Macbook Pro MD311 (late-2011) overheat?

[mycroftxiii]

Hi there,

I recently bought an used Macbook Pro MD311, the machine looks and feels great, and it is in pristine condition with under 50 battery cycle charges, but the heat is really putting me off.

For example, while scanning for virus (for the first time), I was loading 4-5 webpages, and the temperature jumped up to 94 Celsius degree (201.2 F) - with fan speed at around 4000 rpm. After finishing loading the pages, the temperature dropped off very quick (within nearly a minute) to a stable 60-65 Celsius degree (140-149 F). If I load some more new pages, it will rise again.

Playing games like Dota 2 (Steam), manually setting fan speed to high (~6500rmp), the heat is constantly at 88-90 Celsius (190-194 F). Using default fan speed (~5,500rmp), the heat peaked at 97 Celsius (206.6 F). After quitting the game, the heat dropped off quickly to 60-65 Celsius degree (140-149 F). CPU load for Dota 2 was around 140-160% (calculated using Activity Monitor).

So is it normal to have such high temperature? Did I make a horrible decision buying this barbeque machine? I still have the option to return the item for a refund, so your professional advices are all very welcomed .

 

[thundersteele]

It is normal for these machines to get very warm under load, i.e. those 90+ C are OK.

I find your idle temperatures a bit high, I'm more used to seeing 40C-50C when idle. But maybe the discrete GPU is active, this would explain higher idle temperatures.

If the heat bothers you very much then the bad news for you is that all modern Macs can get rather hot, although I feel that the retina MBPs do a slightly better job at cooling, and the fan noise is a bit less annoying.

One reason to return this machine is the possible issue with the GPU, see e.g. here: https://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/17/2011-macbook-pro-gpu-glitches/

 

[mycroftxiii]

It is normal for these machines to get very warm under load, i.e. those 90+ C are OK.

I find your idle temperatures a bit high, I'm more used to seeing 40C-50C when idle. But maybe the discrete GPU is active, this would explain higher idle temperatures.

If the heat bothers you very much then the bad news for you is that all modern Macs can get rather hot, although I feel that the retina MBPs do a slightly better job at cooling, and the fan noise is a bit less annoying.

One reason to return this machine is the possible issue with the GPU, see e.g. here: https://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/17/2011-macbook-pro-gpu-glitches/

Hey, thanks so much for the heads up on the GPU issue. Well, another reason to not sleep well at night

I do not really mind the heat. If it is normal to heat up like that then I'm all happy. What I'm really worrying about is whether the "if" is true.

I ran a stress test today using terminal, releasing 8 instances of "yes", the processor resources were all consumed. With fan speed maxed at 6500 rpm, the computer peaked at 90 Celsius degree for a fraction of second, then decreased and stabilized at around 85 Celsius.

That's completely within acceptable range, yes?

 

[GhettoMrBob]

Those are definitely standard operation temps if you're running 8 instances of yes.

From what you describe, things that ramp up the discrete graphics are what are causing most of the heat-related issues.

Try giving gfxCardStatus a try. It'll allow you to force the integrated graphics which are more power & heat efficient. See if that won't help out some of the temps.

One other thing:
- Have you cracked open the case and checked to see if the fans & heatsink are free of dust?