what's the normal temperature reading for new imac 24 inch computers?

[kryszrich]

I just purchased the new Imac 3.06 Ghz 4GB...all that. I primairly bought it for video editing. I can't afford Mac Pro just yet so i settled for this.

My computer is already running warm/hot and i haven't even installed Final Cut Studio. So what is expected for this computer. Here are my current readings:

Mac HD: 54 degrees Celsius
CPU A: 36
CPU A: 34
GPU: 44
GPU Diode: 48
GPU Heatsink: 42
Ambient: 22

I what point should i be worried? anything I could do to help cool it? is there an option to turn up fan speed?

[rworne]

Originally Posted by kryszrich

I just purchased the new Imac 3.06 Ghz 4GB...all that. I primairly bought it for video editing. I can't afford Mac Pro just yet so i settled for this.

My computer is already running warm/hot and i haven't even installed Final Cut Studio. So what is expected for this computer. Here are my current readings:

Mac HD: 54 degrees Celsius
CPU A: 36
CPU A: 34
GPU: 44
GPU Diode: 48
GPU Heatsink: 42
Ambient: 22

I what point should i be worried? anything I could do to help cool it? is there an option to turn up fan speed?

Heat on the outside of the case means the thermal control is working. I have a 24" 2.8GHz Al iMac (late 2007) and it runs hotter than that. The whole thing feels warm after it has been running for a while, but the rear top left edge of the screen feels so hot near the vents you'd think you would burn yourself. I also had this thing run BOINC pegging both CPU's for 3 months 24/7 and the system never had a heat-related problem (garbled screen, lockups, wild fan noise, etc).

If you are really concerned, get ahold of smcfancontol and bump up your fan speeds by 500RPM and it will run even cooler than it is now with the slight drawback of a bit more noise.

[macsander]

Where can you read of your temperatures?

[kryszrich]

Originally Posted by rworne

Heat on the outside of the case means the thermal control is working. I have a 24" 2.8GHz Al iMac (late 2007) and it runs hotter than that. The whole thing feels warm after it has been running for a while, but the rear top left edge of the screen feels so hot near the vents you'd think you would burn yourself. I also had this thing run BOINC pegging both CPU's for 3 months 24/7 and the system never had a heat-related problem (garbled screen, lockups, wild fan noise, etc).

If you are really concerned, get ahold of smcfancontol and bump up your fan speeds by 500RPM and it will run even cooler than it is now with the slight drawback of a bit more noise.

I jsut downloaded smcfancontrol...AWESOME!! all my worries are gone. I put it up a biut, still very quiet, and it's cooling. It's a must have for anyone who will be using a program like Final Cut Pro.

You can see temp in the Activity Monitor I believe. I also downloaded a widget that monitors computer activity including temperature. It's useful to have. It's called "iStat nano". I'm sure if anyone is interested, you can just google it and find it.

[aki]

....smcfancontrol and temperature monitor widgets are great for a secure feeling but u dont need to worry your temps are -not- hot.....i think the hds are max 60 C and the CPU max temp i forget but it is much higher

of course when i get my 3.06 imac i will run smcfancontrol to but its just coz im paranoid after owning g5 imac for 3 yrs

[rworne]

Originally Posted by kryszrich

I just purchased the new Imac 3.06 Ghz 4GB...all that. I primairly bought it for video editing. I can't afford Mac Pro just yet so i settled for this.

My computer is already running warm/hot and i haven't even installed Final Cut Studio. So what is expected for this computer. Here are my current readings:

Mac HD: 54 degrees Celsius
CPU A: 36
CPU A: 34
GPU: 44
GPU Diode: 48
GPU Heatsink: 42
Ambient: 22

I what point should i be worried? anything I could do to help cool it? is there an option to turn up fan speed?

Here's mine (2.8 C2D Extreme):

Mac HD: 54 degrees Celsius
CPU A: 47
GPU: 64
GPU Diode: 58
GPU Heatsink: 42
Ambient: 26

Remember the rear vent I talked about earlier? It's at 60C.
Surface of LCD panel: 36-38
Rear of case: 35-43 (43 over location of heatsink).

