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GPU temp increase A LOT on Lion ?!! Is this normal?

iSayuSay

iSayuSay

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Feb 6, 2011
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Yesterday I finished downloading and installing Lion. Overall it's a good refresh. Subtle yet essential changes.

And I can see Apple crippled Chrome in favor of new Safari. Yes Chrome hasn't been updated yet, but the difference is huge.

Whoa .. enough talking :D .. Now I have a bit remorse about Lion. iStat reports that in light use (browsing, typing, iTunes), no gaming, photoshop or some kind :

GPU Diode: 78C/173F (was around 50C in SL)
GPU Heatsink: 66C/151F (was around 46 in SL)
:eek:

Other's temp report are normal, just like I had in SL when I use normally

You see GPU temp increasing a lot compared to SL .. is this safe? Or is this just some bugs on iStat .. I held upper back side of my iMac with my hand, doesn't feel abnormally hot or something, but the iStat doesn't say so.

Does it because Lion has more animation .. make the GPU load increase? Thus increase GPU temp? Please respond if this is normal, or do I have the anomaly myself? If you don't mind, please upload your iStat screenshot on Lion :)
 
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It's an issue.My uncle's mac had the same issue after he installed Lion.:( The only way to keep it cool is SL right now.I'm sure Apple will release updates
 
I think you'll be fine, but don't let the temps exceed 90c -- I'm not sure how safe that is. You can use smcFanControl to bump it fan speeds a little if necessary (if it works with Lion?).
 
I noticed a rise in gpu temperature as well. I think it's an issue with flash media.
 
Not fully optimized drivers + a lot more Core Animation + not yet fully compatible Flash plugin = Toasty GPU
 
I noticed something off as well. Was playing a round of Tiger Online in full screen and after a few holes it was like the bottom fell out of the GPU. I download the iStat Pro widget, is that a decent readout tool or is there something better?

124F diode and 122F on the heatsink just on typing. Going to see if I see a major jump after tiger.
 
They say no pic = it didn't happen LD .. so here is screenshot of my iStat widget ..

screenshot20110722at111.png


You see .. CPU is idle, I don't do anything intensive for hours, and GPU diode and heatsink temp going crazy !! .. Other temp is normal, but GPU is baked !!

What is wrong with Lion?? Do you experience the same problem? Please share :)

Never had this kind of temp while idling on SL .. it used to be 40 - 50C .. this temp is just like when I play heavy games during bootcamp windows. Quite surprising for an OSX !!

If you don't mind post your iStat screenshot on Lion
 
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iSayuSay said:
They say no pic = it didn't happen LD .. so here is screenshot of my iStat widget ..

Image

You see .. CPU is idle, I don't do anything intensive for hours, and GPU diode and heatsink temp going crazy !! .. Other temp is normal, but GPU is baked !!

What is wrong with Lion?? Do you experience the same problem? Please share :)

Never had this kind of temp while idling on SL .. it used to be 40 - 50C .. this temp is just like when I play heavy games during bootcamp windows. Quite surprising for an OSX !!

If you don't mind post your iStat screenshot on Lion
Click to expand...
Does it get significantly hotter when playing a game? Or, only marginally?
 
MythicFrost said:
Does it get significantly hotter when playing a game? Or, only marginally?
Click to expand...

Play games (Crysis, Dungeon Siege III) make the GPU quite hot (I didn't over clock GPU) .. but after I quit the game, I tried to switch back to OSX (when I still used SL) and notice my GPU temp around 78 - 80C .. equally hot as above data.

But it used to cool down until 50C or so when idle (again, when I still use SL). Now I didn't use it for game/bootcamp yet, but GPU is insanely hot .. Does Lion use GPU intensive process? This worries me a lot man :(

Have you installed Lion? How's your temp?
 
GPU heat in Lion is higher

I can see an increase of at least 10 degrees f with Lion just surfing the web. I'm hoping that this issue is dealt quickly...I can only assume that the battery life of my MBP 17 is going to be adversely affected.
 
I noticed a significant increase in the temperature of my GPU as well. 72-78C on the diode. The top of my 27" 2011 iMac is very hot, while it was always cool to the touch under SL.
 
Definitely a flash related issue. My gpu is the same temperature as before on snow leopard whenever I'm doing anything that isn't flash related. The moment I start using flash media, my gpu spikes to 72c after half an hour or so of use, when before it only spiked to around 65c or so.
 
TMRaven said:
Definitely a flash related issue. My gpu is the same temperature as before on snow leopard whenever I'm doing anything that isn't flash related. The moment I start using flash media, my gpu spikes to 72c after half an hour or so of use, when before it only spiked to around 65c or so.
Click to expand...

