Hot (running) 2018 Mac Mini

[AF_APPLETALK]

I can't decide if it's Big Sur, the 64 GB RAM I installed, or just being an Intel chip, that has resulted in my Mac mini running so hot.

I am inclined to say it's the 64 GB RAM. But I am curious what other people who have 64 GB RAM in their machines think.

 

[Boyd01]

Have had a 2018 i7 Mini with 64gb for just about exactly a year and I don't have this kind of problem. But mine is the genuine Apple RAM.

 

[circatee]

Merely a suggestion. Did you physically install the memory yourself?

If so, as a test, remove the newly installed memory, and use the unit for a while and see if the heat persists. Then decide on next steps...

 

[pshufd]

I have a friend that bought the 2018 Mini, put in 32 GB of RAM himself and complains about the heat. I think that he got an i5. The system runs just fine though. Fans come on and he says not to touch it but it gets the job done. He's planning on upgrading to an M1 Mini when he retires in November of this year.

 

[iAssimilated]

My 2018 mini is an i7 with 32GB (genuine Apple RAM) running Big Sur and could get very hot depending on what I was doing. There is a reason this thread exists:

Cooling solutions for the Mac minis?

I am looking at purchasing a used Mac Mini that can run the latest (Mojave) as my next computer, but I have heard and seen online that the aluminium unibody Mac minis all have an issue with overheating. They get extremely hot when put on load and the heat can be felt through the aluminum casing...

forums.macrumors.com

The biggest improvement in temperature I have had is disabling Turbo Boost. I have seen no decrease in performance by doing so either. It keeps my CPU temp lower by 5 to 10 degrees on average.

Turbo Boost Switcher for OSX / macOS

Turbo Boost Switcher for macOS. Save battery of your Mac, cool your CPU and reduce fans noise

tbswitcher.rugarciap.com

There are other ways to keep the temperature down as well, all varying in price and effectiveness. If you don't mind the fan noise, you can download Macs Fan Control and increase the exhaust fan speed. It helps a bit.

Macs Fan Control Download for macOS & Windows (Boot Camp)

crystalidea.com

For more options check the forum thread I posted above.

 

[theunk]

I can't decide if it's Big Sur, the 64 GB RAM I installed, or just being an Intel chip, that has resulted in my Mac mini running so hot.

I am inclined to say it's the 64 GB RAM. But I am curious what other people who have 64 GB RAM in their machines think.

Define hot? I have been using Apple products only since 2009. Everything I have bought from them feels hot, but nothing has ever melted or failed. Those little plugin Airport express unit were unreal. I just scanned my 2018 i3 mini, doing nothing it registers 107F. on the surface using a no name temperature reader. Feels hot but is it?

 

[ashleykaryl]

If heat has only been an issue since installing the ram it seems likely that is the cause. Depending on your usage it could also be that more ram is allowing tasks to complete quicker and raising temperatures that way. How much more heat is there now and is it constant?

My i7 with Apple installed ram definitely becomes hot at times, most notably with use of apps like Skype or exporting a longer video where there is a sustained rise in CPU usage. This isn't the case with more general usage and I can only hope Apple has calculated correctly so that the rises in temperature fall within tolerance.

 

[Boyd01]

Anything that causes a lot of disk access will make mine hot, such as running a Carbon Copy backup. The SSD is very fast but definitely runs hot.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Yes I think that is largely down to the speed of the drive pushing up temperatures and CCC is hot on mine as well, but copying from one SSD to another only takes about a minute, so I barely notice it. In the case of the OP I wondered if more ram might have removed a bottleneck allowing for faster performance overall at the expense of higher temperatures in some situations. If temperatures are generally high at all times that isn't right.

