MacBook Pro gets really LOUD when gaming

[m i k e]

I installed Vista with Boot Camp and have been playing some games. When playing something graphically intensive like Half-Life 2 or more so Call of Duty 4 the fans kick in like crazy. It gets so loud and to the point where I'm worried that it is too much for the computer. The game play and graphics are great. The noise just worries me. Is this okay? Should I not be playing games like these on the computer? I have a MacBook Pro 2.4ghz with an NVIDIA 6800M GT video card.

 

[Eidorian]

It's perfectly normal operations of your laptop.

 

[Steel Wheels]

It's just the fans cranking up the rpm's to cool your processors. Mine sounds like a jet when I'm encoding videos with handbrake. I'd be worried if the fans didn't speed up.

 

[m i k e]

When would I know if the laptop was overheating?

 

[lostfan916]

Yup, it's normal. My fans kick in when I play Marble Blast Gold

You could instal the iStat pro widget if you want to monitor the fan speeds and see how it's doing. I don't know at would rpm you should start getting worried about, but I don't think I've ever gone over 6000 rpm

 

[Steel Wheels]

When would I know if the laptop was overheating?

You'd probably start experiencing some major stability issues.

 

[m i k e]

I'm on Vista when this is happening so I don't have iStat available. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[tveric]

They're fans. Eventually, after thousands of hours of use, they'll fail. Let us know how much gaming you get in before that happens so that we can stop gaming on our MacBooks right before it happens to us. Thanks!

 

[BeSublime]

They're fans. Eventually, after thousands of hours of use, they'll fail. Let us know how much gaming you get in before that happens so that we can stop gaming on our MacBooks right before it happens to us. Thanks!

lol

But seriously, do that.

 

[Crossbone]

Vista Uses Both Cores All The Time.
Makes The Fan Start.

 

[alphaod]

lol

But seriously, do that.

Looks life my fans just died on me... Let's see 200 hrs.

------

Yeah it's suppose to spin up like crazy. If you're really worried, you can get a cooler pad, but mine doesn't help much.

 

[CINA]

Haha, cooler pad... Thats like adding a giant boy racer spoiler to an Aston Martin.

 

[bubble27]

Any chance of too much gaming screwing up the hardware?

 

[skylerdavid]

any time mine overheats, i just splash some ice water on it and it cools it down pretty quick

 

[Aea]

Any chance of too much gaming screwing up the hardware?

Not really, the thermal properties of the MBPs are pretty nice, if you're worried you could always elevate the laptop so air can circulate easily underneath. You're only in the "danger zone" once you start pushing over 100C, and my MBP on a flat surface hit 85C, once, never been higher.

 

[theblueone]

Would a MBP really "run itself to death"? I guess I always assumed that it would start shutting stuff down before it hit a critical point where its components would be damaged.

 

[atkm2891]

I'm on Vista when this is happening so I don't have iStat available. Thanks for the suggestion though.

just look for a windows application that does the same thing, i know vista has one, im not sure what it's called though.

 

[Eidorian]

just look for a windows application that does the same thing, i know vista has one, im not sure what it's called though.

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

[kastenbrust]

any time mine overheats, i just splash some ice water on it and it cools it down pretty quick

please dont do that mike, he was actually joking, and macs arnt waterproof despite what some people may lead you to believe, so dont try the bath test either.

 

[kastenbrust]

coretemp is the best Windows app to tell you your Processor heat and so you can see the health of your internals, it also reports the head for each individual core which is a novelty:

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/