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Why Macbook Pro 13' is so hot? Can it make system board crash?

tsa1 said:
i set mine at 2600. I hope thats okay. You going to love you MBP! although a part of me still regrets not getting a rev.A 15" mbp off ebay for around $1379 after bing cashback!
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I'd say it's ok, I personally like to put my fans on max, I'd rather replace a dead fan than a fried logicboard (which can usually be attributed to a single solder joint giving way under the heat :()


I think I'll buy a cooling stand for mine with built in fans as well, yeah I'm paranoid.
 
My Mac is never hot, only slightly warm like a used toilet seat, while browsing the web. However, as soon as I boot into Windows the heat spikes at the login screen and the fans rev up to maximum. At the login screen. It's like Bill Gates made Windows detect whether or not the hardware is Mac, then makes it run harder.
 
w00t951 said:
My Mac is never hot, only slightly warm like a used toilet seat, while browsing the web. However, as soon as I boot into Windows the heat spikes at the login screen and the fans rev up to maximum. At the login screen. It's like Bill Gates made Windows detect whether or not the hardware is Mac, then makes it run harder.
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That is the way it should function. It should never get hot just browsing the web. Mind you, the two 15" I had were much worse then the 17" in regards to heat. The 17" is great, sits between 40-45.

Sadly its Steve Jobs that has his boys create the drivers for Windows. I have to say that Bootcamp drivers plain suck. I really wish they would hire some proper developers that know something about windows os.
 
i got my new mid 2009 spec 15 inch MBP for a week now.
the underside of the section connecting the LCD and the main body is always too hot to touch.
If i run graphic intensive programe (that is eve online) the fan will be on audible level and according to monitor software that CPU is at 77 C :eek:
Is that too hot? (can i fry egg with it?)
would I need SMC firmware upgrade? or fan control program?
 
kas23 said:
My 13 inch MBP runs much, much cooler than my 15 inch G4 PB. In fact, up until now, I never knew a laptop could run so cool.
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Weird. I got the 13" MBP (upgraded from a 2.0 GHz Core Duo Macbook). Per default the heat on the palmrests was unbearable. It was atually hotter than the metal right below the "Macbook Pro" writing on the display. Running fan control kinda helps, but when pushing the CPU, the temps go up to 90°C but the fan stays at 5500 rpm, instead of 6200 like (I think), it's supposed to go. Even according to fan control, it never reaches the maximum fan speed and is just too hot to touch when running a CPU intensive app. Here's what iStat pro says when idling (i.e. only running safari and Finder):




Does any one know a way (softrware or hardware) to make the palmrest area cooler? I already gave up using the thing on the lap, but I should be able to work on a desk at least...
 
MrCrowbar said:
Weird. I got the 13" MBP (upgraded from a 2.0 GHz Core Duo Macbook). Per default the heat on the palmrests was unbearable. It was atually hotter than the metal right below the "Macbook Pro" writing on the display. Running fan control kinda helps, but when pushing the CPU, the temps go up to 90°C but the fan stays at 5500 rpm, instead of 6200 like (I think), it's supposed to go. Even according to fan control, it never reaches the maximum fan speed and is just too hot to touch when running a CPU intensive app. Here's what iStat pro says when idling (i.e. only running safari and Finder):




Does any one know a way (softrware or hardware) to make the palmrest area cooler? I already gave up using the thing on the lap, but I should be able to work on a desk at least...
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Your fan was at 5500 rpm and your temp still did not go down? That seems like a problem. My CPU has gotten to around 90C but when the fans kicked in at about 3700 rpm, the temp dropped fairly quickly to around 78C.
 
Strange, I just picked up a 13" MPB, and it runs MUCH cooler than Powerbooks I have owned in the past. I haven't had any problems with heat. I have the 2.26 GHz version.

The 500 MHz G3 Pismo I had was a thermal nightmare.
 
cababah said:
Your fan was at 5500 rpm and your temp still did not go down? That seems like a problem. My CPU has gotten to around 90C but when the fans kicked in at about 3700 rpm, the temp dropped fairly quickly to around 78C.
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It does go down after a while, but never under 60°C. Granted, the room temperature is 27°C here (summer...) but still, it's kinda high for idling.

This one's more scary:


As you can see, it's running two "yes" processes to burn the CPU cores and the fan only started spinning up from 2000 rpm when the CPU reached 100°C. This is with Fan Control uninstalled and resetting the SMC. It does indeed reach 6200 rpm (which is what I wanted to test) and is cool enough to touch, however, when idling, it's actually hotter.

Fan Control (not "SMCFanControl") works well for idling, but somewhow caps the maximum fan speed at around 5600 rpm. So it can be cool when idling but unbelievably hot when using CPU intensive apps. SMCFancontrol can go up to 6200rpm, however, the minimum setting I can set is around 5500 rpm, which annoys me rather quickly. And it really applies that setting (cooling the CPU down to about 40°C), until you quit SMCFancontrol and sleep/wake the Macbook Pro.

Did anyone here succeed in making the Macbook Pro 13" cooler, both when idling and at 100% CPU usage?

EDIT: I got the 2.53 GHz MBP 13" by the way. The heat is my only issue with it. Maybe also the slightly over-sensitive sudden motion sensor making a loud click when I move the thing around on the bed or couch. Didn't have that with my old Macbook.
 
