If you are concerned about heat/fan noise, go 2010 or wait for Ivy Bridge

[adrian1480]

Are you on OS X or Windows? I just now logged off Windows and into OSX and turned on iStat where I saw the temperature drop from ~50 to currently 40 on the dot.

If you're using OS X download http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus and set it to integrated graphics for simple web browsing or music listening, it seems to do a great job in keeping temps down.

Another thing you can try is to reset your SMC, see if that does anything.

from the moment I started writing this I went from 40 degrees CPU to 39, according to iStat, and I'm listening to music as well.

See, below 40, and from the time it took me to google how to print screen and upload the pic onto tiny pic it's gone to 37

taken a short while later. I reckon it's because I'm using integrated graphics. I'm not using a special pad or anything, I'm typing this with the macbook on a large hard cover book which is resting on my tummy in bed.

well I don't know what to say.

neither my 2010 nor my 2011 could reach those temperature levels under any circumstances. I've been using that GPU switching app for a year, never saw temps that low unless I was resuming from sleep.

with my fans set at 3400rpm, the lowest she'll get down to 49C (and 42C, GPU).

39C just ain't happenin.

edit: even with the fans spinning at 5500rpm, the CPU gets no cooler than 43C. That's with only Chrome open. granted, Chrome is open to about 30 tabs...but its CPU footprint is low.

 

[darkeartg]

well I don't know what to say.

neither my 2010 nor my 2011 could reach those temperature levels under any circumstances. I've been using that GPU switching app for a year, never saw temps that low unless I was resuming from sleep.

with my fans set at 3400rpm, the lowest she'll get down to 49C (and 42C, GPU).

39C just ain't happenin.

edit: even with the fans spinning at 5500rpm, the CPU gets no cooler than 43C. That's with only Chrome open. granted, Chrome is open to about 30 tabs...but its CPU footprint is low.

Notice how his gpu diode is "-" compared to your 46C and this only happens when discreet is off. This happens to me only when i'm using safari and browsing never chrome. Chrome as i have stated before turns on discreet, for me anyway. Other MBP may behave differently apparently. It is due to this reason that i use safari only when I am not plugged in. I get 7-9 (battery indicator says i get this much) when i use safari and stingy with my tabs.

 

[ozred]

Well, heat is simply not an issue unless you get a lemon or misunderstand how things work.

Denial can be the best solution of all, for those who practice it.

 

[Rhyalus]

I think a lot of people here are missing the point.

It all depends on HOW you use your MPB. I have the 13" i5, and with MS Office, video streaming with Netflix, web browsing, Skype, etc., I have no problems at all. The CPU idles around 40c and occasionally gets up to 65c which is all fine and nearly inaudible with respect to the fans.

HOWEVER...

Play five minutes of Left 4 Dead and the fans are screaming at 6000 RPM. I can imagine that with some other apps that are GPU/CPU intensive, it could get very loud, very quickly and quite frankly, I could not live with that racket.

So the people who are saying, "stop whining", are not using their system intensively.

I bought my MBP to be what I always hoped a netbook would be. For those who use it as their primary machine, I think you need to check out how your apps will run and strongly consider something other than a 13" (smaller usually means hotter).

Regards,
R

 

[JoeG4]

It's a MacBook Pro. You're supposed to go listen to indie music on your $300 Grado cans at Starbucks while you're drawing crap to put on Deviantart.

If indie music isnt' your thing, then you mix yo own beatz in garageband yo. Then roll off in your DUB mobile.

If that aint your thing ,you're supposed to rant about Steve Jobs' turtlenecks or something on blogs. You're not supposed to use it for real computing unless you're scientist at a high end research institution and even then, only for TV shows.

 

[ls1dreams]

As someone who just switched to mac, I can say that I'm incredibly disappointed at how loud this MBP 13" is.

After playing any video for just a few minutes my fan gets ramped up to full speed and is ridiculously loud.

It really ruins the experience.

(My 5 year old $500 acer laptop was quieter under much heavier load)

 

[kushed]

Wow. What? LOL!

im just sayin that im doing like 20 things at once with all these applications and my computer isnt hot at all. and the fan isnt that noisey either. these people need to ****

 

[rockinrocker]

I think a lot of people here are missing the point.

It all depends on HOW you use your MPB.

This.

+1000

If you don't see the point of this thread, then please don't post in it.

