[mackandproud]

I recently had a slight issue of a program running without my being able to turn it off (open xml converter from the monstrosity known as microsoft). I'll also get this occasionally with scripts running in my web browser as well.

Anyway, I didn't know how to turn the program off: I tried to force quit microsoft word, but that didn't help. Then, I tried to turn off open xml converter but according to my activity monitor, the program was still running despite my quitting the program.

I was then forced to restart the computer. Now, at that point, the fan was running at over 6000 rpm. But restarting the computer turned the fan off, and when it had started back up the fan gradually spun back up to 6000 rpm again before the computer gradually cooled off.

I'm wondering, since the fan apparently should've kept running but instead was forced off due to the restart, could any excess heat generated during the approx. 1 minute or so when it was starting back up have harmed the computer (motherboard, cpu, or other parts)? I know excessive heat is never good, but I"m hoping 1 minute with the fan being off is not too bad of a deal.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mackandproud 

Anyway, I didn't know how to turn the program off: I tried to force quit microsoft word, but that didn't help. Then, I tried to turn off open xml converter but according to my activity monitor, the program was still running despite my quitting the program.

In Activity Monitor, find the culprit, select it, hit the "Quit Process" button, and then chose "Force Quit". Repeat if necessary. If you're familiar with the terminal, you can also try "kill -9 PID" on the PID of the process.

I'm wondering, since the fan apparently should've kept running but instead was forced off due to the restart, could any excess heat generated during the approx. 1 minute or so when it was starting back up have harmed the computer (motherboard, cpu, or other parts)? I know excessive heat is never good, but I"m hoping 1 minute with the fan being off is not too bad of a deal.

No. The moment you forcefully shut off your Mac its heat output is reduced to almost zero (plus a few W if your battery is charging). It will cool down to ambient temperature levels all by itself. This is slower without a fan, but since no extra heat has to be dissipated it poses no risk to your hardware. And in fact, the temperature difference between your Mac's internal components and ambient air is required for nay cool down to happen at all.

Once you power up the Mac again it will start producing heat which needs to be dissipated again. Since the internal components are still warm from before, the sensors will tell the fans to start running again until the internal components have reached a sufficiently low equilibrium temperature.

In short: no harm has been done and the behavior you observed is exactly what you'd expect in this situation. Note also that your Mac has safeguards implemented in hardware. If your Mac, for whatever reason, ever reaches temperatures at which the hardware could suffer real damage, it will shut off all by itself before actual damage occurs.