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Crazy Temperatures!

S

synistral88

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 9, 2011
3
0
I just bought a Macbook Pro 13" with the i7 processor and was doing a battery calibration for the first time. So I decided to play some Starcraft 2 (medium settings) to help drain the battery faster. After playing for about 5 minutes, I hear the fan turn on. After about another 5 minutes, I used my iStat nano widget to check the fan exhaust speeds as well as the temperatures. I saw the temperature was at 91! The fan speed was peaking at 6200 rpms. I have searched all over the net but have failed to reach any explanations. Can someone please tell me if this is normal? My macbook did not shut down btw.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
 
synistral88 said:
I just bought a Macbook Pro 13" with the i7 processor and was doing a battery calibration for the first time. So I decided to play some Starcraft 2 (medium settings) to help drain the battery faster. After playing for about 5 minutes, I hear the fan turn on. After about another 5 minutes, I used my iStat nano widget to check the fan exhaust speeds as well as the temperatures. I saw the temperature was at 91! The fan speed was peaking at 6200 rpms. I have searched all over the net but have failed to reach any explanations. Can someone please tell me if this is normal? My macbook did not shut down btw.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Click to expand...


There's dozens of threads regarding this topic. yes it's normal for components to heat up. if it didn't shut off, you're fine. You shouldn't worry until your temp gets to at least 15 degrees hotter... Just to put it in perspective, that's 59 degrees farenheit. You'll be fine. Ctfd.
 
This seems to be a very common theme with the 2011 MBPs. Starting to get a little worried, although mine hasn't arrived yet.

Have you thought about taking it in to the Apple store to see what they say?
 
djp2 said:
This seems to be a very common theme with the 2011 MBPs. Starting to get a little worried, although mine hasn't arrived yet.

Have you thought about taking it in to the Apple store to see what they say?
Click to expand...

I've been a little busy but will hopefully have to time do so tommorrow.
 
I have the i5 13 and it does the same thing. Temps get high in a hurry while playing SC2 and it stablizes at around 87-89 with the fan at 6100-6200.

I wonder if this is the same for the 15" 2011 model or if this is a 13" only issue...
 
s2ksleepy said:
I have the i5 13 and it does the same thing. Temps get high in a hurry while playing SC2 and it stablizes at around 87-89 with the fan at 6100-6200.

I wonder if this is the same for the 15" 2011 model or if this is a 13" only issue...
Click to expand...

Yes, it's normal for 13" since it has both CPU and GPU on the same die. Total power consumption when gaming is the same or higher then in 2010 C2D model and therefore heatsink temperature is the same or higher. But in last year model GPU was on separate die so both CPU and GPU temperatures are slightly lower (but it clearly depends on die-heatsink thermal resistance, so thermal compound has significantly higher impact)

Add less then perfect thermal paste application and you're faced to high temperatures.

With both 15" and 17" situation is better because they have two fans and twice as powerful heatsink. More, total power consumption is 35W (for CPU minus integrated GPU) plus 25-30W for ATI GPU, which is 5-10W lower than double of 13". That means 15/17's cooling system is less stressed. And second advantage is that both GPU and CPU are physically separated (and hence lower die-heatsink thermal resistance due to higher square of contact area). User results confirm lower temperatures with 15"+ 2011 models.

Conclusion:
13" cooling system is inferior to other notebooks in class.
15" and 17" cooling is adequate (especially with custom-applied AS5 thermal paste) but far from being best. I was afraid of overheating with quads and 6750M, but results are really good.
 
Out of curiosity, what are your temperatures at idle? Or normally browsing?

I have a 2010 13" MBP, and although I haven't checked it just idling with nothing open [now I have; see below], now with just a browser and one tab open the CPU is at 43º C and the heatsink is at 36º C. Fan is at 2000 rpm.

Usually, when I have about 20 tabs open (no flash), Mail, a text chat, Preview, etc. the CPU is at about 50-53º C and the heatsink at about 46º C Fan at 2000rpm

The other day I had a video chat going, plus the browser and etc. open, and the CPU got up into the mid-to-high 70sC, with the heatsink in the 60sC, and the fan at about 3900 rpm.

I don't game so I can't compare to that, but given my temps with just an iChat video chat open, maybe yours aren't that much worse?

I heard they were supposed to shut down (or maybe just be partially throttled down) at about 105º C, but I can't confirm that.

MT

Edit: Okay, in the interest of completeness, I closed everything and let it idle for ten minutes or so, and I got 33-35ºC for the CPU and 30-31ºC for the heatsink.
 