Some of us work in audio and every 1/2 a db. counts.

I think nebulos' effort at summing up hard numbers was a good idea.
Hopefully more that have 2010/11's can post their numbers as well.

 

[c9rs]

As a first-time Mac owner, I too was surprised to be seeing temperatures go this high. I have the 2011 13" base MBP and I was expecting the processor to be able to handle high loads without such an increase in temperature.

For those of you who are claiming low temperatures during "high loads", try this test: Watch this HD trailer of The Dark Knight in original or 1080p full screen, then check the temperature of the CPU afterward: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ5U8suTUw0

 

[darkeartg]

As a first-time Mac owner, I too was surprised to be seeing temperatures go this high. I have the 2011 13" base MBP and I was expecting the processor to be able to handle high loads without such an increase in temperature.

For those of you who are claiming low temperatures during "high loads", try this test: Watch this HD trailer of The Dark Knight in original or 1080p full screen, then check the temperature of the CPU afterward: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ5U8suTUw0

while updating my iphone 64C

 

[TxdoHawk]

Surprised to see all the bickering in here...this is obviously a case-by-case problem when you start looking at temperatures reported between different users in this thread. Load temperatures are dependent on what's stressed ("x tabs open in Chrome/Safari" is meaningless, what's on those tabs?), but to see idle or near-idle temperatures so varied certainly points to the idea that some systems are being cooled better than others.

 

[edifyingGerbil]

i've heard apocryphal accounts of people taking their macbooks into stores and asking the geniuses there to open them up and reapply thermal paste for them, which apple is willing to do.

for some this sorts out the porblem, for others it's an SMC reset, for yet others, they have oranges

EDIT: oops, i mean lemons

 

[jedics]

while updating my iphone 64C

yes but what is your idle temp?
what were the Rpm of your fans at 64 C?
what was your ambient temp?

just posting 64 c is useless.

 

[Dtp8513]

I'm somewhat of a newbie. What's the best way to check temps?

 

[daneoni]

As a first-time Mac owner, I too was surprised to be seeing temperatures go this high. I have the 2011 13" base MBP and I was expecting the processor to be able to handle high loads without such an increase in temperature.

For those of you who are claiming low temperatures during "high loads", try this test: Watch this HD trailer of The Dark Knight in original or 1080p full screen, then check the temperature of the CPU afterward: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ5U8suTUw0

Integrated and Discrete.

 

[adrian1480]

Notice how his gpu diode is "-" compared to your 46C and this only happens when discreet is off. This happens to me only when i'm using safari and browsing never chrome. Chrome as i have stated before turns on discreet, for me anyway. Other MBP may behave differently apparently. It is due to this reason that i use safari only when I am not plugged in. I get 7-9 (battery indicator says i get this much) when i use safari and stingy with my tabs.

this was mine with the discrete GPU off:

@ max fans with only Chrome open, that's the lowest I could get it. the absolute lowest.

This is not a problem for me; as I said yesterday, these temperatures are mirror images of my 2010 MBP's temperatures. I just...it surprises me that anyone's system could be, on average, 15-25C cooler than mine under what I'd assume are similar conditions at time of testing. It just seems so unlikely, it's hard for me to accept. But the evidence has been posted. It is what it is. My 2010 never gave me any trouble at all, so I expect the same from this 2011 MBP. Cheers.

 

[TxdoHawk]

this was mine with the discrete GPU off:

@ max fans with only Chrome open, that's the lowest I could get it. the absolute lowest.

This is not a problem for me; as I said yesterday, these temperatures are mirror images of my 2010 MBP's temperatures. I just...it surprises me that anyone's system could be, on average, 15-25C cooler than mine under what I'd assume are similar conditions at time of testing. It just seems so unlikely, it's hard for me to accept. But the evidence has been posted. It is what it is. My 2010 never gave me any trouble at all, so I expect the same from this 2011 MBP. Cheers.

Have you only recently started looking at temperatures for your 2010? Keep in mind that a laptop with some age to it will often run hotter, due to dust buildup and a variety of other factors.

 

[adrian1480]

Have you only recently started looking at temperatures for your 2010? Keep in mind that a laptop with some age to it will often run hotter, due to dust buildup and a variety of other factors.

Nope. I had iStat Menus installed inside of the first week.

unless iStat Menus is misreporting the temps, my 2010 and 2011 have been mirror images of one another.

