MacBook Pro Late 2008 108 Degrees CELSIUS! (UPDATE)

[Taccano]

I have the same problem with my late '08 MBP. In idle or light load I have an average of 40 Celcius. But in heavy load such as Handbrake I reach very fast to almost 100 Celcius without getting the fans higher than 2000 rpm.
My OSX is up to date.
I have done the steps above (resetting SMC etc) but it didn't solve the problem.
Does all the late '08s infected? Or do I have a faulty MBP?
Does Apple acknowledged the problem?

 

[appleguy12]

Well add me to the list... After a SMC reset, the fans automatically kick in at about 78 degrees C and stabilizes at around 72-75 degrees C. But after putting my computer to sleep and run the same test, the temperature will slowly climb to 100-105 degrees C before the fans finally kick in. This is definitely a issue with the SMC...

 

[lscangus]

Guys! thx for all your reply.

An update from my situation.

Thanks for all your contribution. It seems Apple dun apparently notice this problem.

Anyway, i ahev returned my MBP15 in december. Just to end the nightmare.

Now i have the 17. I will do the same test later.

Angus

 

[appleguy12]

Guys! thx for all your reply.

An update from my situation.

Thanks for all your contribution. It seems Apple dun apparently notice this problem.

Anyway, i ahev returned my MBP15 in december. Just to end the nightmare.

Now i have the 17. I will do the same test later.

Angus

i'm assuming the problem has been fixed with the laptops built in '09 because no one seems to be reporting this issue for awhile now... This is extremely frustrating because my mbp was one of the november '08 batches and obviously has this problem. I have spoken to a applecare tech and they are still denying this problem... I don't know what to do now...

 

[POX]

i'm assuming the problem has been fixed with the laptops built in '09 because no one seems to be reporting this issue for awhile now... This is extremely frustrating because my mbp was one of the november '08 batches and obviously has this problem. I have spoken to a applecare tech and they are still denying this problem... I don't know what to do now...

Hi, my first post and my english isn´t very good.

If you take your MBP to the store and test it, stress the cpu with reseting SMC and after an restart, they (apple) can´t deny it.

I´m sufferring the same problem, fans stuck at 2000 rpm and temps of 90º C and also freezing and kernel panics.

 

[w00t951]

Extreme

OMG! Are you sure? The temperature in F is 226.2! Well above boiling. The hardware itself is set to shut down at a temperature of around 200 F. I think that there are some false readings going on here. I have Windows Vista on my MacBook Pro, and running Crysis at all medium with some high settings, and it only reaches about 89 Celsius.

 

[POX]

OMG! Are you sure? The temperature in F is 226.2! Well above boiling. The hardware itself is set to shut down at a temperature of around 200 F. I think that there are some false readings going on here. I have Windows Vista on my MacBook Pro, and running Crysis at all medium with some high settings, and it only reaches about 89 Celsius.

90 ºC = 194 ºF.

The MBP turn off above 100 ºC.

The point is that the fans are stuck at 2000 rpm, i´m using smcfancontrol but this third party software isn´t a long term solution.

 

[appleguy12]

90 ºC = 194 ºF.

The MBP turn off above 100 ºC.

The point is that the fans are stuck at 2000 rpm, i´m using smcfancontrol but this third party software isn´t a long term solution.

what i have found is that if i only stress the cpu itself and not the gpu, the temperature will increase to over 100 degrees C before the fans finally kick in. But, if I play a game like call of duty 4, the fans will kick in as they would normally (at around 78 degrees C (cpu) ). Another problem i'm having is that by simply running a game in windows xp, I will get a black screen of death very often but I cannot seem to replicate this issue in OS X.

I don't have an apple store where I live and the closest authorized apple repair store won't be able to have any look at my computer for another week and a half... i'm hoping they will acknowledge this problem and so something about it.

 

[simonpickard]

Seems this is being reported quite a lot.
What do you think the chances are of Apple fixing this issue under OsX and Windows?

I would have thought this would be a very simple fix for them? Not sure why they are allowing it to rattle on.

Regards,
Simon

 

[Ploki]

I have the same problem with my late '08 MBP. In idle or light load I have an average of 40 Celcius. But in heavy load such as Handbrake I reach very fast to almost 100 Celcius without getting the fans higher than 2000 rpm.
My OSX is up to date.
I have done the steps above (resetting SMC etc) but it didn't solve the problem.
Does all the late '08s infected? Or do I have a faulty MBP?
Does Apple acknowledged the problem?

download "Fan Control" preference pane. you can set the minimum and maximum threshold and it draws a slope in between
ie.:
50º = 2000rpm
60º = 3000rpm etc etc.

ive been using it for over two months.
i have lower threshold at barely 1400rpm.
it keeps the battery alive while doing the heavy work and the cpu doesnt go above 75º degrees no matter what i do.
i dont care what apple thought it was a good temperature, but 100º which the laptop was hitting before made the northbridge a friggin stove.

