MBPr always at 100 C, should I use a cooling stand?

If you're really putting your MBP to heavy use, I'd suggest you go for a more permanent fix:

Yes, your MacBook Pro is running too hot

Proof is in the pudding, as they say:

Fix:

Hmm, it's time for a 6 month update to this, I'll do so at my next opportunity.

Anyway, I run my MBP similar to yours - although I'd say I put mine running max ~80% of the time, not 100%.

Still, if you want a long happy life from your MBP, that's my suggestion.

red321red321 said:

I always use my 2.7 GHz Macbook Pro Retina with tons of apps open and working, so the temp is pretty much constantly at 90-100 C for days and days at a time with no break (even overnight). Should I use a cooling stand to minimize damage to my computer?

I have also tried propping up the back, but that doesn't seem to help much.

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There's no way your Mac should be running those temps unless you're running extremely demanding apps. It's very likely that you have some app or process that is consuming system resources and driving up temps.

Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

red321red321 said:

About 96 C with Parallels consuming huge CPU:

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There's your problem. It's not even responding. Kill Parallels, then give it a couple minutes and see where your temps go.

red321red321 said:

Here I am with just Chrome and some small apps running:

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That's much better. If Parallels always does that, you might try reinstalling it, as that's not normal behavior.

red321red321 said:

Actually it says it is not responding, but actually it is working fine. Don't know why it is like that.

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Apparently, others have experienced the same issue: http://forum.parallels.com/showthre...-eating-up-huge-amount-of-CPU-time-while-idle

red321red321 said:

Thanks for your help. Is 65 C about normal?

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It's high if you have nothing running. Your temps are driven by what you have running at any point in time.

Websites with Flash content, games and other multimedia apps will put higher demand on the CPU/GPU, generating more heat. This is normal. If you're constantly putting high demands on your system, such as gaming or other multimedia tasks, expect temps to rise and fans to spin up accordingly. It's just your Mac doing its job to maintain temps within the normal range.

For Flash-related issues:

• Find your Flash version and make sure it's the latest version available.
• Install ClickToFlash (Safari), Flashblock (Firefox) or FlashBlock (Chrome) to control which Flash content plays on websites.
• Use the YouTube HTML5 Video Player to watch YouTube videos, when available. (May impact fullscreen viewing. See link for details.)

red321red321 said:

And here is my computer after a complete shut down and turn on:

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Dropbox shouldn't be using that much CPU under normal circumstances.

red321red321 said:

Thanks dude. You are the Macbook Temp Master.

I followed the directions here to fix Parallels: http://kb.parallels.com/en/116263

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Glad you got it sorted out! Thanks for posting that link! Others may find it useful!

Good link - and while your system will run cooler when the CPU isn't taxed as much, you're going to find that you'll still be running hot when pushing your system.

From your first post, I thought you were doing more than just Parallels - for instance, it's not unusual for me to have Windows 7 running in VirtualBox with Visual Studio running / compiling, while I'm watching Netflix and waiting on FCPX to complete rendering.

To me, that's a taxing time on the computer - and even under 100% full load I'm ~88C maximum temperature.

Just a comment about Parallels. To get it running with Mavericks, it seems that you need Build 8.0.18608. This is not currently proposed via the "check for updates" menu option in Parallels. Instead, you need to download it from the parallels webpage. If you use a lower build version, it won't use the Intel hardware acceleration features destined for VMs and you will have performance problems.