 

[nebulos]

adrian, i noticed in another thread ("6750M benchmarks") that you said you overclocked your GPU? i don't know much about this but i'm guessing you're positive this is not related to your temp issues?

 

[RationalGaze]

Flash instability

I agree with people who are saying that the temps depend on what is being done on the system.

Using a few tabs in Chrome after just starting my 2011 15" 2.2 Ghz, my idle temps hover around 37-42 C (mostly below 40 C CPU, GPU is lower). Start up flash video (in my case, ESPN 3) and the system goes upto 60-65 C. Firing up ESPN 3 immediately switches to the dedicated graphics. Now this is where things start getting strange. I manually switched to integrated, the videos continued to be smooth (in the small window). Try going fullscreen and I see no video, just sound. The screen is black. After switching back to dedicated, normalcy resumes, I can switch back to fullscreen no problem (however, I do get random 'stuck' video, where the frame freezes, but sound continues. The video resumes in ~5-10 secs).

Now, after closing ESPN 3, the temps start dropping immediately and come back to 49-52 C. They never go lower than that, to what the system was before ESPN 3. The GPU is usually the same temp as the CPU.

Its a completely different case with Firefox 4. Starting firefox, the GPU immediately switches to dedicated (unlike Chrome), and firing up ESPN 3, temps reach ~80 C and continue to hover around that range. Closing ESPN 3 brings everything down in less than a minute.

There is also some strange behavior when it comes to using Steam in OS X. Immediately after playing HL2 at max settings and native res (1680 x 1050), CPU and GPU are around 73 C. The temps come down to ~ 50 within 2 mins. However, the last two times I quit steam, the system froze on me. (Others are having some problems with Steam too, prob got to do with graphics drivers). I had to force shut down the system. Last time I did that, on restarting the system, sound was gone, no sound whatsoever, and required another restart to get the sound back. Also according to other threads, there seems to be a software problem with graphics switching, which apparently Apple seems to be aware of.

Anyway, my 0.02 cents (more like 0.08 cents). Sorry if I have repeated some info.

 

[adrian1480]

adrian, i noticed in another thread ("6750M benchmarks") that you said you overclocked your GPU? i don't know much about this but i'm guessing you're positive this is not related to your temp issues?

overclocking only works in Windows. its effects do not carry over to OSX. also, the overclock is only for the GPU; our conversation is about the CPU.

 

[nebulos]

overclocking only works in Windows. its effects do not carry over to OSX. also, the overclock is only for the GPU; our conversation is about the CPU.

okay. i know GPU and CPU temps are separate, but i wondered if there could be spill over. anyways, no overclocking in OSX obviously settles it.

i don't know. i guess, as it seems and has been said, some machines run hotter than others; ... thermal paste differences may indeed account for some of this; people that have reapplied have seen temp drops of roughly 10C, i believe.

 

[adrian1480]

update:

when turning off all applications and running on only integrated graphics, the computer hangs out around 40C.

after turning on Safari, with just a few tabs open along with my music player (Fidelia) playing music and iTunes open, the temperature hangs out around 41C-42C.

with discrete graphics on along with the above apps open:

41C-44C.


Conclusion: Chrome seems to have been the chief offender. Rather, one (or some) of the many tabs I had open. The Activity Monitor really didn't seem to point to any unusual use coming from Chrome...but the temperatures don't lie. The machine is 10C-15C cooler right now with Chrome off and appears to have no interest in exceeding 50C, even with discrete graphics enabled.

Additional thoughts: after turning on Chrome, the temperatures did raise, but not all that much. ~52C with Chrome on running all 30 of the tabs I had open before. Nothing in my environment has changed. Why it's currently running 8C-15C cooler than it was yesterday is unknown to me. Still, it clearly runs cooler with Safari's 3 tabs than it did with Chrome's many tabs. Obvious yes, but I didn't expect a 10C difference in operating temperature.

 

[zenit]

still confused about why you are guys freaking out about the temperatures....

Here are the idling temps from Thinkpad W510. CPU has the same TDP, but the computer is about 2x as thick as a macbook prol, so a ton more theoretical cooling capacity. Idling in 40s is actually really awesome on a computer as thin as the macbook with a quad core CPU.

 

[Pentad]

Denial can be the best solution of all, for those who practice it.

Just like incompetence...