Mac mini 2.5GHz i5 Heat/Fan Issues

[phalseHUD]

many people who used macs make a living with their ears. years of critical listening makes you very sensitive to such noise.
not to mention the sonic irritation fan noise causes when mixing or mastering. headphones are not always a solution in these cases either since speakers are an important instance during mixing/mastering.

Some people just don't get it mate. I was gonna reply but then I wondered why I was justifying myself to some complete random on the Internet?!! Thats exactly how my mini is used for as well as recording vocals. As I said, it's never been an issue with the other Macs I've owned. To be fair, it's been quiet since but I'm keeping an ear out for it.

 

[MJL]

some people just don't get it mate. I was gonna reply but then i wondered why i was justifying myself to some complete random on the internet?!! Thats exactly how my mini is used for as well as recording vocals. As i said, it's never been an issue with the other macs i've owned. To be fair, it's been quiet since but i'm keeping an ear out for it.

+1

 

[phalseHUD]

Left the mini on overnight with disk utility running. The only thing it was doing was erasing an external USB hard drive... it's so loud. Even my other half commented on how loud it was. Is this really how the AMD Mac Mini's are?

 

[Skoopman]

Left the mini on overnight with disk utility running. The only thing it was doing was erasing an external USB hard drive... it's so loud. Even my other half commented on how loud it was. Is this really how the AMD Mac Mini's are?

It seems so. I erased parts of a hard disk a few days ago and the fan started spinning really fast and loud, too.

 

[frank4]

I noticed significant heating, CPU temperature 75C or 167F, using my base 2.3 Mini for 2 hours to watch a fullscreen HD ~720P football game with Safari. Medium CPU load, website used Flash for video. Network rate averaged 210KB/sec over Wi-fi connection. No glitches.

The fan speed stayed at the usual 1800 rpm which surprised me. I would have expected the speed to rise because of the heat. How hot can these i5's get?

Normal temperature of this Mini is 35C or 95F when just browsing static webpages.

***EDIT*** I installed "Fan Control" app mentioned on page 1 of this thread. The fan speed now rises and becomes audible when I run GeekBench to stress the CPU, temperature hits about 60C. The fan noise never becomes objectionable, just a low "whoosh" sound even at 5000 rpm and silent at 1800. Fan speed automatically drops back to 1800rpm when CPU temperature drops. This seems like a good way for the Mini cooling system to work, and an improvement over the "stock" Apple setup.
http://www.lobotomo.com/products/FanControl/

 

[larryposh]

heat source

gentlemen
I am a newbie to Mac & have the aforementioned model though have not set it up as of yet ...I am trying to get a handle on the heat & noise issue which I gather is more of an issue on it than the other mini;s

my idea is to remove the HD and put in a single SSD and run a drive or two externally , will that do anything in regards to heat production ?
I am deducing that it may or may not ...remoive the moving parts but still the electrons are moving around and creating serious BTUs

the plus I see is that it may make for more efficient air flow inside
any thoughts appreciated

 

[phalseHUD]

It seems so. I erased parts of a hard disk a few days ago and the fan started spinning really fast and loud, too.

I had no idea doing a secure erase or delete was so intensive on the CPU! I've used secure erase for as long as I remember and NONE of my Mac's have ever gone into overdrive because of it! I opened a case with AppleCare last night and the guy did agree that it was not normal. He had me reset the SMC and PRAM etc which I'd already done but did again anyway. It'll be going back in the hope that the replacement does not do the same thing.

UPDATE: In activity monitor I sorted by the CPU% column and noticed that at most, 1-2% of usage was by the Finder app. Looking at all processes showed that something called 'locum' was registered with 200% CPU usage i.e. both cores!

As soon as I quit the process the fan died down almost instantly! I will erase/re-install everything tomorrow but have a feeling this won't resolve the issue as I've found other forum posts that report the same behaviour even after a rebuild. Need to update my apple care call. However, it'd be interesting to see if people with other Mac's still get the problem. As I said, I've done loads of secure erases before and NEVER heard the fan.

Anyway LarryPosh, I don't think the HD causes much of a heat concern. AppleCare got me to install the iStat Pro widget yesterday and my HD temps have never gone above 35 degrees C. Admittedly this may be a result of the fans kicking in.

UPDATE 2: Just tried to activate the Apple Hardware Test (holding down D on startup) and it tries to connect to Apple. I'm wired to my network but for some reason it wants to try and get me to use wireless. Anyway, as I was sitting there wondering how to get around this, low and behold - THE FANS! And I hadn't even loaded up OS X!

