Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

elorc

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 1, 2009
12
0
I have a MacPro1,1 that I have installed an ATI Radeon 5770 in. It has worked great, except recently I've noticed that it runs extraordinarily hot. The problem is that I can't yet pin down an exact cause. I also recently installed two Acer S242HL monitors, and have been playing Diablo 3 now and then.

Earlier this afternoon, I had Chrome and Parallels running, and I had the Mac Diablo 3 client running on my second monitor. As I was trying to fine-tune the color configuration for my first monitor, the second monitor turned to a red hue and had static/fuzz going crazy on it. I reached back behind the machine and it was warm, and I touched the Radeon's plate which was extraordinarily hot.

I immediately shut the machine down and popped the case open to allow it to cool. I had left the old video card in the next slot up as a backup (which I have noticed a lot of people installing the 5770 on this machine seem to do), but I removed it to open up more space.

After about an hour, I put the case back together and plugged the machine in again. Right now, iStat is showing the following temperatures and fan speeds:

Temps
  • HD: Primary: 104
  • HD: Secondary: 106
  • CPU A: 95
  • CPU B: 95
  • Ambient: 79
  • Expansion Slots: 97
  • HD Bay 1: 92
  • HD Bay 2: 88

Fans
  • Power Supply 639rpm
  • Exhaust: 599rpm
  • CPU Fan: 499rpm
  • HD/Expansion: 500rpm

I've never really monitored these before, so I'm not sure how to take these numbers. Obviously, if I'm running a game like EVE or Diablo 3, the temperatures will rise, but is there anything I can reasonably do to try to improve cooling inside my Mac, particularly with respect to the Radeon card?


EDIT: I should add that when this problem first happened, I had both monitors connected using the mini DisplayPorts. Prior to getting these new monitors, I had one monitor hooked up to DisplayPort, and the other to DVI (for some reason I couldn't get my previous monitors to both run on the DisplayPorts at the same time).
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.