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New 13" MBP Running very hot!

Harlowgold1

Harlowgold1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 14, 2008
266
224
Ohio - GO BUCKEYES!
Okay, I've had my new 13" MBP, 500gb, 16RAM, Core I5. I love this little thing and it wasn't a huge adjustment from my 15". The only complaint that I have is it runs HOT! For example, I have only a web browser open w/two tabs and the aluminum body is hot - not warm. I downloaded the throttling update and nothing changed. I can't imagine what it will do when I try iMovie! Worrying that I should return this laptop and hold off until they have better heat management!
 
Sounds odd. I have the same configuration and with multiple tabs open on Safari I cannot detect any noticeable heat. With such a low demand the CPU is showing as drawing very little power, giving an impressive battery life and a cold laptop.

You need to look at Activity Monitor to see what processes are draining energy. The MBP does, of course, have air intakes, fans and an air exhaust.
 
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I'm running Firefox, but everything else looks like normal and plenty of resource allocation.


RobbieTT said:
Sounds odd. I have the same configuration and with multiple tabs open on Safari I cannot detect any noticeable heat. With such a low demand the CPU is showing as drawing very little power, giving an impressive battery life and a cold laptop.

You need to look at Activity Monitor to see what processes are draining energy. The MBP does, of course, have air intakes, fans and an air exhaust.
Click to expand...
 
It shouldn't get that hot with basic web surfing - unless you are using Flash and watching YouTube videos etc?
Basic web browsing isn't very taxing so shouldn't heat the unit up.

As suggested above, open Activity Monitor to see if there are any processes running in the background...... or screenshot and post here.....
 
Harlowgold1 said:
Very possible. I had been using Google and got a virus on my last MAC. It was nasty! Thanks for the idea
Click to expand...

I've switched up from Chrome to Safari myself in general to keep syncing across the browsers since I've got my phone/iPad as well - it's actually been ok (as a primarily Chrome user for the last decade or so), except the ad blockers maybe haven't been quite as good... I suppose the side benefits would be less resource usage and better battery life on top of the syncing - could be worth a shot as well!
 
I'd recommend using uBlock Origin because most of the ads are using a lot of the resources.
 
Harlowgold1 said:
Okay, I've had my new 13" MBP, 500gb, 16RAM, Core I5. I love this little thing and it wasn't a huge adjustment from my 15". The only complaint that I have is it runs HOT! For example, I have only a web browser open w/two tabs and the aluminum body is hot - not warm. I downloaded the throttling update and nothing changed. I can't imagine what it will do when I try iMovie! Worrying that I should return this laptop and hold off until they have better heat management!
Click to expand...


I briefly had a new 2018 13 inch model which i needed to return due to other issues (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...litch-freeze-can-someone-please-test.2129323/).

Indexing, iCloud downloads etc. where completely done, there was no background activity. Surfing with Safari and using the laptop on my lap for several hours, it did also get very hot on the bottom. Not warm, not boiling, but just uncomfortably hot/very warm.

I don't know if other people just exclusively use the mbp on a desk, it probably has less issues then. But the one I had (maybe it was defective either way, even after the anti throttleing update....) did heat up basically doing nothing and used on the lap. I tried not to cover the air intakes/exhausts (which is hard when on the lap) but that didn't really change the behavior.

My theory is that a quad core CPU with multi threading is (similarly to the 6 core) is just to much for the 13 inch model. This shouldn't come as a surprise, the current design was constructed with the thermals of 2 cores (for the 13 inch) and 4 cores (for the 15 inch) in mind. They didn't really improve the cooling system and more powerfull CPUs(and the faulty VRMs) just produce a lot of heat :(
 
A7ibaba said:
Thats the way it is. Thin alu body with no air intake
Click to expand...
From what I can tell, I think there are air intakes... the side slots on the bottom (and the fans blow out of the rear/bottom).
[doublepost=1532708665][/doublepost]Mine (stock 13") just barely gets "warm" under normal light-use conditions.

