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Northbridge overheat

C

CatharticFlux

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 20, 2004
64
0
Marietta, GA
Hello,

I read a few threads before posting, so I just want to confirm... iStat pro is reading 149F to 165F on the Northbridge.... and my Mac Pro, from time to time, won't wake up from sleeping. Is it time to take it in? Is there anything I can do by myself?

Thanks!
 
150F is a pretty normal temperature for the northbridge in any machine. They run very hot. For overclocking instances, some will an aftermarket heatsink/fan on there.
 
133 F with six apps open (Mail, Safari, iTunes, etc). It's only been on a couple hours, though. 2006 Mac Pro.

Try pushing your machine pretty hard (using all the cores and a lot of RAM) with, say, HandBrake (though that's mostly processor) or a few Terminal commands. Then post what the northbridge temp is.
 
CatharticFlux said:
142F while idling... this is troubling
Click to expand...

It is possible the reading is not reliable. I would not place ultimate
faith in iStat pro. One thing you can try, though, is to turn off the
machine for a good while. When you reboot, quickly (as quick as
you can) go to iStat pro and look at the temperature. It should be
close to room temperature because the components won't have had
time to heat up much. If it's well above room temperature, it's possibly
a sensor fault, or an iStat pro bug.
 
Just checked and now my mp is at 105F and this is from 25+ tabs on safari, firefox (non ub version for java scripting), itunes, visual hub converting 9.7gb mkv to mp4, parallels windows open with bearshare d/ling, downloading from unison of 25.8 gb, microsoft word, microsoft excel opened, burning a dual layer disc.

I had the previous mac pro 2.66ghz but sold it last year because I thought that I didnt need its power... Then I was eager for that power back and to my benefit and good timing the mac pro was updated in january and that's when I purchased this mac pro! All I can say is that compared to the 2.66ghz 4 core, the new mac pro 8 cores run so much cooler than I remember. Because my mac pro 2.66ghz version was in this same small room and the room doesnt get as hot anymore with the 45nm chipset!

Same goes for the mbp with 45 nm, it finally doesnt feel like a dominos pizza heatwave box anymore and it feels cool almost everywhere to touch and no more sweaty palms! I can actually feel what good cool aluminum feels like! :D

I cant wait to see what 32nm brings to the table if it makes this significant difference from 65nm-45nm shrink.
 
After reading that one user had 259F i'd say istat isn't 100% reliable, i usually have a reading of about 61-70f depending what's being done at the time but then again the office my MP's in at home is the coldest room in the house :)
Great in the summer, bit of a bummer in the winter :rolleyes:
 
165°F is about 73°C which isn't great for a chip but most northbridges have fairly high thermal ceilings.
 
Mr.Noisy said:
After reading that one user had 259F i'd say istat isn't 100% reliable, i usually have a reading of about 61-70f depending what's being done at the time but then again the office my MP's in at home is the coldest room in the house :)
Click to expand...

At 61F you might as well be in the Antarctic! :)
 
Infrared said:
At 61F you might as well be in the Antarctic! :)
Click to expand...

Some day's i just watch the penguins walk by, until the Monitors start pouring out the heat to change things, but it's nice when it's cool :D

not so nice without trousers on when sitting on the cold leather chair :eek:
 
Immediately after booting, Ambient was 67F, Northbridge was 85f (this was after being shut down all night.) Then it very quickly got up to 115F (within a couple of minutes.)

This is sooo messed up. Since the northbridge chip only has a heatsink, there's not a whole lot i can do, is there?
 
Using my mac pro with dual monitors, 3tb drives (all 4 treys filled up)+ 16gb RAM running parallels, encoding hd content, extracting 9gb+ files, downloading 25gb+ files from unison, moving around 100gb+ files, running microsoft word, excel, running firefox with 10+ tabs, safari with 25+ tabs, running iphoto organizing photos (around 5k photos at 2-10mb each), burning dual layer discs with toast titanium, azureus uploading 25gb+, ichat, email, visual hub converting 9.8gb mkv 1080p movie into mp4 and I can only push the northbridge to 104F-109F at its hottest with cpu A at 96, cpu A 92, cpu B 95, cpu B 93.

All I can say is that the new mac pro with the 8 core 2.8ghz runs very very cool.
 
CatharticFlux said:
Immediately after booting, Ambient was 67F, Northbridge was 85f (this was after being shut down all night.) Then it very quickly got up to 115F (within a couple of minutes.)

This is sooo messed up. Since the northbridge chip only has a heatsink, there's not a whole lot i can do, is there?
Click to expand...

It's FINE. You realize we operate at 97-100F right?
 
My '06 mac pro runs at 65C so 149F. This is just idle. Its always been like that. I sometimes wonder if on some system the thermal paste wasn't applied properly.
 
trainguy77 said:
My '06 mac pro runs at 65C so 149F. This is just idle. Its always been like that. I sometimes wonder if on some system the thermal paste wasn't applied properly.
Click to expand...

I know someone who took his 06' mac pro apart and reapplied the thermal paste with the arctic silver 5 and seems to run a bit much cooler. But I've never actually used his mac pro long enough to compare to my 06 mac pro last year, but I'm sure it made some difference in making the mac pro a bit cooler.
 
CatharticFlux said:
Immediately after booting, Ambient was 67F, Northbridge was 85f (this was after being shut down all night.) Then it very quickly got up to 115F (within a couple of minutes.)

This is sooo messed up. Since the northbridge chip only has a heatsink, there's not a whole lot i can do, is there?
Click to expand...

Dont worry, the heatsink is HUGE, seriously though it is big. :)
 
jjahshik32 said:
I know someone who took his 06' mac pro apart and reapplied the thermal paste with the arctic silver 5 and seems to run a bit much cooler. But I've never actually used his mac pro long enough to compare to my 06 mac pro last year, but I'm sure it made some difference in making the mac pro a bit cooler.
Click to expand...
I am very tempted to give that a shot when i have some time.
jjahshik32 said:
Dont worry, the heatsink is HUGE, seriously though it is big. :)
Click to expand...

Its average.
 
My 2.66 also idles around 150F, it hasn't been doing anything strange tho.
 
CatharticFlux said:
Immediately after booting, Ambient was 67F, Northbridge was 85f (this was after being shut down all night.) Then it very quickly got up to 115F (within a couple of minutes.
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

I've had a chance to do the boot test myself now:

boottemps.png

As you can see, the northbridge and ambient temperatures match:
both are 24C - close to the room temperature.
I take that as an indication that both sensors give reasonably
reliable readings soon after booting.
 
2006 MP quad, folding at 100% accross all 4 cores for the last 24 hours, istat is showing 22C ambient, and northbridge at 45C.

if you haven't already, you might want to get smcfancontrol (2.1.2) and run the fans up just a couple hundred rpm. you will never hear the difference, and this would move more air and decrease internal temps a bit. best of luck.
 
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