Compared to yours, mine's toasty.

I'm not running smcfancontrol right now either. Just came home, hopped on the system for 30-40 minutes then reported the temps. System was on all day too.

[vansouza]

Temps are fine... I don't think Apple designed the iMac to melt.

[D4F]

my 3.06 runs at around 48 celcius with regular stuff.
When I drop Vue and start a render it can go up to 85. Then I apply SMC, set fan at 2200 and it drops to about 66.
Pretty normal I would say.
I leave it running 2-3 days sometimes at 100% CPU usage (rendering) and it works like a charm.

[Leon Kowalski]

Originally Posted by kryszrich

Mac HD: 54 degrees Celsius

That's far too hot for an idling hard drive, or even a very busy
drive. Most don't run that hot even during performance benchmark
torture-testing:

Tomshardware.com maximum hard drive temperatures

You can either trust the "no wurries" fanboys, or find the maximum
operating temperature specs on the drive manufacturer's web site.

Who ya gonna believe? HDD design engineers, or net.cheerleaders?

...heat kills hard drives,

LK

[Muncher]

Originally Posted by Leon Kowalski

That's far too hot for an idling hard drive -- or even a busy hard drive.

You can either trust the "no wurries" fanboys, or find the maximum
operating temperature specs on the drive manufacturer's web site.

Who ya gonna believe? HDD design engineers, or net.cheerleaders?

...heat kills hard drives,

LK

Leon is right; download smcfancontrol, and turn up your HDD fan speed about 750-1000 rpm. Also, turn your CPU fan speed up 500 rpm. That should some of the heat away; after all you are doubling the original fan speeds and adding %50 to the speed respectively.

[Sir Cecil]

Originally Posted by kryszrich

I just purchased the new Imac 3.06 Ghz 4GB...all that. I primairly bought it for video editing. I can't afford Mac Pro just yet so i settled for this.

My computer is already running warm/hot and i haven't even installed Final Cut Studio. So what is expected for this computer. Here are my current readings:

Mac HD: 54 degrees Celsius
CPU A: 36
CPU A: 34

The temperature widget I downloaded shows CPU A twice, as your measurements show. Excuse my ignorance, but why does CPU A appear twice? I was thinking it was an error and the second one was meant to be CPU B, until I saw your list! I guess I've missed something.

[Sir Cecil]

Originally Posted by rworne

The whole thing feels warm after it has been running for a while, but the rear top left edge of the screen feels so hot near the vents you'd think you would burn yourself. I also had this thing run BOINC pegging both CPU's for 3 months 24/7 and the system never had a heat-related problem (garbled screen, lockups, wild fan noise, etc).

What concerns me is the heat of CDs or DVDs when they are ejected from the Superdrive. If they were bread, thay'd be burned toast for sure! Seriously though, I've never known discs come out of a drive at anything like this hot. Everything seems to be working fine though.

[nickf]

Originally Posted by Leon Kowalski

Who ya gonna believe? HDD design engineers, or net.cheerleaders?

...heat kills hard drives,

LK

Or to put it another way, who ya gonna believe? Apple's engineers or stuff you read on Internet forums?

In my opinion, if iMacs were running too hot, Apple would have issued a patch or firmware upgrade to address it. They haven't, so make your own mind up about that.

[JayLenochiniMac]

How hot did the G5 iMacs run and why haven't we seen a flurry of HD failure in these models?

[Leon Kowalski]

Originally Posted by JayLenochiniMac

How hot did the G5 iMacs run and why haven't we seen a flurry of HD failure in these models?

Don't know 'bout the G5, but every report that I've seen of a 50+ C
hard drive involves an ALU model. FWIW, the drive on my 20" white
C2D idles around 38C -- and never gets above the low 40C's even
during 50 GB disk clone backups.

LK

[LukeHarrison]

My iMac G5 is reporting HDD temps of 50 degrees C.

Should I be worried?