 

[Boyd01]

Yes I think that is largely down to the speed of the drive pushing up temperatures and CCC is hot on mine as well, but copying from one SSD to another only takes about a minute

LOL, we obviously use our computers very differently. I use a Samsung T7 for a clone, it clocks around 900 MB/sec. Ran a backup last night that took perhaps 15 minutes and copied over 100gb. The T7 also gets pretty warm.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I'm using a Samsung T5, which I believe is as fast as the USB can handle on the 2018 mini. I just did a run and it copied 18 gigs in 1 minute 22 seconds. That's a bit slower than usual, possibly because there were active processes in progress.

Most of my work is web design, so the files tend to be quite small. The T5 doesn't seem to become at all hot.

 

[Boyd01]

We're getting pretty far off-topic here, but I think the T7 is significantly faster than the T5. This is what I get, you can compare for yourself. I don't have a T5 but I have several of the older T3's and they are only half this fast and hardly get warm.

 

[Boyd01]

Most of my work is web design, so the files tend to be quite small.

I spend most of my time working on a complex web app too. But, thinking about this, I know what the difference is. I run both Windows and MacOS Virtual Machines in Parallels. Every time I fire one of those up, the entire virtual disk needs to be backed up!

 

[theunk]

So again I ask “What is hot”. Apples published operating temperature is ambient. The current M1 and Intel units have the same ambient upper limit 95F, same as my iPhone XR. My phone gets uncomfortably hot at times! Considering apps like Mac Fans Control report component temperatures well in excess of this value, consistently and even when idling, what is hot? Back when we actually put our hands inside the case to pull a card, change a noisy fan, getting a good burn from getting to close to a chip was not unheard of. I have only been around these devices since the mid 70’s, but I have never heard of users going any great extremes to super cool Apple internals like happened in the PC world. My 2018 mini sits on a Satechi base and it reports the same internal temperatures as off the base. Again I do not put any great processing strain on the unit for any extended period on time. The fan is so quiet that even on full blast it doesn’t make a lot of noise. I live in Edmonton, Alberta. It can get uncomfortably hot, but not anywhere near hot like many parts of the world. I think Apple has this one under control and as long as ones workspace is within the operating temperatures specified there is nothing to worry about.

 

[pshufd]

So again I ask “What is hot”. Apples published operating temperature is ambient. The current M1 and Intel units have the same ambient upper limit 95F, same as my iPhone XR. My phone gets uncomfortably hot at times! Considering apps like Mac Fans Control report component temperatures well in excess of this value, consistently and even when idling, what is hot? Back when we actually put our hands inside the case to pull a card, change a noisy fan, getting a good burn from getting to close to a chip was not unheard of. I have only been around these devices since the mid 70’s, but I have never heard of users going any great extremes to super cool Apple internals like happened in the PC world. My 2018 mini sits on a Satechi base and it reports the same internal temperatures as off the base. Again I do not put any great processing strain on the unit for any extended period on time. The fan is so quiet that even on full blast it doesn’t make a lot of noise. I live in Edmonton, Alberta. It can get uncomfortably hot, but not anywhere near hot like many parts of the world. I think Apple has this one under control and as long as ones workspace is within the operating temperatures specified there is nothing to worry about.

My desktop CPU is running at 40 degrees under load with ambient temperatures at 75 F. It usually runs around 30 degrees during the winter when the temperature is in the 50s to 60s. This desktop is basically silent. Does the M1 Mini actually get warm? I am thinking about getting one though I'd really prefer an M1X model.

 

[theunk]

My desktop CPU is running at 40 degrees under load with ambient temperatures at 75 F. It usually runs around 30 degrees during the winter when the temperature is in the 50s to 60s. This desktop is basically silent. Does the M1 Mini actually get warm? I am thinking about getting one though I'd really prefer an M1X model.

Of course they get warm. If you put Mac Fans on auto what does it do? My fan drops to minimum 1700 or less while my internal float around 50C. The Platform Controller Hub Die is always 10C higher.

 

[pshufd]

Of course they get warm. If you put Mac Fans on auto what does it do? My fan drops to minimum 1700 or less while my internal float around 50C. The Platform Controller Hub Die is always 10C higher.

