iMac Pro Keeping iMac Pro Cool during a heatwave with no AC

[RedZephon]

Hey All, I'm located in BC and we've been having some heatwaves the last few weeks-month here. Our iMac Pro is used for production on Sundays. Our building is a giant warehouse that's been retrofitted to hold gatherings of people. It's a giant metal box with No A/C (we're working on it).

This summer I've noticed that its become increasingly hot in the room where our iMac Pro resides, and the iMac has been crashing at the worst times. I'm wondering if anyone has some tips and tricks to keep our iMac Pro cool until we can get AC in our building.

 

[chscag]

By the time you get your AC installed, Summer will be over up there in BC land.

But for the time being, you can try a small quiet fan (if you can find one) blowing across the bottom of the iMac Pro where the intake vents are located. The only disadvantage to using an external fan is it may increase the amount of dust sucked into the iMac. Make sure the area surrounding your iMac Pro is fairly clean.

Sorry, but I had to laugh a bit when I saw on the news that you fellows up there in BC were having a heat wave. Here in Texas our heatwave starts in June and ends around the end of September.

 

[casperes1996]

Hold on, what do you mean crashing? If it gets so hot that it just flat out turns itself off, that's a problem. If a program crashes that's going to be unrelated to high temperatures, though slowdowns could be due to thermal-based clock reductions.

You can place fans to help cool the casing which does have some thermal conductivity attached to internal components, just make sure to not place them in a way that fight the existing cooling system of the iMac

 

[casperes1996]

Alternatively, if you want to reduce heat and don't mind a small cost to performance, you can disable turbo boost with TurboBoost Switcher

 

[RedZephon]

By the time you get your AC installed, Summer will be over up there in BC land.

But for the time being, you can try a small quiet fan (if you can find one) blowing across the bottom of the iMac Pro where the intake vents are located. The only disadvantage to using an external fan is it may increase the amount of dust sucked into the iMac. Make sure the area surrounding your iMac Pro is fairly clean.

Sorry, but I had to laugh a bit when I saw on the news that you fellows up there in BC were having a heat wave. Here in Texas our heatwave starts in June and ends around the end of September.

Lol, our AC is on backorder and won't arrive until October. We've also been experiencing weather up to 50*C in some cases which is not normal at all for us. I read some other suggestions on fans so ill try that.

 

[RedZephon]

Hold on, what do you mean crashing? If it gets so hot that it just flat out turns itself off, that's a problem. If a program crashes that's going to be unrelated to high temperatures, though slowdowns could be due to thermal-based clock reductions.

You can place fans to help cool the casing which does have some thermal conductivity attached to internal components, just make sure to not place them in a way that fight the existing cooling system of the iMac

I've been trying to troubleshoot for months and the company that we financed the computer with has been less then helpful in finding a solution (even though we pay for their extra warranty). Basically during high intensive workloads, sometimes the computer locks up completely and requires me to manually restart the computer. I've tried to find crash logs or some information to help me out but haven't found a single thing that has been helpful. My best guess lately has been the heat since its been VERY HOT in our building. If its not a cooling issue, im open to figuring out a different solution, this is just my next thing on my guess and check.

 

[casperes1996]

I've been trying to troubleshoot for months and the company that we financed the computer with has been less then helpful in finding a solution (even though we pay for their extra warranty). Basically during high intensive workloads, sometimes the computer locks up completely and requires me to manually restart the computer. I've tried to find crash logs or some information to help me out but haven't found a single thing that has been helpful. My best guess lately has been the heat since its been VERY HOT in our building. If its not a cooling issue, im open to figuring out a different solution, this is just my next thing on my guess and check.

I wouldn't immediately say it sounds like a heat issue.

Here's some things I recommend. Run a program like Stats (Free from GitHub open source) to monitor temperatures in the menu bar, and see what it's like when it locks up.

Instead of hard rebooting/shutting down when it locks up, try hitting cmd+alt+esc a couple of times and wait a little. Normally the key combo brings up a force quit menu, but if the force quit Window isn't created in a given time frame and something is unresponsive it will be automatically force quit.

fsck the storage volume and/or run Apple Hardware diagnostics on the machine.

Those are some of the troubleshooting ideas I'd run through if the issue persists

 

[RedZephon]

I wouldn't immediately say it sounds like a heat issue.

Here's some things I recommend. Run a program like Stats (Free from GitHub open source) to monitor temperatures in the menu bar, and see what it's like when it locks up.

Instead of hard rebooting/shutting down when it locks up, try hitting cmd+alt+esc a couple of times and wait a little. Normally the key combo brings up a force quit menu, but if the force quit Window isn't created in a given time frame and something is unresponsive it will be automatically force quit.

fsck the storage volume and/or run Apple Hardware diagnostics on the machine.

Those are some of the troubleshooting ideas I'd run through if the issue persists

Yeah I was planning to install Monity this weekend to monitor temperatures. (I use it on my personal MBP).

Last weekend when it happened I tried a force quit and got nothing. When it locks up, all audio stops, video freezes, mouse input is unresponsive.

Ill try hardware diagnostics as well.

 

[velocityg4]

How humid is the air in the room with the iMac?

You could try a swamp cooler to drop the room temperature if the humidity is low.

 

[RedZephon]

How humid is the air in the room with the iMac?

You could try a swamp cooler to drop the room temperature if the humidity is low.

It's a massive 150ft x 250ft room. Until we get our HVAC installed later this year there's not a whole lot we can do.

 

[DanTSX]

Blow a fan across it.

Don’t add moisture.

Huge room with lots of people in pandemic seems unwise. Consider moving event outdoors If the weather is that pleasant.

It’s a miserable cool and wet summer here in New England USA. Would trade you for your heatwave,