I recently purchased a 2.3 GHz i7 Retina Macbook Pro 15", I bought the High End model with the GPU so that I could do some gaming, but when I begin gaming (in this case Portal 2) my machine gets quite hot. Now I expect this as I have heard that this is a frequent occurrence, but I would expect the fans to at least spin up to try and cool the system, and despite the chassis becoming really quite hot, I can't hear the fans spinning up at all, from what I've heard you should be able to hear them during gaming so as to keep the system well ventilated. I have sat in a silent room with no sound and played and I still cannot hear anything, and after 10 minutes the bottom of the computer is hot as well as the areas near the WASD keys. Should I be concerned that my fans aren't working, or is this normal? I just want to know whether I need to be concerned as high temperatures can shorten the life span of the components, thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide.
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Fans not kicking in when Gaming on Late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro
- Thread starter Notafanboyyet
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If your computer is heating up from playing games and your fans are not. I would say you might have an issue. I play all sorts of games from WoW all the way down to games bought of the App store. My mid 2012 MBP will start to heat up but then my fans will speed up. I also use a program that i love called SMC Fan control. This little program works very well. SMC fan control will also show you what temp your computer is at all times.
The fans on Retinas are substantially quieter than previous ones. Are you monitoring the RPMs and temperates? iStat Pro is a dashboard widget that lets you do that. If you note what things look like when idle (probably around 40 degrees C for your CPU heat sink and GPU, and 2000 rpm for your fans), and then how those numbers change as you're gaming, that'll give you an idea.
Downloaded the app suggested above (SMC fan control) and when playing Portal 2 for about 30 Minutes, the temp gauge got to 85C but the fans never went above 2800 RPM, which they are at right now when not gaming. I believe the max RPM is 6000 as far as I know
Wow. That's very informative, though given that most Intel components have a recommended maximum temperature of 105C that seems a bit late to be kicking those in, but thanks very much for that, I might play more confidently now
No problem. MacBooks run hot. It is normal. If you see temps above 100c you should be a little concerned. But 99c and under should be considered normal, when gaming, or doing anything that is stressing your macbook.
Also, you can download programs such as istat menus or smc fan control to manually set your fan speeds, to better keep temperatures down.
Thats pretty high temperature to kick in the fans. Is that with Mavericks?
Because that's what it does on my Macbook Pro 2007. With Snow Leopard, the fans kick in much earlier than with Mavericks.