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heat

twoodcc

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
okay so i a question that maybe someone here can help me with. i have an issue with heat in my 2-room apartment (about 950 sq ft i think).

here are all the electronic devices i have:

2006 mac pro 2.66 quad, 14 GB RAM, 4 hard drives, 1 video card (ATI 1900)
2007 white macbook
2006 macbook pro
2008 macbook air
2009 macbook pro
2009 xbox 360
wii
2007 ps3 (i think 2007, can't remember)
sony 46" lcd tv
3 piece speakers with pretty big sub (for when the neighbors turn their music on)
2009 asus pc with core i7 processor.
2 x monitors for the i7 and mac pro


okay i think that's it. that's all i can think of at the moment.

here is the issue: last night and this morning, it was 48 degrees outside, and i have the air set to around 78-79, and the air is on. and it comes on. in fact, i woke up last night sweating.

i first had the i7 and mac pro in the same room. that room got hot. so i moved the i7 in my bedroom to spread out the heat.

is the mac pro really producing that much heat? i really think it is the heat maker here. i have it running 24/7 as a web server.

any ideas on how i can reduce this heat? i was folding on a lot of these machines, but at this rate, i'll have to stop folding totally
 
mp produces ALOT of heat.

i think GPU produces the most, since my upgrade to 4890 it's painful to game in summer.

so, I went to the store and bought 10meter cables of usb, sound, dvi, hdmi
and put my mac pro in another room. :)

my room is crazy silent now
and, for once, chilly even during crysis gaming
 
Cindori said:
mp produces ALOT of heat.

i think GPU produces the most, since my upgrade to 4890 it's painful to game in summer.

so, I went to the store and bought 10meter cables of usb, sound, dvi, hdmi
and put my mac pro in another room. :)

my room is crazy silent now
and, for once, chilly even during crysis gaming
Click to expand...

but the video card in my mac pro is not great of a card

Hellhammer said:
Do you have iStat Pro so you can actually see how hot it is?
Click to expand...

no, but i'll try and find it now
 
Turn down the air

If I were I would turn down the heat in ur appartment to about 65. Let the mac heat ur place sence u have to keep it on.
 
Erkinshadow said:
If I were I would turn down the heat in ur appartment to about 65. Let the mac heat ur place sence u have to keep it on.
Click to expand...

you must misunderstand me. i have the Air Conditioning on, not the heat. it's 48 outside, and over 80 degrees inside. and it would be hotter if the air wasn't on.

Hellhammer said:
It doesn't have to be. Some GPUs runs @ 80 Celsius when they are idling
Click to expand...

well i have istat pro, and the hottest temp is 49 Celsius.

2 hard drives are at 49
1 hard drive at 45 and the other at 44
cpus are 44 and 37
expansion slots 38
ambient 25

everything celsius

and the fans are all below 800 rpm. there are 4 total according to istat pro.

but i don't see the gpu temp. or should i?
 
Nope, GPU temps don't show up in iStat. At least not for my OEM ATI 2600 or my flashed XFX 4870.

You have all manner of electronic stuff running, some of which are quite hot (Xbox, ps3). You must run AC 24/7 in the summer. :)
 
twoodcc said:
well i have istat pro, and the hottest temp is 49 Celsius.

2 hard drives are at 49
1 hard drive at 45 and the other at 44
cpus are 44 and 37
expansion slots 38
ambient 25

everything celsius

and the fans are all below 800 rpm. there are 4 total according to istat pro.

but i don't see the gpu temp. or should i?
Click to expand...

Check iStat's preferences (the small "i" in it) -> Display tab -> Temperatures -> Check that everything is checked

Those temps seems to be normal though.
 
lannister80 said:
Nope, GPU temps don't show up in iStat. At least not for my OEM ATI 2600 or my flashed XFX 4870.

Also, remember that if you turn up the fan speed in your machine, your apartment will get even hotter.
Click to expand...

any way to view the GPU temp?

yeah i haven't messed with the fans at all
 
Hellhammer said:
Check iStat's preferences (the small "i" in it) -> Display tab -> Temperatures -> Check that everything is checked

Those temps seems to be normal though.
Click to expand...

yes, i made sure they were. but i don't get to see all the temps though. even though they all are checked, i only get to see the ones that i posted here
 
twoodcc said:
yes, i made sure they were. but i don't get to see all the temps though. even though they all are checked, i only get to see the ones that i posted here
Click to expand...