This is KAK.

 

[TheSuperSteve]

Okay so I don't mean to high-jack the thread or anything but I'm a new Mac user. Got the base mid 2011 Mac mini as a Christmas present and here are its heat readings from iStat pro. When I touch the mini with my hands it feels VERY hot. Like if I touch it long enough it will hurt type of hot. This thing is brand new.

I got the warranty too so I'm not too worried. But yeah, I'm reading the thread carefully to see if i can resolve this.

And this is when the mini is idle by the way.

 

[philipma1957]

Okay so I don't mean to high-jack the thread or anything but I'm a new Mac user. Got the base mid 2011 Mac mini as a Christmas present and here are its heat readings from iStat pro. When I touch the mini with my hands it feels VERY hot. Like if I touch it long enough it will hurt type of hot. This thing is brand new.

I got the warranty too so I'm not too worried. But yeah, I'm reading the thread carefully to see if i can resolve this.

And this is when the mini is idle by the way.

if you can show us those numbers show use the fan readings. if your fan is at 0 something is wrong if your fan is at 5000 rpm something is wrong and by the way are this numbers f or c.

if they are f and your fan is at 1800 all is well

 

[paulrbeers]

if you can show us those numbers show use the fan readings. if your fan is at 0 something is wrong if your fan is at 5000 rpm something is wrong and by the way are this numbers f or c.

if they are f and your fan is at 1800 all is well

Clearly they are f, because a CPU at 124 degrees C would cause the entire computer to shut down. Those temps look fine to me, so unless the fans are spinning at 5000 rpm, then all is normal.

 

[Riverrun]

The hottest is 124º F which is just above 51º Celsius which is not an awful lot. Nothing to worry about.

 

[No-Me]

I have been using the new mini over a few months now, and it get's a lot hotter than my old core2duo mini.

I use it as media center and it's in a cabinet (open back and front), the old one was really quiet, the new one makes a lot of noise quite fast. Even when I get it out of the cabinet when it has a better airflow the fans kick in quite fast.

Anyone found a solution to get it to run a little cooler?

 

[theSeb]

.

Anyone found a solution to get it to run a little cooler?

Cryogenic cooler.

 

[philipma1957]

I have been using the new mini over a few months now, and it get's a lot hotter than my old core2duo mini.

I use it as media center and it's in a cabinet (open back and front), the old one was really quiet, the new one makes a lot of noise quite fast. Even when I get it out of the cabinet when it has a better airflow the fans kick in quite fast.

Anyone found a solution to get it to run a little cooler?

yes I have a fairly not ugly fan setup that will do it.

any of these will do

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1&Description=silverstone+180mm+fan&x=16&y=13

this filter

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g/c...tone-Fan_Filters-180mm_Fan_Filters-Page1.html

and some feet.

I use this as a power supply

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bachmann-Ho...el_RR_Trains&hash=item27c1daf936#ht_500wt_922


cost about 35- 45 bucks you can adjust the fan speed and it is quiet. this drops 20 degrees f off the temps.


I just built this on sat. I will post a photo later.

 

[Bman1981]

So i've been reading this thread and agree with the one post stating that it's probably the video card sharing the heat pipe with the proc that is causing the heat issues. I've never owned a Mac in my life and was wondering if I should hold out for the next release since there are issues.....I am planning on using the mini as my media center PC but dont know if the bare bones model will run 1080 movies with xbmc. does anyone run this, i'm sure it will run the movies fine but I want to run xbmc on the mac so it looks good

can anyone comment on running the 2.3ghz vs the 2.5ghz as a media PC

sounds like that one doesn't get as hot and if it doesn't I don't think the dedicated video card is worth it. anyways, I know the 2.3 version shares memory so I would install 8gb's worth to get the most out of the video card.

anyways, thoughts??

 

[eutexian]

Are there issues?

I've rad this thread and simply cannot relate to it. my mini is to all intents and purposes silent. And has never got more than 'warm'. I have never heard the fan.. in fact when i first bought it i feared the fan was broken, was only when i put my ear directly on the case that i could hear it.

I wonder if these issues are peculiar to the machines involved. i.e... they're faulty in some way. Or have been messed with to some degree.

 

[Bman1981]

Are there issues?

