The case of the mooing MacBook has been solved

Yes, my MacBook moos like a cow when it’s been sitting idling for an extended period of time. And so do a lot of other people’s MacBooks. I’ve never seen it as an issue, a bit humorous perhaps, but nothing that was going to disturb my workflow. And more importantly, it sounded pretty clear to me that it was a fan cycling for the sake of keeping the machine cool (after all, you can’t expect a dual processor in a laptop to stay within the range of “no burning flesh” without some kind of unorthodox cooling system). But a lot of other folks have had a problem with the fact that their MacBook’s fan cycles up and down during idle in a manner that eerily resembles a slow-mooing cow. Someone was so disturbed by it that they even started a blog in an attempt to get Apple to do something about the little laptop that could (moo).

Well now it’s all over with, apparently. This week Apple released a Firmware update specifically for the MacBook which, while it doesn’t say so, appears to be the cure for the mooing. And hence the end of an era. I’m almost sad to see it go, as anytime my MacBook would start mooing from across the office when I wasn’t using it, it was almost like having a pet in the office that I didn’t need to feed, bathe, or walk. But technology marches on, so I fired up Apple’s “MacBook SMC Firmware Update” and now I assume the mooing is likely gone forever (my machine hasn’t gone into long-term idle yet, which was the only time mine mooed, so I can’t say yet for sure).

The kicker for me, though, is the name Apple chose for this curious and vaguely named updated: SMC updater. I have no idea what that could possibly stand for, and I can’t find it anywhere, so I have a funny feeling that it’s an inside joke from the people who wrote it: Stop the Mooing Cow.