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New MBP 15" Heat Concern?

W

Warwizzles

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 3, 2012
3
0
I'm sorry if I'm obviously way off and there's no problem whatsoever but I am completely new to macs and i think its better to be safe than sorry. So I just bought a 15" 2.2 Ghz Core i7 MBP 2 nights ago and I noticed pretty much right away that with extremely light use of basic apps I was noticing a decent amount of heat and the fans definitely kicking in hard when playing some league of legends for a little bit. So today I got iStat Pro to check out what was going on for sure and this is what I concluded:

With simultaneous use of a couple tabs open on safari, a Skype conversation, idle uTorrent, and idle Ableton live my CPU temp stays over 80C and fans going anywhere from 4200-4500+ RPM. Is this normal for the new 15" MBP or should I get it checked out? Because one of the reasons I invested in this was to make my music production projects portable, but now I'm scared to even start one. :(
 
That is normal. I have the same MBP. Great for warming your lap in winter when playing games. Enjoy your MBP!
 
*Phew* Well that's relief to hear :) Thanks for the info guys, and one more question while I have your attention haha what temps should I be worried about just for future reference when I start really using Pro Tools and Logic Pro.
 
pretty sure the intel CPU is specced for, and will throttle itself back (or shut down if necessary) around 100C.

while there is thermal headroom available the current core CPUs will clock themselves higher (turbo) if processing needs dictate to get things done as fast as possible.
 
mdnz said:
Please note that this will have a chance to damage surrounding components. Heat is one of the main killer of computers.
Click to expand...

It will automatically shut down before it overheats. Once it approaches a certain limit, the MBP will shut down to protect the components.
 
sweetbrat said:
It will automatically shut down before it overheats. Once it approaches a certain limit, the MBP will shut down to protect the components.
Click to expand...

You don't get my point. If surrounding components stay at around 80 degrees celcius, the computer will not shut down but has a chance to be damaged because of the heat. Overheating of a motherboard for example happens way before 100 degrees.

Not saying that your computer would immediatly die, but it would reduce the lifespan.
 
mdnz said:
You don't get my point. If surrounding components stay at around 80 degrees celcius, the computer will not shut down but has a chance to be damaged because of the heat. Overheating of a motherboard for example happens way before 100 degrees.

Not saying that your computer would immediatly die, but it would reduce the lifespan.
Click to expand...

I agree as well, I would want to keep my computer running as cool as possible, and that is why I have changed the thermal paste on both the CPU and GPU. Running a SSD also drops your temps a little.

For bootcamp users that play games, look into Lubbo's fan control. Windows doesn't properly maintain temperatures well until your laptop is almost at it's peak temperature. Also Throttlestop is a good program to use for those that want to keep the Turbo boost off, as well as the face that you can clock your CPU to 800mhz, providing more battery life as well as lowering the heat. I also noticed you can use ATI tray tools and set your core to 100mhz and memory to 150mhz (6750m 1gb) to further reduce power consumption (since Apple hasn't written HD3000 drivers for windows).
 
Nobody can actually say if that is normal without looking at your CPU loads. If it's 80C and 4500rpm with 75% CPU load, yea thats normal, if CPU load is at 10, then no it's not. For my MBP, Skype makes the CPU go up to 100% on one core and cooling system goes nuts.
 
I have a 2.5 ghz i7 w/ 16 gb of ram and 2x SSDs in it. My temp with a small fan cooler under it is 59 C right now at a modest CPU load in a relatively cool room. Under very heavy CPU load, it goes up, of course. Removing the 7200rpm drive it came with really helped reduce the heat I feel while typing.

As others have noted, a crashed or misbehaving process hogging 100% of CPU will make the computer very hot.
 
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