I've rad this thread and simply cannot relate to it. my mini is to all intents and purposes silent. And has never got more than 'warm'. I have never heard the fan.. in fact when i first bought it i feared the fan was broken, was only when i put my ear directly on the case that i could hear it.

I wonder if these issues are peculiar to the machines involved. i.e... they're faulty in some way. Or have been messed with to some degree.

I guess that's a good point, we truly don't know if there are issues with them, i mean the people that have posted are having issues with heat but like you said maybe those machines are faulty. I'm glad you posted saying you haven't had heat issues cause i'll probably be buying the 2.5ghz one. A buddy at work here has the i7 and he doesn't have heat issues but I thought that might be because he doesn't have the gfx card installed that the mid range comes with.

if I find it too hot i'll get it swapped out or at least looked at thx for your response.
I look forward to my first Mac!

 

[jeremyshaw]

So i've been reading this thread and agree with the one post stating that it's probably the video card sharing the heat pipe with the proc that is causing the heat issues. I've never owned a Mac in my life and was wondering if I should hold out for the next release since there are issues.....I am planning on using the mini as my media center PC but dont know if the bare bones model will run 1080 movies with xbmc. does anyone run this, i'm sure it will run the movies fine but I want to run xbmc on the mac so it looks good

can anyone comment on running the 2.3ghz vs the 2.5ghz as a media PC

sounds like that one doesn't get as hot and if it doesn't I don't think the dedicated video card is worth it. anyways, I know the 2.3 version shares memory so I would install 8gb's worth to get the most out of the video card.

anyways, thoughts??

No difference between two as a multimedia PC. Only slight concern may be the Intel refresh bug, however, if you don't notice it on any current Intel product, you'll likely be fine (which is score:1 for the AMD GPU).

Are there issues?

I've rad this thread and simply cannot relate to it. my mini is to all intents and purposes silent. And has never got more than 'warm'. I have never heard the fan.. in fact when i first bought it i feared the fan was broken, was only when i put my ear directly on the case that i could hear it.

I wonder if these issues are peculiar to the machines involved. i.e... they're faulty in some way. Or have been messed with to some degree.

Nah, I think it's just you don't think it's warm, nor loud. I know people who cannot hear many of the noises I do. Either it's too high pitch (I'll fall into that category, soon, too), or just too soft (some can hear it, some cannot).

 

[eutexian]

I guess that's a good point, we truly don't know if there are issues with them, i mean the people that have posted are having issues with heat but like you said maybe those machines are faulty. I'm glad you posted saying you haven't had heat issues cause i'll probably be buying the 2.5ghz one. A buddy at work here has the i7 and he doesn't have heat issues but I thought that might be because he doesn't have the gfx card installed that the mid range comes with.

if I find it too hot i'll get it swapped out or at least looked at thx for your response.
I look forward to my first Mac!

If you read through the thread very few owners have had problems. If overheating or overloud fans were an endemic problem the internet would be alive with howls of protest. This thread would be huge and full of people complaining... rather than just a few. It isn't.

So what do you conclude from that. apart from the old adage. those who have problems always scream the loudest.

I do find it laughable that saying i don't have a problem MUST mean my ears are deficient or my finger-tip heat sense is somehow disabled.

Enjoy your upcoming mac. perhaps once you've lived with it for a while you'll post your own opinion in this thread.

 

[MadDragon1846]

With the fan noise, it depends what you are using your mini for.

If I use smcfancontrol to turn the minimum fan speed to around 2500, I can watch a 1080p film with the fans still nice and quiet (the cpu goes around 82c). But if I don't use smcfancontrol, then the mini waits until the cpu gets to around 90c+ then the fan sounds like a hair dryer, until it gets back to the low 80s. With the fan set to run at a min of 2500rpm, the cpu doesn't reach 90c+, so the fan doesn't go crazy.

If I try converting a 1080p mkv, using handbrake, then the fan also goes crazy like a hair dryer. (not tried smcfancontrol with that yet).

For normal things, like internet browsing, then yes the mini is lovely and quiet.

Of corse, if you watch films on your mini, it depends how loud you have the film, and how far away the mini is, as to if you'll hear the mini. I have quite a small room (so I sit like 5 feet away from the mini), and don't have the tv up loud (I watch films in the evening, when other people are asleep in the next room). So I usually hear the mini when watching films.

I sometimes use my headphones when watching the films, and I don't hear the mini then.

Of corse my mini is the 2.7 i7 with the AMD, so it runs hotter than the 2.5 i5. So maybe thats why my fan is a bit louder, heh.