Microsoft has recently released the Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1, which apparently fixes some of the issues that this Microsoft product presents on the Macintosh platform. However, my experience with it, hasn't been particularly interesting:
- I installed the SP1 and apparently everything seemed to be working well. Office applications were still behaving in the same way and I didn't notice anything different, except for maybe a slightly improvement in performance, but nothing drastic.
- But after a while, as my Mac became a bit hot (as it usually does, because of my CPU-intensive activities) the fans started working to compensate for the high temperature. Nothing strange here, except for the fact that suddenly my Mac, that used to be a perfectly silent machine, started making a noise equivalent to a 100 Km/H wind and it literally looked like it was going to take off into the air.
- After googling this issue for a while, I installed the iStat Pro widget, which reveals the behaviour of the laptop fans (among other things) in real-time. Apparently, the normal behaviour of a Macbook Pro's fans when working at full speed is around 3900/4000 rpms. But after installing SP1 my Mac's fans were now working at a top speed of 6000 rpms. No wonder I thought it was going to take off!
- I first thought that this was just a coincidence, but to be sure I totally removed Office 2008 (yep, Microsuck doesn't allow you to uninstall only the Service Pack... you have to uninstall the entire Office suite and reinstall it without adding the SP1) and reinstalled it.
- Surprise, surprise, no more 6000 rpms fans...
I have no proof that Office 2008 SP1 is the responsible for this issue, but it sure is a hell of a coincidence.
Anyway, I'm going to keep on working as usual (with the occasional CPU-intensive tasks) for the rest of the day, to check if the noisy fan issue comes back. If not, tomorrow, I'll install SP1 again and perform another set of experiences with the CPU fans.
Keep tuned for the results!
9 comments:
I haven't installed SP1 yet, but you might check to see if Office was doing something else such as a mass sync between Office and iCal, etc.
Peter
http://movingtomac.blogspot.com
That's not the point. The CPU wasn't been consumed by a process related to Office. I was working, as usual, with some CPU-intensive tasks related to my PhD simulations.
The strange thing is that the loud fan sound only occurred during the time that I had SP1 installed. And after removing it, the fans got back to work at their normal rate (bringing back the quiet/silent Macbook Pro).
It might be a coincidence, but I find it very strange. That's why tomorrow I'm going to do it all over again.
What's happening to me is scaring. My Office 2008 with SP1 does not work at all ! After installing the Office 2008 SP1 Update (12.1.0).mpkg, the first time I start the word application, Setup Assistant appeared, asking me to choose whether to participate Customer Experience Improvement Program, I chose no, and pressed Continue. In the following step I chose Finish, then a Microsoft AutoUpdate program jumped out saying how would I like to check for software updates, and I Choose Manually then click on the top-left corner to quit. After it disappeared, NOTHING follows it to appear ! Like I never start word application !
I tried other application as well, and got the same NOTHING result. What is going on ? Does anyone know that ?
Hello Yanliang,
a colleague of mine has reported a similar problem where the Setup Assistant keeps appearing every time you start an Office application after the installation of SP1. This is how he solved the problem:
1 - Go to /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/
2 - Remove folder Office 2008
3 - Empty Trash
4 - Then, next time Setup Assistant appears, just keep clicking next and finish up to the end, and it shouldn't appear again.
I hope this solves your problem...
For those that understand Portuguese here's his blog entry on this subject:
http://carlosserrao.allofads.com/index.php/office-2008-para-mac-sp1-disponivel/
Same deal here... it was spotlight that was cranking up the fan. For some reason after the install spotlight had to do a full reindex once complete the fan and heat went back to normal. But it gets worse since installing, my mac has locked up 4-5 times a day (corresponding to office notifications of events).
Disabling the notifications has not removed the crashes either. Not just application crashes, the finder locks and I have to force reboot. After 3 of these I ran disk utility and had to repair volume issues. Still the lock ups persist.
When I updated office it also updated my mail db etc. anyone know if uninstall and a reinstall with the prep sp1 software will work with the same identity ... now that it has been updated to sp1?
Thank you, António Lopes! Actually, the key file is Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist, during the problem, every time an office application starts, that file is recreated and so is the folder containing that file. Finally they work as expected. I think this SP1 is not a beautiful work by MS.
Thanks Anotnio, but I had same problem and this didn't solved it. The folder is simpy being created all over again and after closind auto updater, office app does not start. Hint anyone? Thanks!
Hello T. Autischer,
check an alternative solution here: http://themacnewbie.blogspot.com/2008/05/installation-of-office-2008-for-mac-sp1.html
Perhaps this will work for you.
Cheers
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