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synistral88 said:
I just bought a Macbook Pro 13" with the i7 processor and was doing a battery calibration for the first time. So I decided to play some Starcraft 2 (medium settings) to help drain the battery faster. After playing for about 5 minutes, I hear the fan turn on. After about another 5 minutes, I used my iStat nano widget to check the fan exhaust speeds as well as the temperatures. I saw the temperature was at 91! The fan speed was peaking at 6200 rpms. I have searched all over the net but have failed to reach any explanations. Can someone please tell me if this is normal? My macbook did not shut down btw.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Click to expand...

Perfectly normal temperature for that model MBP with that type of activity. And as for what another poster said, it is a common theme with MBP's because that's the way they were designed to be... Nothing wrong with it, no danger in it, they are designed with that in mind, and meant to be that way. Despite several armchair engineer's opinion on the matter, Apple probably has engineers in design, that know a thing or two.

That being said, if you're uncomfortable with it working as designed, as some people are, you can always use SMC Fan Control or something, to control the fans/temp yourself. You're well within safety/proper ranges (especially for gaming...) but if you'd like, you can keep it cooler when you play games.
 
iZero said:
Despite several armchair engineer's opinion on the matter, Apple probably has engineers in design, that know a thing or two
Click to expand...

True, but they also have assembly lines in China, so I'm sure a few lemons get through. That's not to say the OP has any kind of problem at all, but it doesn't hurt to ask and find out what the normal range is, if one is curious.
 
Miss Terri said:
True, but they also have assembly lines in China, so I'm sure a few lemons get through. That's not to say the OP has any kind of problem at all, but it doesn't hurt to ask and find out what the normal range is, if one is curious.
Click to expand...

Oh no doubt, lemons get through :) They would regardless of the nation of assembly... I just meant, if one searches in Google, they will find multiple threads on many sites, where people will try to tell them that perfectly normal, safe temperatures are dangerous, and that Apple has no idea what they are doing and simply slap junk parts together in a pretty case. That's not even approaching true, and in this case, the temp is perfectly normal :)

There's no doubt things like the thermal paste could be done better. But all in all, Macs are designed to/tend to run hotter than other machines one might be used to. No cause for concern necessarily, but a lot of people will try to say that a machine working normally, is dangerous. That's all I meant with that :)


tom vilsack said:
apples horrid thermal paste job strikes again.....

here is thread on how to do....may void warrenty?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1105643/
Click to expand...

That will certainly void your warranty. I'd only advise doing that when your Applecare is up in a few years, or when your warranty is expired in one year if you didn't get Applecare. If you have a heat related failure, your MBP will be replaced/repaired immediately. If you do that, and have a failure for any reason, and are caught, you will just lose all the money you've invested in the machine. To me it seems a silly risk to take, unless you can afford to take it. The procedure is simple, and no doubt helps, but you have to ask yourself if it's worth the slight risk that anything could go wrong during the procedure, or in the future after it.
 
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/user/me said:
There's dozens of threads regarding this topic. yes it's normal for components to heat up. if it didn't shut off, you're fine. You shouldn't worry until your temp gets to at least 15 degrees hotter... Just to put it in perspective, that's 59 degrees farenheit. You'll be fine. Ctfd.
Click to expand...

91 degrees Celsius is about 195 degrees Fahrenheit.
 
When watching netflix, the cpu temp went up to 160 degrees farenheit, with the heat sink in the 120's. Flash kills the computer. Safari alone with three tabs, the one running netflix, was eating up almost 3GB of ram.
 
evaporateddwarf said:
When watching netflix, the cpu temp went up to 160 degrees farenheit, with the heat sink in the 120's. Flash kills the computer. Safari alone with three tabs, the one running netflix, was eating up almost 3GB of ram.
Click to expand...
Netflix uses Silverlight.

And watching online videos will incur a rise in temperatures, be it either from the GPU, CPU or both.
 
evaporateddwarf said:
When watching netflix, the cpu temp went up to 160 degrees farenheit, with the heat sink in the 120's. Flash kills the computer. Safari alone with three tabs, the one running netflix, was eating up almost 3GB of ram.
Click to expand...

I love to watch Netflix streaming, but I noticed that the temperature goes up to about 70 degrees C and sometimes more. The fans reach around 3000 rpm. When I attach my external 27" monitor and enlarge the window, the temperature goes up even higher, so I keep the window small. When I watch a movie that I downloaded from iTunes, however, the temperatures are much lower even on my external monitor with the window expanded. Is it the Silverlight player or any streaming video?:confused:
 
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