Do you have it vertically or horizontally? It made difference for me (vertical shows more). It could be that you can't see the GPU temp in Mac Pro, I don't know.
 
you cant view temp of gpu in mac pro, no driver for it.
go windows for that.

but really,
you have alot of devices
your room is hot

solution: turn of devices or deal with the heat
if you wanna know what's causing heat, go feel with your hand on your hardware

but yes, mac pro can heat a room under load. i have the same as you in istat.
 
Hellhammer said:
Do you have it vertically or horizontally? It made difference for me (vertical shows more). It could be that you can't see the GPU temp in Mac Pro, I don't know.
Click to expand...

ok, now i can see all the temps

i have 8 ram modules. temps= 72, 73, 66, 64, 75, 81, 74, 71
northbridge 73
powersupply 1 and 2 = 56, 59
mem bank = 45, 51, 52, 45, 51, 57
hd bays = 35, 34, 35, 36

ok, i think that's it.

Cindori said:
you cant view temp of gpu in mac pro, no driver for it.
go windows for that.
Click to expand...

oh ok. thanks
 
twoodcc said:
any ideas on how i can reduce this heat? i was folding on a lot of these machines, but at this rate, i'll have to stop folding totally
Click to expand...

Turn some of that stuff off or implement stricter energy saving features. Do you really need all the stuff running at once?
 
lemonade-maker said:
Turn some of that stuff off or implement stricter energy saving features. Do you really need all the stuff running at once?
Click to expand...
Oh, I didn't see you were folding on these machines all day long. No wonder your place is hot.

IDEA: For winter, can you stick all your machines in a single room, close the door, and open the window? Tada, instead chilly datacenter.
 
lemonade-maker said:
Turn some of that stuff off or implement stricter energy saving features. Do you really need all the stuff running at once?
Click to expand...

like i said, i've already cut back. not all of that stuff if running all the time, or at once. that's just what i have.

as folding goes, i only have the white macbook, just the GPU of the i7 machine, and the ps3 folding. before i had those, plus the macbook pro and mac pro. and i haven't even folded with the i7 CPU yet, which is a real monster
 
lannister80 said:
Oh, I didn't see you were folding on these machines all day long. No wonder your place is hot.

IDEA: For winter, can you stick all your machines in a single room, close the door, and open the window? Tada, instead chilly datacenter.
Click to expand...

well i'm not folding with all of them. just a couple now.

i'd rather not open a window, mainly b/c of things like rain (it's raining now). but i might end up having to do that
 
That does seem pretty high. When I'm running BOINC on my 2008 MP, my RAM never gets over 65C (ambient temp of about 73F, or 23C).

And that's with 6 of 8 slots filled. But I keep my RAM/Processor/IO fans at 820rpm.
 
lannister80 said:
That does seem pretty high. When I'm running BOINC on my 2008 MP, my RAM never gets over 65C (ambient temp of about 73F, or 23C).

And that's with 6 of 8 slots filled. But I keep my RAM/Processor/IO fans at 820rpm.
Click to expand...

oh man. and i'm not running anything like BOINC now. i mean, it's running as a web server, but that shouldn't be much.

any ideas on what to do about this?
 
twoodcc said:
oh man. and i'm not running anything like BOINC now. i mean, it's running as a web server, but that shouldn't be much.

any ideas on what to do about this?
Click to expand...
Either re-arrange your RAM so that the air flow is better (depending on how many full slots you have) or bump the fans.

Does your RAM have the huge heat-spreaders on it like official Apple RAM? I've seen RAM that works in a Mac Pro (3rd party obviously) that has crappy heat-spreaders on it that can lead to high temps. If you were folding on that machine, would it crash? How hot does the memory get in that use mode?
 
This might be kind of off-topic, but how does your AC work when it's 48 outside? I'm just wondering because if you have it on for an extended period of time at that low of an outside temp, it's going to freeze. I'd probably open a window instead.
 
Yes, computers (especially those under a heavy CPU load) can generate a ton of heat. There is a reason server rooms have their own climate control. If the room is too hot you have two choices:
1) Remove/vent the hot air to the outside (or to a larger interior space).
2) Add additional cooling to that room. If you need to add cold air while it is below 60 outside, consider adding an 'in room' unit.

A few other things to try:
Just run the fan on your climate control system. I do that during the winter to help circulate the hot air upstairs. One disadvantage of an 'open' floor plan is that in the winter once it get it 'just right' downstairs it can be unbearably warm upstairs.

Stop running unnecessary programs like 'folding at home' when heat is an issue. Running your CPU/GPU at full tilt like this increases the heat output.

Use a floor fan or two to circulate the air
 
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