this.

One thing I would try in your case is to completely uninstall Fusion, reboot to make sure no kernel extensions are left and reinstall Fusion.

Not exactly a quality tip, but just a basic troubleshooting step.

The output you are displaying above is from command top? The problem with CPU load displaying on that total is that it is a bit misleading for multiple cores.

What does it show for your top processes if you change the sorting order by typing letter "o" followed by "cpu" for sorting order? If you have a single core that gets a lot of load then the CPU might still heat up.

PS: If you try to paste output of top then it seems that the forum software doesn't like the formatting, in that case it might be better to output to a text file and attach it to your reply.

--

Wil

[thinkV]

Hi wila,

what diagnostics programs can I use to show you that i am experiencing the same issues?

Thanks

[wila]

Hi thinkV

A screenshot of Activity Monitor with a sort on the CPU column and scrolled to the top (so we can see the processes using most CPU resources) would be helpful.

--

Wil

[thinkV]

Okay here you go:

And my macbook:

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name: MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1

  Processor Name: Intel Core i7

  Processor Speed: 2.6 GHz

  Number of Processors: 1

  Total Number of Cores: 4

  L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

  L3 Cache: 6 MB

  Memory: 16 GB

  Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B02

  SMC Version (system): 2.3f36

Regards,

V

[wila]

Hi thinkV,

Ok, in your case it makes sense that the fans are on.

The process vmware-vmx at the top is one of two VMs running and is using almost 2 cores completely. So yes that particular VM is using a lot of CPU, aka generating heat and the fans are running to get rid of that heat.

I cannot see from the screenshot which of the two VMs is using that much CPU, but you are very likely able to find out by looking at Windows Task Manager in those VMs. If it helps it is a VM that has more as one CPU core in the configuration.

Next up is trying to find out using Windows Task manager to see which process is using a lot of CPU.

--

Wil

[thinkV]

Hi willa,

it looks like more of a memory leak to me... haven't managed to solve this, fans going crazy.

[wila]

Hi thinkV,

Your screenshot shows CPU usage, not memory and it is burning the CPU at a high rate. So yes I would expect the fans to run.

From within your guest - assuming this is a windows Virtual Machine - can you run task manager in the Windows guest. (Right click task bar, select task manager) Then on the tabpage processes, sort again on CPU. Make sure it shows all processes.

Post back the screen shot.

--

Wil.

[stestagg]

Hi

I'm seeing slightly similar issues (not quite as extreme as the above, but still unexpectedly high).

My Host is a 2013 MBP Retina (Running Yosemite latest):

Running two guests, which are doing nothing, vmware is using about 40% CPU (also see Energy Impact scores!).  I understand that there should be /some/ overheads, but that seems a lot, given that the two guests have no load.  Both guests are Centos machines with 1 core, 1GB ram, and not running any X/graphical display (or anything really)

[mrchainsaw]

Wila,

It has been many months and the issue has not changed. Soon as I boot any virtual machine the Macbook fans kick on. In fact, when I run a single vCPU in a VM it seems to be worse than if I use 2 vCPU.

[wila]

Hi mrchainsaw,

Your VM that runs at 62% is indeed a likely candidate for the fans to kick in.

Do you see any CPU activity in the VM itself?   

--

Wil

[Pboorg]

Any update!! same issue here...

Removing 3D graphics acceleration helps but not resolve issue....

[wila]

Hi Pablo,

Please open a new topic, this is a thread from 2014 and while there might be some symptoms that match, chances are pretty big that it isn't the same issue.

--

Wil