Does your MacBook Pro sometimes sound like it can take off at any moment, and the device is burning hot? Then it could be that your processor is overloaded. This way you check what is wrong.
MacBook is getting hot: you can do this about it
If your MacBook gets hot, there is a good chance that the fan of your MacBook will suddenly start spinning with a lot of noise to cool down. When that happens, your MacBook may be temporarily overloaded.
Check the CPU load in Activity Monitor
One of the processes may have an error or is taking up too much of the processor capacity, causing the Mac to overheat. You can check what’s wrong by looking in the macOS ‘Activity Monitor’ application. You do that as follows:
- Search via Spotlight for ‘Activity display’ and double click on the application; (You can also find this by clicking Apps> Utilities> Activity Monitor in Finder);
- Under the first tab ‘CPU’ (the processor) you can now see all processes that are currently running;
- Click on ‘% CPU’ to sort by the system processes that take up the most percentage of CPU capacity;
- View the processes with the highest percentage by double clicking on them;
- If you found the culprit (for example, a program that should have been stopped), disable it by clicking on it and then clicking ‘Stop’.
When you use intensive programs on your MacBook, they also use a larger percentage of the CPU capacity. That’s not a problem in itself, but if an app uses more than 70 percent of the CPU capacity, it puts a heavy load on the processor. This also makes your MacBook hot.
Processes per program
If you don’t recognize some process names, the processes may be part of other programs or apps that you do recognize. To see what processes are part of, choose View> ‘All processes hierarchical’. First turn off an app completely before you stop individual processes.
CPU load graph
At the bottom of the window you can also see a small overview of the CPU load. You will see a graph with red and blue. The red line represents the system: the percentage that the system processes (ie macOS) take up of the CPU capacity. The blue line represents the processes that you yourself have started as a user.
To the left of the graph you can see what percentage that is at the moment. Below that you can also see how many of the processes are not running. So if you see an outlier in the graph, you know that a process is taking up too much of the CPU capacity, causing the processor to overload.
More MacBook tips
Curious about more useful tips & tricks for your MacBook? On iPhone you regularly read practical tips. For example, we explain how to restore a frozen Touch Bar. Have you recently purchased a new MacBook? Read everything you need to know in our Mac beginner’s guide.