Bought New 15" High End MBP, Overheating?

[chickensoup]

Sorry about the two threads.

I have just been using my MacBook Pro for 2 hours, 9400M, and 2.8GHZ

The macbook pro seems to be overheating. The temperatures on iStat are:

CPU: 59 Degrees
Enclosure: ~ 40 Degrees

If I use 9600M GT, the temperature goes up to 64 - 68

The left palm rest is VERY HOT for both 9400M and 9600M GT.

What do you guys think?

 

[paintballswimgu]

That really isn't all that hot for a macbook pro. the top casing shouldn't hurt to the touch though. Under load, they can get pretty warm. Apple does say not to use them on your lap due to burning. Also, i'm not sure of the location of the HD on the new unibodies, but on the SR mbp the left palmrest was the hd location.

 

[mmomega]

is this with it sitting on your lap or on a desktop. I have the midgrade 15" and the only time I notice it getting hot is at night if I have it propped on my lap and the covers are slightly covering the back or even if I have it sitting on a desktop and start to play a game with the 9600 on it gets quite warm.

other than that with light usage and plenty of ventilation I don't notice any heat at all.

almost 100% positive the hard drive is in the same location, bottom left corner battery goes from middle all the way to right corner.

 

[jawa12083]

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From my own experience and what I've read, anything under roughly 90-100 celcius is perfectly normal. And don't worry, there are safemeasures put in place to prevent your MacBook from frying.

 

[chickensoup]

thanks for the replies...

the macbook is being used on the desk, not on my lap...


i am not really worried about it actually "overheating" but that it annoys me when the left palm rest is hot..its very uncomfortable to type on

 

[ammusk]

Sorry about the two threads.

I have just been using my MacBook Pro for 2 hours, 9400M, and 2.8GHZ

The macbook pro seems to be overheating. The temperatures on iStat are:

CPU: 59 Degrees
Enclosure: ~ 40 Degrees

If I use 9600M GT, the temperature goes up to 64 - 68

The left palm rest is VERY HOT for both 9400M and 9600M GT.

What do you guys think?

I experience the same on my pre-unibody MBP. But I'm used to it after 18 months of use.

 

[NP3]

graphics cards are supposed to get hot. i'd only begin to worry if it going north of 85.

This is a very common topic, google is your friend

 

[chickensoup]

I think I found the problem

I decided to give Prime 95 a try, and see how hot the macbook pro is under full load to see if its actually going to overheat or not...

staring at my iStat, i see the temperature of the CPU go up from 60 to 65 to 70 to 78 to 81 (all in Celcius), but the fan speed stays the same .. 2000RPM...

I stopped the test because I didn't want to damage my Macbook Pro.

I think there's something wrong with the macbook fan control with relation to CPU temperature

Does anyone know about this problem?

Thanks

 

[mmomega]

thanks for the replies...

the macbook is being used on the desk, not on my lap...


i am not really worried about it actually "overheating" but that it annoys me when the left palm rest is hot..its very uncomfortable to type on

see, mine never gets hot at the hard drive, it's ALWAYS hottest near the rear right where the screen connects..... yours could have some weird hard drive problem and it's just overheating.
Snatch it up and take it to the Apple store (if theres one close by) and set it right beside one on display... say ok genius yours, cool... mine... fry egg, whats wrong with this picture.

 

[jawa12083]

Wirelessly posted (iPod Touch 2G 8GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

There's a program out there... I forge what its called. Its used to manually control fan speed. Google it

 

[iLog.Genius]

I think I found the problem

I decided to give Prime 95 a try, and see how hot the macbook pro is under full load to see if its actually going to overheat or not...

staring at my iStat, i see the temperature of the CPU go up from 60 to 65 to 70 to 78 to 81 (all in Celcius), but the fan speed stays the same .. 2000RPM...

I stopped the test because I didn't want to damage my Macbook Pro.

I think there's something wrong with the macbook fan control with relation to CPU temperature

Does anyone know about this problem?

