Noisy fan of Macbook Pro

[MACpod]

*ssaloon
-what freeware are you using to check the rpm of your fans?

*frenchtower
-i'm using 10.5.8 (it's the latest upgrade i suppose). my unit is 3yo and it started producing this sound about a year ago. it's actually sporadic. times are the noise gets really loud (when watching youtube) and often times it gets low, but still can hear it.
you see i just think this is one of apple's perennial problem with their notebooks as there are thousands out there whining over this similar situation. good thing yours is fine.
-i'm on the verge of wanting to open the unit, as warranty isn't applicable anymore being 3yo. just that it's alittle scary as this will be the first attempt to do this and i don't want to spoil the unit and end up feeling sorry.

Thanks guys for the responses. will try to search more and see the best option.

[Horsepower]

What videocard is installed in it? If it's the nVidia 8000 series, that's normal. EFI updates command the fan to constantly run to prevent overheating of the GPU because of the underfill issue with some of the affected nVidia 8400/8600 chips. Apple was nice enough to extend warranty of these units to three years for free.

Hopefully, nVidia had fixed that already with the 9000 series GPUs in the current macbooks.

jatcos' recommendation is a good way to maintain your notebook's HSF. Just make sure to use Arctic Silver5 instead of silicone. I bought a 12g tube (cheaper in the US). Locally, think you can get the 3g for about 700-800 pesos I think.

When I get lazy to dismantle the assembly, i just use compressed air to blast away accumulated dust.

It's time to upgrade to Snow Leopard ($25 lang). hehehe

[ssaloon]

*ssaloon
-what freeware are you using to check the rpm of your fans?

I'm using SMC Fancontrol to set my fan speeds. But you can also check the rpm by downloading the Istat Pro widget.