2011 MacBook Pro, overheating, hardware or software? Report your CPU load!

[darknite38]

Tell me people,

#1 Why are you so paranoid about your temperatures of your computer?

13' i7 here.

Idle/normal web surfing 38-43 C

Flash video medium use 60C-70C

Handbrake H.264 encode 90C-94C no signs of getting into the 80's in sight so I didn't finish encoding it freaked me out it was running that hot.

Body didn't feel hot really at all. Bottom was only a little warm. It seems weird that PC laptops run around 70-75C from my readings around the net and the MBP runs that hot doing heavy encoding. Is that damaging to it running at 90C? Seems like it would be.

It does tear up H.264, could only imagine how quick the big boys are, hopefully it isn't at a price.

That temperature is fine, do you think your computer is going to explode because you are running a CPU intensive program? If the fans need to kick in, they will. My 2009 2.53 ghz Core 2 Duo got up to 105C before, the temperatures shortly went down. Had the temperatures not went down, the computer would have shut off.

#2
Why do you care how hot your computer is?
My MacBook pro is on a desk, I don't give a ***** about the temperature. Do you run handbrake while your computer is on your lap? Try setting it down on a desk with good ventilation.

#3
If you don't like the temperatures your MacBook pro gets up to, return it for a desktop computer. These processors are MADE to go OVER 100C for a certain amount of time. Stop being so paranoid.

 

[EightmanVT]

On the other hand, a few professionals have investigated this issue and found much less significant improvements.

Please post a link to these investigations. Would be interested to read.
Thanks.

 

[KyleKlink]

Tell me people,

#1 Why are you so paranoid about your temperatures of your computer?



That temperature is fine, do you think your computer is going to explode because you are running a CPU intensive program? If the fans need to kick in, they will. My 2009 2.53 ghz Core 2 Duo got up to 105C before, the temperatures shortly went down. Had the temperatures not went down, the computer would have shut off.

#2
Why do you care how hot your computer is?
My MacBook pro is on a desk, I don't give a ***** about the temperature. Do you run handbrake while your computer is on your lap? Try setting it down on a desk with good ventilation.

#3
If you don't like the temperatures your MacBook pro gets up to, return it for a desktop computer. These processors are MADE to go OVER 100C for a certain amount of time. Stop being so paranoid.

I took my MBP to the genius bar yesterday because of the heat issues. They ran some diagnostics on it and found that it was running outside of the expected temperature range and that the fans were not ramping up to take care of the heat as they are supposed to. Hence the reason that my MBP locked up while it was supposed to be sleeping: it was crunching something all day and the fans did not do their job.

Now, I don't know exactly what the dude was talking about but he did say something about reported issues with heat and a firmware update that will be addressing this issue. I decided to pass on waiting for the update and switched out my MBP for a 27" iMac.

 

[smolz]

I have a 17' pro, my problem seems to be in having an external display attached and the cpu under load.

I ran handbrake this morning, about 10 seconds after hitting start, the temps jumped from mid 60's to 92-94C, then the machine locked up like others are reporting (no screen change, but mouse still moves).

Disconnect the external display and same Handbrake queue(reloaded after hard reset) temps are 85-88C.

i hope this addressed by a software update...

 

[darkeartg]

Battery: 30 celsius
CPU 1: 67 celsius
CPU 2: 63 celsius
CPU A: 60 celsius
CPU Proximity: 56 celsius
Enclosure: 35 celsius
Enclosure 2: 35 celsius
Enclosure 3: 33 celsius
GPU: 55 celsius
GPU Diode: 57 celsius
Heatsink B: 55 celsius
Heatsink C: 52 celsius
Left Palm Rest: 31 celsius
Mem Controller: 43 celsius

I'm just browsing the internet with 4 tabs open, have a Skype chat (no video), Transmission is uploading and Photoshop open (with no RAW pictures opened) and VLC pausing a video. Fans spinning at 2200RPM, used to stay at 2000RPM the previous week. Using integrated graphics.

Just opening Aperture (browsing pictures, not doing any retouching) bumps the fan to a +3200RPM and CPU at 65-70 celsius. CPU is at 85-99% idle, Photoshop closed.