This is a desktop that I built last year. Massive case, 5 case fans, massive cooler and 65 watt CPU. It would be nice to have a tower M1X that runs cool and quiet. I'm considering a M1 Mini and was wondering what normal operating temperatures are.

 

[theunk]

This is a desktop that I built last year. Massive case, 5 case fans, massive cooler and 65 watt CPU. It would be nice to have a tower M1X that runs cool and quiet. I'm considering a M1 Mini and was wondering what normal operating temperatures are.

Can't answer that, neither has anyone else. That is for the engineers at Apple. I use to love messing around "under the hood" with PC's, even have a technical diploma in the craft, but since my first mini in 2009, I haven't missed that love. Your only concern with an M1 is to get the configuration right the first time cause upgrading isn't much of an option. Although in reality, a new mini is a more cost effective upgrade than most of the pc video card upgrades I ever did.

 

[pshufd]

Can't answer that, neither has anyone else. That is for the engineers at Apple. I use to love messing around "under the hood" with PC's, even have a technical diploma in the craft, but since my first mini in 2009, I haven't missed that love. Your only concern with an M1 is to get the configuration right the first time cause upgrading isn't much of an option. Although in reality, a new mini is a more cost effective upgrade than most of the pc video card upgrades I ever did.

That's the reason for my hesitancy. I don't know whether xrg runs on the M1 Macs but I'll look around to see if anyone has played around with CPU temps on the M1. The workaround on M1's running hot is to get two of them but the M1 loses the big cost advantage there.

 

[ashleykaryl]

My Mac Pro has been running 24/7 for the last 10 days at maximum CPU rendering 3D frames. One CPU is 66c and the other is 54c, while the fans are running at around 1400rpm. The mini could only dream of running so cool under any kind of load, but they are very different machines. Just look at the case designs fan arrangements and dare I say it target audience.

All good things come to an end though and the Mac Pro is destined for retirement. Thanks to silicon processors I think an M2 mini will be able to crunch through heavy tasks with none of the heat concerns we are discussing.

 

[theunk]

Surface temperatures right now in my office using a Vaughn Digital Infrared Thermometer of unknown accuracy.

Desk 25.2 C
2018 Mini 45 C
Dell U2412M 34 C
LG 27MP35 31 C

 

[ashleykaryl]

Surface temperatures right now in my office using a Vaughn Digital Infrared Thermometer of unknown accuracy.

Desk 25.2 C
2018 Mini 45 C
Dell U2412M 34 C
LG 27MP35 31 C

I don't think that means much. It's the internal CPU temperatures that matter and the CPU PECI is the one I've seen suggested as the best point of reference.

 

[theunk]

That has been my position all along but at least I can define my HOT. A third party sensor reading (Macs Fan Control) means no more than my external temperatures because no body can define HOT!
Until Apples engineering group publishes acceptable temperature limits, it is a non-issue. Those folks must love threads like this. Anyway, I have to let this go as I really have no solution to the non -issue.
Regards

 

[pshufd]

That has been my position all along but at least I can define my HOT. A third party sensor reading (Macs Fan Control) means no more than my external temperatures because no body can define HOT!
Until Apples engineering group publishes acceptable temperature limits, it is a non-issue. Those folks must love threads like this. Anyway, I have to let this go as I really have no solution to the non -issue.
Regards

I keep Macs cool with this:

 

[ashleykaryl]

That has been my position all along but at least I can define my HOT. A third party sensor reading (Macs Fan Control) means no more than my external temperatures because no body can define HOT!
Until Apples engineering group publishes acceptable temperature limits, it is a non-issue. Those folks must love threads like this. Anyway, I have to let this go as I really have no solution to the non -issue.
Regards

Apple sort of does that already by taking the data supplied by Intel and then setting up the mini to work within those tolerances. I believe the i7 CPU has an upper safe limit of around 105C, so it never goes above 100C. Apple seem happy to let the mini run hot, rather than having fans running constantly and the case itself acts as a heat sink.