90 ºC = 194 ºF.

The MBP turn off above 100 ºC.

The point is that the fans are stuck at 2000 rpm, i´m using smcfancontrol but this third party software isn´t a long term solution.

i use Fan Control because you dont have to manually **** the fans up and its automatic.

mbp doesnt turn off above 100º. people here got 111º and still running. which is scary...

 

[POX]

My MBP was sent to apple today due this problem and also kernel panics.

The new units also have the fans stuck at 2000 rpm whatever the temperature?

 

[lscangus]

I think apple has addressed the problem in the 17inches. and i bet they have done the same in the new batches of 15inches as well.

 

[ayeying]

My 17" MacBook Pro hit 110 deg C before it started revving up the fans. w00t. I beat ya'all. lol. I think this "yes dev > null" is somewhat confusing OSX. I can watch a youtube video and it'll rev up the fans way before 100 deg C.

Here's a pic after the fans started going up.

 

[POX]

With those temps the fans should be working at 6000 rpm.

Try resetting SMC and make another test, the fans should rev up around 75 C.

The problem is after a restart/pause, fans stay lazzy again.

 

[simonpickard]

Man this is crazy.. So is this effecting ALL macbook pro's then or just a few?

Apple have to fix this yeah? I mean at 110 things are going to start melting pretty quickly.

Regards,
Simon

 

[Everlast]

That's scary indeed! my Macbook Pro(15" 2.4Ghz, Late 08) also got up to above 85c under bootcamp windows xp, and the fan seems staying at 2000rpm.

One funny thing that I found is that, my MBP will goes extremely hot in windows xp, I'd installed speedfan just for monitoring the temperature, and found that my MBP went up to 80c, just right after 10-15mins got into the window. Just got safari and itune opened.

However, I continue to start up GTA4, then I heard the MBP's fans start to increase the speed(noise). and after a good 30mins of messing around in GTA4, I quickly switch back to desktop and check that, the temperature draw back to around 75c, how strange... I guess it could be the MBP fans start doing their job. Then I close the game, the fan's noise decrease / slow down. And next after a while, the temperature gone back up to 81c - 82c .

It only got up that high temperature under windows XP (haven't try Vista or Windows7). In OSX it's nice and cold, so far the highest temperature is about 55c under OSX.

I did some searching on web and see that "Electrical and operating requirements" on Apple's support page.
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP499
# Operating temperature: 50° to 95° F
(10° to 35° C)
# Storage temperature: -13° to 113° F
(-24° to 45° C)

Operating temperature is between 10c - 35c? So keep running it at 80c is like killing my MBP?

So, I call up Apple support, and they told me that they aware of this problem happening under bootcamp windows, said, it's best to keep the MBP under 60c .... and, better don't play any intense game on the machine.

Then, I asked if there any solution, he replied me have to wait on a new firmware to fix this, but he couldn't provide me more details on it further....

 

[teme]

i'm assuming the problem has been fixed with the laptops built in '09 because no one seems to be reporting this issue for awhile now... This is extremely frustrating because my mbp was one of the november '08 batches and obviously has this problem. I have spoken to a applecare tech and they are still denying this problem... I don't know what to do now...

I got my new 15" 2.8GHz MBP few weeks ago from Apple's online store, and I have the 'black screen of death' problem when gaming in Windows XP and sometimes temperatures reach over 100 celsius degrees (in Mac OSX when using Handbrake). So I doubt that the problem has been fixed.

 

[ayeying]

That's scary indeed! my Macbook Pro(15" 2.4Ghz, Late 08) also got up to above 85c under bootcamp windows xp, and the fan seems staying at 2000rpm.

One funny thing that I found is that, my MBP will goes extremely hot in windows xp, I'd installed speedfan just for monitoring the temperature, and found that my MBP went up to 80c, just right after 10-15mins got into the window. Just got safari and itune opened.

However, I continue to start up GTA4, then I heard the MBP's fans start to increase the speed(noise). and after a good 30mins of messing around in GTA4, I quickly switch back to desktop and check that, the temperature draw back to around 75c, how strange... I guess it could be the MBP fans start doing their job. Then I close the game, the fan's noise decrease / slow down. And next after a while, the temperature gone back up to 81c - 82c .

It only got up that high temperature under windows XP (haven't try Vista or Windows7). In OSX it's nice and cold, so far the highest temperature is about 55c under OSX.

I did some searching on web and see that "Electrical and operating requirements" on Apple's support page.
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP499
# Operating temperature: 50° to 95° F
(10° to 35° C)
# Storage temperature: -13° to 113° F
(-24° to 45° C)

Operating temperature is between 10c - 35c? So keep running it at 80c is like killing my MBP?