Should I be worried?

looks good

 

[akicebear]

Idles at around 40C
Basic tasks (web browsing, non-flash): ~50C
Flash-video: ~60-70, depending on duration of video
Graphics intensive: ~70-80C (i.e. SCII)

Haven't seen it hit 90s yet, which was very common in my late 2008 uMBP. Importantly, even when under load it seems that the chassis is cooler than before - I haven't yet had a moment where the top left corner reached a 'uncomfortably' hot point, which was quite common on the old machine. Overall very pleased so far.

 

[sammcj]

15'' MBP overheating / crashing

Hey all,

It appears a lot of people are having problems with the 15''-17'' 2011 MBP's crashing out under high load.

I'm not sure if it is heat or what, but a temporarly work around is to disable the AMD/ATI card using gfxcardstatus (free).

Of course this will severly limit the laptops performance.

Threads here:

Apple forum: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13251856

Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/g7fin/2011_macbook_pros_confirmed_to_crash_under_load/

Another MacRumors thread with the problem: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1120543/

Possible cooling problem fix: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1105643/

 

[thermodynamic]

13' i7 here.

Idle/normal web surfing 38-43 C

Flash video medium use 60C-70C

Handbrake H.264 encode 90C-94C no signs of getting into the 80's in sight so I didn't finish encoding it freaked me out it was running that hot.

Body didn't feel hot really at all. Bottom was only a little warm. It seems weird that PC laptops run around 70-75C from my readings around the net and the MBP runs that hot doing heavy encoding. Is that damaging to it running at 90C? Seems like it would be.

It does tear up H.264, could only imagine how quick the big boys are, hopefully it isn't at a price.

My mid-2009 MacBook Pro (17") also gets as hot as you described. Okay, at full use (encoding) it gets up to 98C.

There is no way any hardware should get that hot, unless cheap forms of cooling are used. No brand name is above the laws of physics. The hotter the machine runs, the lowered lifespan it will have. People on PC and overclocking forums get quite vocal when somebody asks if 60C is too hot while overclocking under full load. It is. And, again, they say "60C". Not 70. Not 80. Not 90. But 60C. Given that notebook technology uses smaller chips, smaller power requirements, etc, the higher temperature is going to be that much more brutal long-term.

Also, given that the 2010 MBPs were notorious for overheating, it's really sad that people are reporting the same problems with 2011 MBPs. Where is the QC, especially for the prices we pay?

 

[thermodynamic]

I took my MBP to the genius bar yesterday because of the heat issues. They ran some diagnostics on it and found that it was running outside of the expected temperature range and that the fans were not ramping up to take care of the heat as they are supposed to. Hence the reason that my MBP locked up while it was supposed to be sleeping: it was crunching something all day and the fans did not do their job.

Now, I don't know exactly what the dude was talking about but he did say something about reported issues with heat and a firmware update that will be addressing this issue. I decided to pass on waiting for the update and switched out my MBP for a 27" iMac.

That's cool you were able to get an exchange. The 27" iMac is rather a nice model too... I've got AppleCare and I have wondered if my own 17" MBP's heat issue qualifies for warranty replacement.

 

[superericla]

Base MacBook Pro 15"
Typical Web Browsing - 35-45C
Handbrake HD Movie Conversion - 70-75C
Portal - 70-80C

 

[100Teraflops]

I had my iStat temps set to Fahrenheit and I switched them back to celsius to post my time. At idle it hovers around 35 and when I use iphoto or import raw pictures etc.. it has reached 85. I am not worried though.

The processor will become hot and the fans will turn on and do their jobs. However, I do not play games and probably never will. Once my cpu temp rises, it cools down very quickly. My older laptop was another story. The fans would stay on for 20-30 minutes at a time. I was worried considering I was surfing the net blah blah blah.

 

[thermodynamic]

Tell me people,

#1 Why are you so paranoid about your temperatures of your computer?

Because excessive temperatures lower the lifespan of the equipment. These are not cheap plastic PC laptops, and it's kinda embarrassing when a cheap plastic PC laptop - at full load - runs 25 degrees cooler.

That temperature is fine, do you think your computer is going to explode because you are running a CPU intensive program? If the fans need to kick in, they will. My 2009 2.53 ghz Core 2 Duo got up to 105C before, the temperatures shortly went down. Had the temperatures not went down, the computer would have shut off.