Hmm maybe. Yeah, I admit I watched Youtube videos too. I didn't think it supposed to be a demanding task. Especially with i7 and 6970M :( It used to be a breeze on SL.. If this is true, truly something has been wrong on Apple's side. Adobe didn't change any plugins or anything, but Apple did to Lion. Oh come on Apple, be at peace with Flash :D
 
iSayuSay said:
Hmm maybe. Yeah, I admit I watched Youtube videos too. I didn't think it supposed to be a demanding task. Especially with i7 and 6970M :( It used to be a breeze on SL.. If this is true, truly something has been wrong on Apple's side. Adobe didn't change any plugins or anything, but Apple did to Lion. Oh come on Apple, be at peace with Flash :D
Click to expand...

Go to youtube.com/html5 and once saved you'll never watch youtube in flash again.
 
WiiDSmoker said:
Go to youtube.com/html5 and once saved you'll never watch youtube in flash again.
Click to expand...


Yeah right so many YouTube videos are flash only. Just about anything with ads needs to be wrapped with flash. You get a surprisingly small portion of videos on html5 only in my experience.
 
I'm not sure if Lion is making temps hotter or not, because for most part the temps have remained the same for me. The thing is that right now we're experiencing a heat wave (today probably being the hottest day of the year where I live), so that might account for higher temperatures. I'll be monitoring iStat Pro over the next couple of days to see how things go.
 
Excessive GPU heat under Lion

I just noticed my iMac's GPU running a lot hotter than normal earlier today. I was using it normally then I activated Dashboard to check on something else and then I noticed that iStat was reporting the GPU to be running around 71° C when it should have been no more than 60° C with the load I had at the time. After I completed my tasks, I quit all of my apps and closed all windows and let the iMac idle and cool off for nearly an hour and see where it stood. At this point I immediately checked iStat and it showed that the GPU was still running around 70° C. At the time, my room was air conditioned and was no more than 22° C.

I had originally thought that this was related to Flash but after quitting all my apps and making sure that only essentials were running in Activity Monitor, I figured that this is deeper and is probably something os related. Hopefully Apple will have a fix for this and any other issues that I reported to them earlier.
 
im not noticing this? hmm...iStat Pro reports 47C/117F GPU diode and 45C/113F GPU heatsink...and I've been multitasking...mission control switching desktops and youtube video watching and my temp is STILL low...

EDIT: Ive notices most of the post here where this is happening is the 6970M i have the 6770M in my iMac....
 
iMikeT said:
I just noticed my iMac's GPU running a lot hotter than normal earlier today. I was using it normally then I activated Dashboard to check on something else and then I noticed that iStat was reporting the GPU to be running around 71° C when it should have been no more than 60° C with the load I had at the time. After I completed my tasks, I quit all of my apps and closed all windows and let the iMac idle and cool off for nearly an hour and see where it stood. At this point I immediately checked iStat and it showed that the GPU was still running around 70° C. At the time, my room was air conditioned and was no more than 22° C.

I had originally thought that this was related to Flash but after quitting all my apps and making sure that only essentials were running in Activity Monitor, I figured that this is deeper and is probably something os related. Hopefully Apple will have a fix for this and any other issues that I reported to them earlier.
Click to expand...

After performing a clean install of lion, my 2011 iMac w/6970 is still cooking the GPU. Upon a clean boot, it's fine until I run safari, iPhoto, iTunes, and email (just what i typically have open)l. The GPU shoots up to 71-74C, and ambient is 19C. Close out all programs, and the GPU still stays hot. Let the iMac sleep overnight, and the case is still warm in the morning, and the GPU is still in the upper 60s upon waking. If I shutdown, and boot up without loading any applications, the GPU is in the 40-50s.

I've taken to shutting my iMac down now instead of letting it sleep. Hopefully they will fix this soon.
 
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Using 3.1Ghz i5 iMac 2011 w 6970M, I'm also having this temperature issue on the GPU diode and was hovering around 80C. From iStat I noticed that the Graphic Module was taking full 33W even though I was just browsing.

But I did have a secondary display running at 1920x1080 via the thunderbolt port. The moment I disconnect it the Graphic Module drop to 15W and the GPU diod drop to around 60C.

EDIT: Added iStat report,
GPUwoTB.jpg


So was it caused by the thunderbolt? Why does running external monitor taxing the GPU so much?
 
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GPU Temps

I too am having the same issue with my 2011 i5 iMac with 6970m GPU. I do not remember the temps in Snow Leopard I was getting but I do not feel like downgrading back to Snow Leopard. I hope a fix comes soon. I will post a issue report or whatever at Apples Support site. You all should too.
 
same here, sadly. even with minimal load and plugin activity i got a gpu idle temp of 80°. no other monitors attached. 2011 imac i7 - that i bought because the gpu on my previous 2008 one died. damn you apple.
 
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