Thanks

There is nothing wrong with the fan control of your MacBook Pro. Unfortunately for you and the rest of us, the fans really don't spin up until temperatures get anywhere between 80-90 C on the newer MacBook Pro's. For the first unibody MacBook Pro's they come in at around 70 C. If you're worried about it, install some sort of fan control to help cool things down a bit.

 

[chickensoup]

There is nothing wrong with the fan control of your MacBook Pro. Unfortunately for you and the rest of us, the fans really don't spin up until temperatures get anywhere between 80-90 C on the newer MacBook Pro's. For the first unibody MacBook Pro's they come in at around 70 C. If you're worried about it, install some sort of fan control to help cool things down a bit.

Thank you for your reply!

Do you know what's causing the heat for the left palm rest? The laptop is running at CPU 53 degrees right now...GPU at 46 degrees

 

[chickensoup]

Further UPDATE

I was actually charging the MacBook Pro with my Macbook charger. The left hand palm rest was incredible hot because I was using the wrong charger. Stopped immediately when I realized I was using my old Macbook charger and switched to the macbook pro charger.

 

[Cool Runnings]

Further UPDATE

I was actually charging the MacBook Pro with my Macbook charger. The left hand palm rest was incredible hot because I was using the wrong charger. Stopped immediately when I realized I was using my old Macbook charger and switched to the macbook pro charger.

That shouldn't mater. But if that's solve the problems you are having then fine...

 

[Ivan P]

see, mine never gets hot at the hard drive, it's ALWAYS hottest near the rear right where the screen connects..... yours could have some weird hard drive problem and it's just overheating.
Snatch it up and take it to the Apple store (if theres one close by) and set it right beside one on display... say ok genius yours, cool... mine... fry egg, whats wrong with this picture.

The hard drive in the unibody MacBooks/MacBook Pros is under the right palm-rest, not the left.

 

[chickensoup]

That shouldn't mater. But if that's solve the problems you are having then fine...

Quite confused myself actually...

Do you think the charger did any damage to the battery because they were both (charger and battery) incredible hot when it was being charged with the MB charger.

 

[Pax]

Quite confused myself actually...

Do you think the charger did any damage to the battery because they were both (charger and battery) incredible hot when it was being charged with the MB charger.

Charge your battery right up,then look at "power" under system profiler. Or download coconut battery. Then you can see if it's affected battery capacity.

It shouldn't do though - chargers are more or less interchangeable AFAIK

But a hot battery is an unhappy battery

 

[chickensoup]

Thanks for the reply. The battery actually just finished charging. The mAh is 6565. What do you think?

Also, would heating a battery up cause it to bulge / get swollen?

 

[ayeying]

I think I found the problem

I decided to give Prime 95 a try, and see how hot the macbook pro is under full load to see if its actually going to overheat or not...

staring at my iStat, i see the temperature of the CPU go up from 60 to 65 to 70 to 78 to 81 (all in Celcius), but the fan speed stays the same .. 2000RPM...

I stopped the test because I didn't want to damage my Macbook Pro.

I think there's something wrong with the macbook fan control with relation to CPU temperature

Does anyone know about this problem?

Thanks

Damage occurs after 108+ Deg C. The system will shut down after hitting 105 deg C anyways.

Thanks for the reply. The battery actually just finished charging. The mAh is 6565. What do you think?

Also, would heating a battery up cause it to bulge / get swollen?

No. It will shorten the battery life over time. Heat + Battery = Not good for long term.

You know, I really think you're overthinking this. Use the system as you like, but it's not going to explode... The system has several built-in sensors with safeguards if any overheating occurs.

 

[mmomega]

The hard drive in the unibody MacBooks/MacBook Pros is under the right palm-rest, not the left.

thanks for the correction, I got flip flopped because I always see it upside down when the bottom plate is removed

 

[davidlv]

Thanks for the reply. The battery actually just finished charging. The mAh is 6565. What do you think?