[JayLenochiniMac]

The G5 iMac runs pretty hot from what I've read. I'm more interested in real world outcomes, so the question is do the majority of G5 iMacs suffer from HD failure? We can then extrapolate the potential outcome to the Alu iMac rather rely on unsubstantiated possibility.

[Leon Kowalski]

Originally Posted by JayLenochiniMac

We can then extrapolate the potential outcome to the Alu iMac rather rely on unsubstantiated possibility.

So, exactly which of the available facts do you consider "unsubstantiated?"

...the HDD manufacturers' specs? ...or the iMac temperature measurements?

LK

[kryszrich]

Well from what i read here and elsewhere, many report hot Imacs so it seems to be normal. Some say their computers went bad after a couple years. So to play it safe i turned up my fan speed. When i start editing i wil probably save a setting that is even faster for rendering and all that. Right now my fans speeds are:

ODD: 1810 RPM
HDD: 2550 RPM
CPU: 1830 RPM

these are fairly random. i jsut pushed the s;lider up a third of the way and lined up all the knobs more or less.

right now my temp readings are:

Mac HD: 47 degrees Celsius
CPU A: 33
CPU A: 31
GPU: 39
GPU Diode: 46
GPU Heatsink: 39
Ambient: 20

before it was hotter but i think some people were confused...the computer was not idling. i was using it for a few hours but only doing basic stuff like web surfing and using ichat imail.

the readings i just posted today includes after an hour or so of basic Photoshop work.

the noise of the fan is hardly there. so i don't know why Apple would set the fan so low. People say Apple would have a patch if it were a problem but the fact is it takes time for heat to mess up the hard drive and whatever else...but that time most people won't have warrenty to cover the cost. so why would apple 'fix' a problem if that may potentially lower a profit of people buying new computers or dishing out money to get their computers fixed. So i personally recommend people just upping their fan speed with SMC...if you can't hear the fan blowing at all, then that's just not normal!!!

[JayLenochiniMac]

Originally Posted by Leon Kowalski

So, exactly which of the available facts do you consider "unsubstantiated?"

...the HDD manufacturers' specs? ...or the iMac temperature measurements?

LK

Neither. I was referring to real-world correlation between iMac temp measurements and HD failure.

[Leon Kowalski]

Originally Posted by JayLenochiniMac

I was referring to real-world correlation between iMac temp measurements and HD failure.

Real world correlation?? Check Figure 4 & 5 in the link below --
and pay particular attention to the upper limit of temperatures
that the experts considered to be within the realm of sanity.

Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population


...reality bites, huh?

LK


"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."
- Mark Twain

.

[JayLenochiniMac]

Originally Posted by Leon Kowalski

Real world correlation?? Check Figure 4 & 5 in the link below --
and pay particular attention to the upper limit of temperatures
that the experts considered to be within the realm of sanity.

Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population


...reality bites, huh?

LK

Nice paper.

Fig 4 "shows that failures do not increase when the average temperature increases." 50C seems to have the same AFR (annualized failure rates) as 30C.

I guess judging from Fig 5 you're pretty much safe if you have Applecare, as in the fourth year AFR for >45C is about the same as AFR for 35-40C in the third year. The authors considered Fig 5 "a fairly surprising result, which could indicate that data-center or server designers have more freedom than previously thought when setting operating temperatures for equipment that contains disk drives."

From conclusion:
"One of our key findings has been the lack of a consistent pattern of higher failure rates for higher temperature drives or for those drives at higher utilization levels. Such correlations have been repeatedly highlighted by previous studies, but we are unable to confirm them by observing our population."

[Niklaas]

Can someone tell me the default settings for the fans in the new Imac ( with 8800) ?

[eXan]

Originally Posted by JayLenochiniMac

How hot did the G5 iMacs run and why haven't we seen a flurry of HD failure in these models?

My rev. B iMac G5's HD idles at 55-57C and I didn't have any problems with it. I own this Mac for over 2.5 years now. I've never heard of any reports of failing HDs in G5 iMacs. Go figure.

[aki]

....im same as eXan....idle is 54C and i bought g5 rev b when they first came so 2+ yrs