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I've got a MacBook 6,1 with Natty installed, and occasionally, usually when I'm doing something intensive, the display freezes up and becomes totally unresponsive, while the lat 2 seconds of audio loop over and over. When I reboot immediately after, however, the problem occurs again much more quickly. This, and the fact that I've never heard the fan running (though it does so infrequently under OS X) leads me to believe that something inside is overheating. Any ideas?

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can you check the temperature via terminal or install an application to verify your assumption? I dont know what to do for MAC HW. – dago May 19 '11 at 20:43

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The fans on my Macbook 5,1 run frequently. Apple has horrible practices for cooling which I won't get into here. My Mac has the fans working automatically but I will assume that yours does not since it's tripping the built in temperature kill switch.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mactel-support
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install macfanctld

Is the advised solution, however it doesn't look like there is a Natty version just yet.

If you have no luck with that then try

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hughescih/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mbfancontrol

This should help your computer detect the fans and use them accordingly.

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mbfancontrol depends on applesmc-dkms, which it can't find. – user18131 May 19 '11 at 21:22
Hmm.. This thread (ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1754431) shows a download link to an updated applesmc-dkms for natty, however I have not installed this package myself, so be wary when installing it. Also the thread should have more useful information for you if you read through it a bit. – zookalicious May 19 '11 at 21:42
alright! Satisfying sound of fan turning on (never thought that sound would be satisfying)... we'll see if it works. – user18131 May 20 '11 at 0:02
Great! Hope it works out for you. – zookalicious May 20 '11 at 0:18
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It might be worth resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) which should enable the fans etc to automatically spin up when the temperature rises without the need for something like macfanctld or mbfancontrol

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