So, I call up Apple support, and they told me that they aware of this problem happening under bootcamp windows, said, it's best to keep the MBP under 60c .... and, better don't play any intense game on the machine.

Then, I asked if there any solution, he replied me have to wait on a new firmware to fix this, but he couldn't provide me more details on it further....

Are you forealz? It says operating temperature, that means the ambient temperature or the temperature of the room, not the system temperature.

I don't care what my temperatures are. My MacBook Air was at 110 deg C for nearly 2 hours straight and no damage occured. Auto shutdown occurs not at 100 deg C, usually at 110-115 deg C because thats when critical damage occur.

My MacBook Pro (17" Unibody) runs at 80-90 deg C average (I said average, not all the time. Don't assume). My MacBook runs at 70 deg C average. Anything under 100 deg C, I won't really care at all.

Think of this like a car's RPM gauge. The 100 deg C is the beginning of the redline. Anything over it is the redline. However, most engines in a car can handle a few hundred rpms pass redline. For example, my car's redline is 6800RPM but I frequently hit 7100RPM before shifting, and the engine itself can handle up to 7500RPM before something blows up. 60,000 miles later, the internals look just as well as a babied engine.

 

[pittster]

well it's definitely not just a Bootcamp/Windows problem as I only work in OSX 10.5.6.

My 1 month old 15" Unibody MBP runs its fans at 2000rpm until the CPUA temp shows just above or below 100 deg C then fans ramp up till temp drops to early 80s deg C.

resetting SMC works on initial start up (as in the fans ramp up at much lower CPU temps) then as soon as the computer's put to sleep/shut off the problem returns.

I understand that Intel says 105 deg C as top end temp tolerance for the CPU, but surely this will do long term damage to the entire insides of the computer if these temps continue??

 

[piimaPAKK]

However, I continue to start up GTA4, then I heard the MBP's fans start to increase the speed(noise). and after a good 30mins of messing around in GTA4, I quickly switch back to desktop and check that, the temperature draw back to around 75c, how strange... I guess it could be the MBP fans start doing their job. Then I close the game, the fan's noise decrease / slow down. And next after a while, the temperature gone back up to 81c - 82c .

In GTA4 its most likely the graphics card driver that toggles the fan speed up, but on desktop when the graphics card idles the CPU temp rises but for some reason it wont up the fans.

 

[Jottle]

well it's definitely not just a Bootcamp/Windows problem as I only work in OSX 10.5.6.

My 1 month old 15" Unibody MBP runs its fans at 2000rpm until the CPUA temp shows just above or below 100 deg C then fans ramp up till temp drops to early 80s deg C.

resetting SMC works on initial start up (as in the fans ramp up at much lower CPU temps) then as soon as the computer's put to sleep/shut off the problem returns.

I understand that Intel says 105 deg C as top end temp tolerance for the CPU, but surely this will do long term damage to the entire insides of the computer if these temps continue??

Same here. My BMP 15'' was made in the first week of January '09 (supposedly waaay out of range for the faulty graphics chips issue in the early batch) and my fans kick in exactly when the cpu gets to 100 deg C. This is probably just crappy implementation on apple's part. In games, the fans kick up relatively quickly due to the gpu's increasing temp. I think all mbp's in the 15/17 line exhibit this. It's probably not a hardware defect of sorts. If the fans are supposed to kick in earlier, then it's a smc software/firmware issue. If the cpu goes to 100 degrees for only a little while, and then the fans kick in to keep it in the low 80's range, I don't see this as a big issue unless it's causing heat related failures.

 

[eldy]

Intel's datasheet says that the CPU will shut down at 105C. I think iStat's readings are not precise. Maybe offset a few degrees.

 

[ayeying]

I understand that Intel says 105 deg C as top end temp tolerance for the CPU, but surely this will do long term damage to the entire insides of the computer if these temps continue??

Why would it? The temperature reading is the diode on the CPU, not the ambient temperature inside the casing.

 

[lapino]

Kinda worried here guys. Have a new Macbook Pro and after reading this thread decided to test some things out. Cpu is now at 86°C and fans still at 2000rpm. I tried an SMC reset (after boot the fans shortly went up to 4000rpm and then went back to 2000rpm). Now what?

update: cpu at 86°C now and fans at 2600rpm...still very hot at the bottom

 

[johndoe588]

Kinda worried here guys. Have a new Macbook Pro and after reading this thread decided to test some things out. Cpu is now at 86°C and fans still at 2000rpm. I tried an SMC reset (after boot the fans shortly went up to 4000rpm and then went back to 2000rpm). Now what?

update: cpu at 86°C now and fans at 2600rpm...still very hot at the bottom

Many are having good results with third-party software to fix Apple's problem. Try Fan Control or smcFanControl. The fist will vary fan speed automatically and the second lets you set your fan speed. I use Fan Control.

John B.