El Capitan macbook air 2012 fan problem

Open the Activity Monitor app and select the CPU tab and order by %cpu to see which processes are stuck and consuming so much energy.

I'm experiencing the exact same problem on my Mid 2012 MacBook Air. A solution would be much appreciated.

I can only speculate that the cause is that it is beta code, and is taxing the components enough to warrent the extra cooling.

I wouldn't recommend artificially reducing the fan speed until the cause is known. Beta software often has a lot of debug functionality that isnt present in release code.

hi Max, unfortunately, i've monitored the CPU and it is not running above 30% max...

basically; i switch the machine on; fan goes max rpm instantly..

That both you and iroze007 have the same Model MacBook and the same issue (that would normally be an SMC fault but isn't), can't be a coincidence. There's plenty of free apps out there that report sensor data for you, so that you can confirm that it's not hot cpu/gpu cores causing it.

I'd recommend you try resetting the NVRAM too; it's less likely to be the culprit than SMC, but still worth ruling out:

1. Turn on your Mac.
2. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you hear the startup sound.
3. Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.
4. Release the keys.

In the likely event that this doesn't help, it would be well worth submitting a bug report.

hi Max, thanks again. Unfortunately no luck. submitted a bug report

hi Iroze, interested to know if above steps did help you

this can happen to mac hardware when the firmware settings get hosed -- this is NOT likely elCapitan itself, but you will almost certainly be able to resolve this issue by google'ing firware fixes and basically doing something like holding down a pair of keys while restarting and waiting for a long, weird beep. After that reset, I'm quite sure your fans will return to normal.

I'm experiencing a similar problem. While the fans to come on full blast right away, to do work them selves up to full speed, even when no apps are running. I'm on a Mid 2013 13" MBA.

I'm experiencing the exact same issue. MacBook air, early 2014 model. Hope to see a fix soon.

I am seeing this, too. Mid-2012 MBA 13".

There's a kernel_task that is using a consistent 20-30% of a CPU that seems to be correlated to the fan running.

I was seeing this too. Macbook Air (mid 2012). Fan going crazy after I installed El Capitan. I went into Activity Monitor and saw that the process secd seemed to be using a lot of CPU. I shut it down and it immediately restarted using a fraction of the CPU and my fans instantly quietened and are now running normally. I really am clueless and had no idea what I was doing, it could have been a complete coincidence but I'm adding this in case it helps someone else :-)

Same here!

My MacMini 6,1, early 2013, i7 config is also on fire. The fan spins like crazy; but no reason! CPU usage low, no read/write on the disk, nothing in RAM.

Even if all Applications are closed (and QUIT) it still runs. BUT... That comes up about 2 weeks ago, not since July, like it´s on all the MBAs here listed.

Will try the NVRAM/PRAM reset and get back to you later; but I m pretty sure, that wont help.

Having same problem here with Early 2013 15" MBPr. Fan wont turn off and CPU activity is 8-12%. I have done everything above and did a clean re-install with same results.

Update - MBPr in sleep mode for 3 hours and I came back to a blazing hot keyboard / body. I'm hoping this is a quick fix for Apple since I dont want my logic board ot burn up.