I noticed that my MBP 13" gets very hot while running windows, even when just sitting there at idle, but it doesn't get hot doing the same things in OSX. Bootcamp appears to be lacking the windows drivers for utilizing the power saving features of the hardware in the new MPB. Unfortunate, since one of the main reasons I got this machine was for it's efficiency and environmental friendliness compared to other machines. It feels wasteful being this hot all the time for nothing when it doesn't have to be if Bootcamp just had whatever drivers OSX is using for power saving.
 
orrelse44 said:
Kind of off topic, but has anyone here used coolbook on their new MBP 13" yet?
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I used it on my old plastic Macbook and was underwhelmed. Save so battery (actually, the program itself looks like it's quite inefficient and burning up CPU cycles). And the one-license per machine is annoying. I have a valid license but can't use it anymore or even transfer it to my new Mac.

You can't improve battery life really by using it. If you just want it to be cool, stick with "Fan Control". No-Nonsense interface.
 
orrelse44 said:
Kind of off topic, but has anyone here used coolbook on their new MBP 13" yet?
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Yeah, my MBP 13" managed 2.53GHz at 0.9850V. That didn't help much though, as the laptop hit over 100 degrees with max load. I had it declared DOA at a repair shop, it's supposed to turn off automatically after 90. Idle temperature was around 60 in a 23 degrees room.

My previous 2.4GHz unibody didn't go over 70 with max load, there's something faulty with (some of) the new 13" MBP.
 
iVeBeenDrinkin' said:
All you do when you use the third party software, is run the fan more than it needs to be.
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In Cupertino, there's a fine line between running the fans because the machine is too hot and not running the fans when the machine is too hot to be able to advertise a "7 hour" battery.

Point is, the fans on the MacBook Pro's aren't optimised for keeping the machine cool. Instead, they work around battery life.
 
I use CoolBook, works great! When encoding video my processor used to get up to 100ºC now it only gets up to 80ºC! (the temperature is coming from the reading in smcFanControl and I didn't change the fan speeds). I was able to get 2.26ghz to run at .9125v stable for an hour under max load and then bumped it up to .9250v just to be safe, default was 1.1375v, heck 1.6ghz was 1.0v!

Even before CoolBook, my 2.26ghz 13in MBP is WAY cooler then the 1.25ghz PowerBook I used to use, you could practically burn yourself on it with just web browsing.
 
The most cpu usage application I've got is World of warcraft and while playing that game, my temp increases up to 95C. That impossible to touch the bottom of the screen because of the heat. I can play with that temp hours and hours without crash but I am a bit worried
 
Apple seems to use a strange algorithm to control the fan speed. I just ran an experiment where I got both cores operating at 100%, and the temp reached 100 C with the fans still at 2,000 rpm! The fans then got up to about 3,500 rpm as I quickly reduced CPU usage. It may be that fan speed increase is controlled not just by the actual temp, but also by how long the CPU is at that temp. If the temp rises very rapidly, the fan speed won't increase right away. The fan control doesn't seem to increase the fan speed until the CPU is at a very high temp for a certain length of time. These temps are way too high.

My Dell laptop only allows the temps within a certain range, and they don't exceed 75 C. This means more cycling of the fans, but that's what they're there for. This relegates the MBP to casual web use. I can't see using CPU intensive tasks when the temps get this high. It's not just bad for the CPU, it's bad for the surrounding components.
 
Kilamite said:
In Cupertino, there's a fine line between running the fans because the machine is too hot and not running the fans when the machine is too hot to be able to advertise a "7 hour" battery.

Point is, the fans on the MacBook Pro's aren't optimised for keeping the machine cool. Instead, they work around battery life.
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This is your opinion and not fact. People used to complain about how hot PowerBooks were. People still have PowerBooks that are 5 + years old. Who here has a dell or hp laptop that is over 5 years old?

I've had a unibody since it was released. It runs much cooler and much more quiet than my old black MacBook.

I completely disagree with your "fine line" opinion.
 
kar1181 said:
I'd just installed that istat program and I'm glad I did now, the temps have now dropped in to the mid-high 40s.

I didn't realise (although I ought to have) running with the lid closed could cause a notebook to run so much hotter. Hate to think what damage I might have done to the screen if I'd not realised this so soon after buying it :)

So useful thread then :)
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What do you guys mean by putting the lid open? Do you mean just keeping the screen up while the computer is on or what?
 
iVeBeenDrinkin' said:
This is your opinion and not fact. People used to complain about how hot PowerBooks were. People still have PowerBooks that are 5 + years old. Who here has a dell or hp laptop that is over 5 years old?

I've had a unibody since it was released. It runs much cooler and much more quiet than my old black MacBook.

I completely disagree with your "fine line" opinion.
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Sounds like your opinion, as well. I've got a Dell and a Thinkpad over five years old. They work as well as they did when new, but I don't use them anymore. I don't think many people would agree that 80 to 100 degree Celsius temps while the fan continues to idle along is a cool running laptop. I agree that it's quiet. :)
 
Is there anyting on the software side that can be done to alleviate the situation in win7? I assume Apple has programmed the EFI to mar the Win experience.
 
Smoothie said:
Sounds like your opinion, as well. I've got a Dell and a Thinkpad over five years old. They work as well as they did when new, but I don't use them anymore. I don't think many people would agree that 80 to 100 degree Celsius temps while the fan continues to idle along is a cool running laptop. I agree that it's quiet. :)
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You're absolutely right, my opinion.

A cool laptop to me, is one that sit in my lap for three or four hours and doesn't feel hot on my lap.

A quiet laptop to me, is one I never hear unless I am doing something CPU intensive.

My MBP, is cool, and quiet. :)
 
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