Mid 2010 Macbook Pro Overheating

[yabot]

My mid 2010 13 inch macbook pro has never let me down, however recently is has been getting extremely hot.

It's currently running at 81 degrees and im just on Chrome with a few other tabs open in Youtube and iTunes. The fans are on full whack.

What could be the problem?

It's due to be updated soon, maybe in the next 6 months i think, money depending.

Cheers.

 

[blackreplica]

Close all tabs with youtube in it and see if it's any better

 

[simsaladimbamba]

If those are 81° C, the Mac is fine, if those are 81° F, the Mac is even more fine.

Those Macs in their heat - a sine of over-heating? - a short story by Mister GGJstudios

 

[yabot]

Close all tabs with youtube in it and see if it's any better

closed everything and its still soaring it actually cooled down when it was in the sun for abit even though it felt hotter, but now im back inside it's steadily climbing back up to 85....

would a restart help?

 

[Doward]

For comparison, I have Pandora playing, youtube open, and running my Windows XP Virtual Machine - my fans are @ 2250rpm, temperature is 55C.

 

[yabot]

YouTube: video

30 Days later:
YouTube: video

For comparison, I have Pandora playing, youtube open, and running my Windows XP Virtual Machine - my fans are @ 2250rpm, temperature is 55C.

i normally tend to have a few things open, itunes, word, powerpoint among others nothing heavy, and usually runs around the same temp as yours, just literally over the last week its been blazing. ever since i cleaned out the fan funnily enough!! the irony...

 

[Doward]

i normally tend to have a few things open, itunes, word, powerpoint among others nothing heavy, and usually runs around the same temp as yours, just literally over the last week its been blazing. ever since i cleaned out the fan funnily enough!! the irony...

Download and install Intel Power Gadget

Ensure your processor is clocking back down appropriately

 

[philosopherdog]

Probably a funky fan. It could even just be dirty. Take it to a Genius Bar and let them make a diagnosis. If it's a fan it should cost next to nothing to fix. But it could just be full of dust after 5 years that happens. You should clean out the fan on these things. If you don't eventually the heat will destroy the machine.

 

[Brian Y]

1) Clean out the fans (they WILL be clogged up)

2) Re-apply thermal paste

Should be good as new .

 

[yabot]

After a restart it seems to be running cool, perhaps it had something to do with the uptime of 5 days, i also cleaned the fan out with some cotton buds, too afraid to take it apart...

 

[Alec124c41]

I've just been through this.
Remove the fan (3 screws) and blow it clean. Also blow out the little grill it blows through.
You can't do this with a swab.

 

[cynics]

After a restart it seems to be running cool, perhaps it had something to do with the uptime of 5 days, i also cleaned the fan out with some cotton buds, too afraid to take it apart...

Next time open "activity monitor" and click CPU. See what process is using a lot of CPU.

Depending on the version of MacOS you can also click the battery in the menu bar to see Apps Using Significant Energy. That process and app will point you in the right direction.



Again depending on the version of OSX there are times background task will being doing a lot of work. Time Machine preparing a backup, or spotlight indexing for example. But there are other things that can be syncing or databasing information. All that stuff can add to the CPU's load.

If a youtube video is playing right click the player and click "Stats for nerds".

Chrome will likely be using WebM video potentially encoded with VP9.

Without getting technical this is 2019 media trying to play on 2010 equipment. BluRay disc in a DVD player /end terrible analogy.

Depending on the specific video (video resolution, display resolution, color profile, on/off screen, etc etc) will determine how easy or hard its going to be for the CPU and thus how warm the CPU will get. I can get my 2018 MBP to peg out 100c playing 4k HDR videos on an external 4k HDR display.

I believe your CPU (at least if its a "Core I" model) can support h264 video decoding (to an extent ie profile). All you would need to do to test it would be close Chrome completely, open Safari and try to watch the same video in youtube.

Since Safari doesn't support WebM (VP8/VP9) Youtube will feed a AVC1 (h264) which is a video codec your hardware and software is better suited for. Your screen can't highlight the differences anyway.

(note this isn't the same video as above just showing what to look for)

I would also suggest taking the back off your MacBook and just looking to see if there is duct built up. Its just removing a cover, if you aren't comfortable to do anything else at least you will know whether you should take it somewhere (professional or a techie friend/coworker) to get cleaned out.

 

[DeltaMac]

Note that this is a six-year-old zombie thread, about a three-year old 2010 macbook PRo that the OP was hoping to replace in a few months (it's 2013, so time to move on.)
It's likely that the OP has moved on by now.