MBP Unibody heat issue

[Mr D]

I've had my MBP unibody 17 for almost a year now... it's been heating up for the past couple months (or longer?). I really haven't thought to talk about it until now.

Basically, my fans start to kick it quite often after just regular web browsing. It happens quite often if I start streaming a video or watching youtube. I don't have many apps open either. My laptop is in a cool place on hard surface that doesn't absorb heat easy either. I almost want to by a fan to put under it.

I installed SMC fan control and "fan control" since the beginning. I currently have fan control only.

Is there anything specific I can check that causes the laptop to heat up or if I messed with any "internal" settings by accident to cause it to heat up?

I almost want to think I to think it's something I downloaded or something I screwed up. My brother has the exact same computer and it runs around or under 50 all the time while running more programs than I do at times.

I'm just browsing right now with adium and and chrome running and it's running at 62 degrees.

I almost want to reformat...

 

[Mr D]

I uninstalled fan control and it still runs the fans at 3500+ RPM at over 55+ degrees.

When I installed fan control or smcfancontrol, did it do anything to some internal settings to always keep the fans running high?

 

[Collider]

Getting the obvious out of the way first... have you tried carefully blowing compressed air into the heatsink (via the long vent beneath the hinge of your laptop)? If there's a buildup of dust or whatever in there, that could lead to overheating, and cleaning it out with compressed air would make a world of difference.

 

[Youngchild]

Do you have the graphics card set to the 9600m (high performance)? I found when I switched to the 9400m my overall temps dropped about ~10c. Though it does stink having to log out/in to switch the GPU, I noticed it made a considerable difference.

My uMBP runs around 60c degrees with the 9600m enabled, and around 45-50c with the 9400m enabled.

Hope this helps.

 

[ZDDP1273]

Do you have the graphics card set to the 9600m (high performance)? I found when I switched to the 9400m my overall temps dropped about ~10c. Though it does stink having to log out/in to switch the GPU, I noticed it made a considerable difference.

My uMBP runs around 60c degrees with the 9600m enabled, and around 45-50c with the 9400m enabled.

Hope this helps.

How do I set/switch between the two? How do I know which one is running?

 

[Youngchild]

How do I set/switch between the two? How do I know which one is running?

Click Preferences > Energy Saver (under Hardware) > Graphics: Better Battery Life (9400m)

Higher performance (9600m)

If you don't see these options, you only have 1 video card on your machine (ex. 13" MBP).

 

[Jaro65]

I have a same laptop as you do, but I always run it in the 9400m mode. I can hardly ever hear the fans. You may want to consider opening the bottom up and clean the fans and heat ducts area with compressed air.