Not explode, but electromigration would become a problem... at least long-term. More immediate concerns would be total freezing of the computer, and having to wait for the thing to cool down before starting it up again.

While electromigration is a greater risk due to overclocking (which Intel processors automatically do under fairly controlled conditions these days), adding in heat is bad... More on that later...

#2
Why do you care how hot your computer is?
My MacBook pro is on a desk, I don't give a ***** about the temperature. Do you run handbrake while your computer is on your lap? Try setting it down on a desk with good ventilation.

See points 1 and 3 as to why you should keep a computer running cool. And this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cooling

Repeated overheating incidents won't help in the end, technology isn't perfect, and especially as modern day CPUs automatically overclock (e.g. the i7 overclocking and shutting down unneeded cores as well), this is a REAL issue. If the CPU is overclocking itself ("turbo mode" or whatever), anything about 60C is begging for trouble.

#3
If you don't like the temperatures your MacBook pro gets up to, return it for a desktop computer. These processors are MADE to go OVER 100C for a certain amount of time. Stop being so paranoid.

This'll explain it neatly: A car's engine is made to go to 100MPH and 8000RPM. But it's not supposed to do that indefinitely. Just like how the CPU is made to go over 100C, but you're not supposed to do it for sustained periods of time.

Also, laptops are portable, smaller, and need more thoughtful designs to keep the components running cooler. Sounds like common sense to me. Good engineering is part of a portable computer's cost. So a customer, looking at a $1300 computer and a $2400 computer is going to assume the $2400 is better-built. The number of people saying there are overheating problems with their 2010- and 2011- MBPs is too much to ignore. Heck, I can get my own mid-2009 to go up to 96C under full load and I cringe every time. I don't like to cringe. I cringe when my plastic PC laptop gets up to 76C under full load.

Lastly, if people are using laptops as desktop replacements, then they WILL be doing CPU-intensive work. That's especially when you want lower temperatures. In such an environment, 100C will not fly. At all. Not for any price.

 

[Zachaos]

Had the same issue

I had the very same issue as you guys, unfortunately my new MacBook Pro (13 inch, i7) overheated and locked up often. What is also unfortunate is that i live in South Carolina, where there are only two apple stores. So i had to send mine in, I got an email saying that my product was qualified for Apple's "Capture Program" If you hadn't heard of that before (Like me) it's "When Apple launches a new product we are required to take samples of all the failures. This helps Apple produce a better future model." They gave me two choices: They could continue repair on my old device or send me a new one. I just chose to get a new one (of course) and i got to keep my previous charger . Anyway, I got it today and it is running beautifully, no problems at all.

 

[alphaphil2000]

There have been lots of discussion and rumors lately about the 2011 MBPs overheating. People hear about "excessive thermal paste" and assume that's the reason their computer seems hot. I've googled this. A number of individuals have reported that replacing their thermal paste with arctic silver and getting 10-degree reduction in temperature. Unfortunately, they don't always report whether that's in degrees C or F. On the other hand, a few professionals have investigated this issue and found much less significant improvements.

One common reason for an apparently idle system to get hot is that it is not in fact idle. Spotlight indexing is a resource hog that uses significant CPU time. In fact, a number of users have reported that their brand new MBP was overly hot until they let spotlight run its course... then it was cool as a cucumber. Not everyone thinks to check to see what their computer is doing.

So, how about we conduct an informal poll to see if we can find the underlying cause.

For those of you who feel that your Mac is overly hot when idle, please wait until you find that the computer is hot, and open the "Activity Monitor" app. In the lower portion of the window, select the CPU tab, and in the upper right, be sure "All Processes" is selected. Watch it for 15 or 30 seconds and then report (a) about what the total CPU load is (in percent), and (b) which processes are using the most CPU. Be sure to use Activity Monitor and not iStat since iStat has bugs that makes it misreport process names. However, iStat would be good so that you can (c) report the CPU temperature. In degrees Celsius.

For those of you who are finding the machine to be excessively hot under heavy load, please tell us (a) what you're running, (b) the total CPU load (in percent), and (c) the CPU temperature. Again, please use Celsius so that we're using the same language.