One handy utility to have is iStat Menus... shows various things in the menubar (CPU usage, network throughput, disk activity, memory pressure, etc.), as well as temperature of various components and locations. It's configurable to show as much or as little info in the menubar as you wish (and more details can be seen via a dropdown menu when you click on the menubar icon).

Of course, it's not free like Activity Monitor, but it's great to always be able to see at a glance if there's some rogue process that's stuck and hogging the CPU, raising the temperature.
 
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Harlowgold1 said:
Okay, I've had my new 13" MBP, 500gb, 16RAM, Core I5. I love this little thing and it wasn't a huge adjustment from my 15". The only complaint that I have is it runs HOT! For example, I have only a web browser open w/two tabs and the aluminum body is hot - not warm. I downloaded the throttling update and nothing changed. I can't imagine what it will do when I try iMovie! Worrying that I should return this laptop and hold off until they have better heat management!
Click to expand...
Are you using Safari or Chrome? If Chrome, switching to Safari should result in a noticeable improvement.
 
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redheeler said:
Are you using Safari or Chrome? If Chrome, switching to Safari should result in a noticeable improvement.
Click to expand...
Interesting... I mainly use Safari too, but I did not realize how much more CPU-efficient Safari apparently is compared to Firefox and Chrome (which I only use occasionally). Just letting the forums.macrumors.com page sit after letting it load and stabilize, Safari only consumes about 10% CPU, with Firefox and Chrome are both in 50-60% range. That would likely explain the heat.
 

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mcaswell said:
Interesting... I mainly use Safari too, but I did not realize how much more CPU-efficient Safari apparently is compared to Firefox and Chrome (which I only use occasionally). Just letting the forums.macrumors.com page sit after letting it load and stabilize, Safari only consumes about 10% CPU, with Firefox and Chrome are both in 50-60% range. That would likely explain the heat.
Click to expand...

Whoa! Those numbers are huge! I currently have late-2016 non-tb and I have dozens of tabs open in Safari including several macrumors forum tabs and the cpu usage is below 5%. I'm using uBlock because ads consume a lot of resources and can distribute malware.
 
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Out of the box, my 15" ran very hot, too hot for my liking, I'm using a handy little app now that throttles the power and the temps are much better. There's no such thing as a free lunch, so lowering the wattage, is of course lowering the performance, but I found a good balance of performance vs. heat.
 
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Harlowgold1 said:
Okay, I've had my new 13" MBP, 500gb, 16RAM, Core I5. I love this little thing and it wasn't a huge adjustment from my 15". The only complaint that I have is it runs HOT! For example, I have only a web browser open w/two tabs and the aluminum body is hot - not warm. I downloaded the throttling update and nothing changed. I can't imagine what it will do when I try iMovie! Worrying that I should return this laptop and hold off until they have better heat management!
Click to expand...
1. Use Safari. There are lot of extensions, too.
2. If you need Chrome for some limited sites, limit its use.
3. DISABLE Chrome's "Hardware Acceleration" setting - there's not much gain from enabling it but disabling it runs the machine cooler.
 
Also have the 13'' 2018.
It's definitely not normal, mine does not get hot with the same usage. I can even use it on my bare skin without it being uncomfortable. (Sitting around in shorts, lol)

I use chrome.
 
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Harlowgold1 said:
A couple of my friends had viruses on their Mac's from using Chrome. So, I avoid it!
Click to expand...

Google for "Hardening Browser" and tweak your browser to be more efficient and steal less data. This will make your browser less vulnerable. I work in cyber security and normally avoid Chrome - it gathers too much privacy info... I would recommend Safari. Regardless, harden your browser.

Here is a general article by US-Cert to get you started: https://www.us-cert.gov/publications/securing-your-web-browser

One additional step every user should take is to set up the browser to open in private mode so no cookies are saved to the computer. For regular and well known sites such as your bank and CC one can always open a normal (non private) window via right click. Clear your unrecognized cookies periodically/regularly.
 
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