Overheating 15" Mac Pro when using Lightroom

[jim.ncc1701a]

Hi need some help, having what i believe to be an hardware issue with my Mac.

When importing images from SD card into Adobe Lightroom, my mac gets hot within seconds of starting import. Due to the heat increase the cooling fans speed up with becomes rather annoying.

This cant be normal, can it?

Spec and Video https://www.flickr.com/photos/james-hunt/32288925492/in/datetaken-public/

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,5
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP114.0172.B10
SMC Version (system): 2.30f2

 

[keysofanxiety]

By overheating, do you mean it gets really hot or it shuts down due to heat?

If it's the former, this is perfectly normal when doing resourse intensive tasks. The CPU will ramp up, get very hot and the iGPU/dGPU (depending on which model you have) will also come into play; as such, the fans will blast.

The temperatures you're experiencing are within operating parameters; the TJ. max (top temperature) is 100C on your CPU. The CPU will automatically throttle if it approaches this temperature, so it won't do any damage to your machine. From what I've seen of the video, I wouldn't say there's any cause for concern.

Of course it's always worth taking into an Apple Store if you're not sure. Even if you're out of warranty, they might give the fans a quick blast with compressed air as goodwill. You can also try to reset the PRAM/SMC - always worth a shot.

Also ensure OS X is up-to-date too and shut down regularly with reopen windows when logging back in unticked/disabled.

 

[jerryk]

When you are importing Lightroom is doing several tasks. It reads each image form the card, constructs an entry for image in it's internal data base, indexes that image based on the metadata (data table, camera and lens, orientation, etc). It then constructs a preview of the image used to display it in the slide table view. And if you are using raw images all this is prefixed with a raw conversion step.

Bottom line it is doing quite a bit. And if you Mac has a dGPU it sends work off to the dGPU which throws off a lot of heat which must be dissipated by running the fans. So if you hear that fans, it likely does not mean it is overheating. Just the opposite, the heat is being dissipated. The only way to see if it is truly overheating is check the temperatures and/or for thermal throttling.

FWIW, I have the same unit and the fans spin pretty hard when I import a large group of images. These are raw images from a Canon 5D MK3 or 1D.

 

[matram]

You are running at 5 - 600% CPU, that is about 75% of peak capacity so you will will be dissipating 30+ Watt from the CPU alone, compared to 4 - 6 W during idle conditions.

So yes the 90+ degrees would seem reasonable.