This poll might be useful for those of you who have already bought a new machine to give you an idea of whether or not you have a real problem. It'll also help those who have not yet bought (but want to) to decide is Apple does indeed have heat and quality issues or if the horror stories are mostly from people who haven't looked at Activity Monitor.

Someone is going to have a machine that is unbearably hot and/or is inexplicably hot when idle. That person is an outlier with a defective machine that needs to be replaced. The rest of us just victims of Apple's possibly inefficient background processes.

Thanks for your help.

I am a new Macbook pro owner and I just have to say that you are a Mac life saver! Ever since I installed I-stat pro my cpu has shown to be around 40 celsius at idle or light internet browsing. Then all of a sudden today it kept skyrocketing to about 80 celsius even without running any apps. Even my superb ZM-NC2000 aluminum notebook cooler couldn't keep the temps down. I kept monitoring it and even after letting the notebook sleep for several minutes it would come out of sleep at 50 and in a matter of minutes it jumped back up to 80 again but all the other temperature readings in I-stat remained at normal temps. After reading your post I went to activity monitor and found that my Thunderbird e-mail app which had reported a problem earlier that I thought I closed out was reading this: "Thunderbird not responding" BUT USING 100% CPU! I force quit the application and within a minute my cpu temps went down to 40 and as I type has been in the lower 40's constantly for the last 15 minutes. So you were right, I like others started jumping to conclusions that it may be an internal malfunction but it really wasn't. So everyone reading this follow the above advice and check to see what programs that may be running without your awareness and make sure that is addressed before concluding that your Mac is defective. For those who don't know where to find activity monitor, you have to open applications folder and then click on utilities. Thanks again theosib!

 

[gakio12]

Those of you who are saying that the temps shouldn't be high on MBPs must not have had one for very long. The processors in the MBPs are made to go up to +100°C for extended periods of time. My 2007 MBP is always encoding videos, and has probably sustained 100-105°C for over 400 hours over its lifetime, and it is running fine. I forgot what it is, but there is something in the hardware (or CPU?) that will throttle the CPU if the temps get too high. Of course, there is always an issue if you fans aren't spinning up right (use smcFanControl to monitor fan speeds) or if the thing that throttles the CPU isn't working.

The only time I've had my MBP crash from heat was when I was running a game in Windows 7, and the throttling wasn't working in windows (update fixed that).

When I first got my MBP I was concerned over the temps, but I got over it. However, I got a high velocity blower to blow air on the keyboard area for those long encodes (even with the blower, my temps are 100-105°C, but the internal fans are at minimum speed. This is because it is meant to get that high.)

The tjunction on my Core 2 Duo MBP is 105°C, that is the point in which my CPU starts to get throttled. Yes, my MBP has gotten above that, in which case I pause the process, because it isn't supposed to get that high (happened once, it got up to 115°C ).

The tjunction of the i7-2xxxQM (2011 MBP's) processors is 100°C. So if the temperature is less then that during heavy usage (encoding, etc) then you are fine.

 

[DarkFlame]

The tjunction of the i7-2xxxQM (2011 MBP's) processors is 100°C. So if the temperature is less then that during heavy usage (encoding, etc) then you are fine.

100 C is not fine. It won't throttle or shut down, but run two identical CPUs at 40C for 5 years straight and one at 100C for 5 years. Lifespan WILL decrease.

 

[AppleMacFinder]

100 C is not fine. It won't throttle or shut down, but run two identical CPUs at 40C for 5 years straight and one at 100C for 5 years. Lifespan WILL decrease.

No, lifespan will not decrease.
Read a book about transistors and temperature effect on them.

 

[iCBF]

What I don't understand is why they design a laptop like this?

I put my 17" macbook pro 2011 under some intense processing yesterday with games/movies and it was heating up pretty bad. I had it on my desk, but there's no way i could of had this thing on my lap - isn't that was laptops are for?

Do apple give you a refund for this overheating? i expect laptops to get warm, but certainly no this hot... i purchased about 2 weeks ago.

 

[scottgroovez]

I've just bought a 13" MBP i5 and watching a flash video in chrome the flash plugin CPU usage hits 40% and temps are hitting 80°C. I've installed smcFanController and if I select the high fan speed profile it does reduce down to about 60°C.