Coconut battery (freeware application) says the original battery capacity is 6500 mAh, so anything near, or over, that is OK.
As for the operating temperatures, Apple's policy (and default settings) are one thing, and your preferences may vary. Apple stresses "quiet machines" and relies on failsafe systems to protect the CPU etc from overheating. Their settings for fan speed up and default fan speed are such that the fans almost never speed up. My machine only has one fan (default speed 2,000 rpm), as it only has the 9400 graphics card, other models with the 9600 have 2 fans. If you prefer having the fans reved up more, download smcfancontrol (freeware) and set up a higher default fan speed (or 2) with the base speed of the fans about 500 rpm faster (or more with a second preference). I find that my old ears cannot hear that 500 rpm increase at all but it keeps the machine quite a bit cooler. A 1,000 rpm base speed increase is just barely audible, but it really cools down the machine when running CPU intensive apps. The left side of my machine also gets hot when charging, the right side where the HD is almost never feels any hotter.
With the exception of the default fan speed, I think the design of this model is great, the cooling capability is actually superb.
One other thing, do try to use the proper charger, even if the other one works, it is not optimal for that machine.

 

[Denzo]

I experience the same on my pre-unibody MBP. But I'm used to it after 18 months of use.

To be honest it does that, and the first few times I could not believe something from apple was RnDeed like that. Its ridiculous when people try and say how well engineered it is!! I mean its burning hot!!
I also found that the edge of mine dug into my hands way too much for my liking. Couple that with pretty standard tech and you have a really good looking.. computer for such a great price.
I just buy this stuff cause I love the "differences" between it and other brands. Basically I just buy Dell, Apple and Sony products generally. Personally though a windows man, I still love what apple is going for sure so I continue to support it owning an iPhone, Macbook pro 2.4, iPhone, every iPod you can think of and a new Macbook (white).(even though some people defend apple it like its their slutty sister.)

 

[Pax]

Coconut battery (freeware application) says the original battery capacity is 6500 mAh, so anything near, or over, that is OK.
As for the operating temperatures, Apple's policy (and default settings) are one thing, and your preferences may vary. Apple stresses "quiet machines" and relies on failsafe systems to protect the CPU etc from overheating. Their settings for fan speed up and default fan speed are such that the fans almost never speed up. My machine only has one fan (default speed 2,000 rpm), as it only has the 9400 graphics card, other models with the 9600 have 2 fans. If you prefer having the fans reved up more, download smcfancontrol (freeware) and set up a higher default fan speed (or 2) with the base speed of the fans about 500 rpm faster (or more with a second preference). I find that my old ears cannot hear that 500 rpm increase at all but it keeps the machine quite a bit cooler. A 1,000 rpm base speed increase is just barely audible, but it really cools down the machine when running CPU intensive apps. The left side of my machine also gets hot when charging, the right side where the HD is almost never feels any hotter.
With the exception of the default fan speed, I think the design of this model is great, the cooling capability is actually superb.
One other thing, do try to use the proper charger, even if the other one works, it is not optimal for that machine.

A very well worded & helpful reply

 

[chickensoup]

Thank you everyone

 

[wallace0134]

I'd like to add: If you ever find yourself wanting to keep your system cooler, in addition to smcFanControl (as explained well above) there's a program by the name of "Fan Control". It allows you to set the upper & lower temperature limits, and between those limits it will linearly increase the fan speed. You can also raise the minimum fan speed similar to smcFanControl (though the fan speeds will never go below ~2,000 RPM).

Note though that, unlike smcFanControl, you cannot easily tell the system to just take over again, and getting the system to control the fans again requires manually removing files, uninstalling the preference pane, & manually resetting the SMC. This is easy enough, but not great for those looking for unobtrusive, instantaneous control of the fan speed, as it requires too much time & too much digging around on the hard drive. The solution using the Fan Control preference pane is better for someone who knows they will never want to uninstall it & want the fans to be more aggressive (than default) over the life of the system for whatever reasons.