Fan Problems

I have a PowerBook G4 15"
1GB RAM
128 Video Card
yadayayada

I have had this for almost a year now and I have noticed lately that my fan is really loud. I had never heard it before but when it got really hot the fan was very loud. Should it be so loud I can hear it?

Generally, fan noise is related to heating the machine up by working it harder.

Have you noticed if the noise is related to what you are doing on the machine? For example, have you started using some heavy duty app recently that you hadn't before? Is it possible that you are just working the machine harder than you used to? That will heat it up and cause the fans to run.

It is also possible that you have a runaway process that is keeping your CPU running full tilt all the time. Run activity monitor (in your Utilities folder) and check your CPU load - is it what you expected?

Hmmm the only big thing I use is Tiger Woods and my left side of the computer heats up pretty good. Just wondering because I have been playing that for a while... My fan has been louder than usually. LOL what am I looking for in the activity monitor?

In Activity Monitor, select the CPU "tab" and check for total CPU on an otherwise idle machine being unusually high. What is normal will depend on your configuration, but personally, if my machine is running more than 2% or so at idle, I start investigating. I use shareware package called MenuMeters to put a CPU meter permanently into my Mac's menu bar, so that I can always keep an eye on this sort of stuff.