Safari plugin CPU usage was hitting ~70%!!

I bought this thing hoping to get 4-5 years use out of it. I'm not so confident it'll last that long if it hits those temps regularly.

 

[brentsg]

I've just bought a 13" MBP i5 and watching a flash video in chrome the flash plugin CPU usage hits 40% and temps are hitting 80°C. I've installed smcFanController and if I select the high fan speed profile it does reduce down to about 60°C.

Safari plugin CPU usage was hitting ~70%!!

I bought this thing hoping to get 4-5 years use out of it. I'm not so confident it'll last that long if it hits those temps regularly.

Those temps aren't out of line with past MBPs. They vary by model but there are certainly some that have gotten a lot hotter than that. My original unibody model frequently was 80C+ and never missed a beat.

 

[scottgroovez]

Do you know at what temps/load the fans increase in speed? Mine remain at 2000rpm, whereas I would expect the fan speed to increase to bring temps down.

Anyone know what the max operating temp for these chips is?

 

[Spiffyis5150]

100C is T-JUNCTION MAX for these CPUs. At that point, the PROCHOT# pin is asserted in the CPU and the thermal control circuit is engaged. Both the processor core and the graphics core(the HD3000) are supposed to reduce frequency and voltage in order to get the heat under control which should get the temp underneath the T-JUNCTION temp threshold. It can also use clock modulation if the frequency and voltage reductions don't work. Intel suggests that the thermal control system(fans running at max) be engaged at T-JUNCTION - 10C in order to avoid reaching T-JUNCTION MAX. If the CPU reaches what Intel refers to Critical Temperature then it tries to do a graceful shutdown in order to protect the CPU from damage before reaching the THERMTRIP# temp. I do not what that temp is, but I know that Intel says the THERMTRIP# pin is triggered at 130C which they refer to as "catastrophic overheating" and is the point when the CPU simply stops executing all instructions. In other words, it's complete hard stop before physical damage occurs to the processor.

 

[tdurden12]

Anything over 90C is hot. It might not damage the CPU, but the heat is bad for other parts around the logic board. Imagine what all those temperature swings from 30C to to 90C will do, all the heating and cooling down. It will stress out the materials. Also, heat that close to the battery will shorten the lifespan of the battery. This is just something you have to accept with macbook pros. They run quiet and are thin, but they get hot. I think you can reasonably expect your macbook pro to last 2-3 years at least despite of all these issues (the battery should last 18 months before showing less charge if you use it heavily), and by then you should be upgrading anyways. I have had laptops last longer, like my 2005 powerbook G4, which still works, but it did have its logic board and hard drive replaced under warranty in the first year (at least they failed quickly and I didn't have to pay to fix them). If you want something that runs cool, get the imac. If you insist on having portability, the Macbook pro is a good, but there are compromises. Also, check out applecare prices for macbooks vs imac. Macbooks are more expensive to warrantee, because they break down more and are expensive to fix...

 

[Blondie :)]

Idle and normal use is pretty much the same for me as it is for everyone else.

Idel runs at around 40C

doing pretty much anything bumps it to 50C

anything mid range (iTunes, Dreamweaver, Chrome, and Outlook) at the same time pushes it to 60-65C

However, my hottest temps I've hit so far is 85C. Doing distributed computing through BOINC Manager, and with the manager taking 90% of my CPU time, I've only hit 85C. Granted, that's with the fans running at 6200 RPM constantly. But this MacBook pro runs a lot cooler than my 2009 MacBook, which wouldn't even turn the fans on until it hit 95C.

 

[quasinormal]

My 2.2 runs Handbrake at 87C and getting about 100 fps. I was using it to batch encodes so it would be running continuously at near 100% CPU. Using Remote Desktop, itunes and Safari keeps it at 60C.

On the other hand, my 2006 Mac Pro with 2Ghz dual core CPUs runs Handbrake at 53C and about 40 fps. Useless as a heater in our current 15C temperatures. I have a pair of quad core 2.66Ghz X5355 Xeons to speed things up, but I'll think i'll leave the MP stock it is so quiet and cool. You don't even need a display or keyboard if you use screen share or Remote Desktop. Sorry for going off topic but I mention this because these machines can be bought quite cheaply these days.