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Overheating on Age of Empires 3, even Chess!

rsunusi

rsunusi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 12, 2007
22
0
I got a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, and its great for common usage, email, browsing, word processing, voip, etc productivity tasks.

I also have to mention I'm a first time Mac user, and am happy with it overall-- there is one area however where my MacBook Pro sucks -- and thats gaming . I don't know whether the problem is general or my MacBook Pro has specific issues.

For most graphic intensive games, within just a few minutes the fans start on furiously and starts overheating. It happens again and again and either automatically and makes me worried this Mac will start cooking.

This happened when playing even the Chess game pre-installed. It happened when playing Age of Empires 3, as well as Tribal Trouble.

Whats the use of downloading and playing these games if the fans go craZY and dont stop after just a minute. This isnt right -- is this a MacBook Pro issue, a Mac issue, or a fan problem.

IWell, Supertux plays fine without the fan turning on. Looks like Macs just overheat like mad when playing graphic-intensive games-- i thought Macs were good at that =

Anyone with a take ?

Also, After 10 minutes with the fan speed getting louder and more insistent.

Yeah, i dont see anything wrong with fans turning on occasionally,theyre job is to cool down the system, but if the fans come and and keep going without stopping then not a good job is being done to cool the system --

I could just ignore the sound but is it really normal to have fans whirring away without letup accompanied by overheating? I know my Dell laptop\s fans come on and off but not to the level experienced with my new MBP C2D- Specs 2.33 Ghz, 2 GB RAM.

Its obvious the system overheats quickly and the fans arent able to cool it down enough quickly, otherwise the fans would stop whirring ominously in the background.

The original MBP CD had well documentated fan and heating issues -- and this problem just happens with games, not movies, or the apps i use --

So do all u MBP C2D users just get used to an always on fan when playing things like WOW, AG3 etc or or are my fans not doing a good job to cool my system
 
My fan(s) roar when I play WoW, but no evidence of overheating, i.e. I don't get graphics artifacs or locking up.
 
Well, its the noise that bothers me, the heat isnt so much --

Isnt it bad for the laptop to play game for hours with the fan whirring away all that time?

Seems the fans cant cool the system well enough ,, would this damage my MBP CD2 ,

Seems it happens then with other users ..
 
Fans turning on for Chess ==

One thing -- fans start whirring away a few minutes after playing the bundled Chess game ... why are the fans acting so ?

The fans were put there to prevent overheating when the CPU temp clocks above a certain temp -- so obviously overheating.

But overheating for a simple chess game ?
 
rsunusi said:
One thing -- fans start whirring away a few minutes after playing the bundled Chess game ... why are the fans acting so ?

The fans were put there to prevent overheating when the CPU temp clocks above a certain temp -- so obviously overheating.

But overheating for a simple chess game ?
Click to expand...

Of course, the chess game is processor intensive because it has to calculate the tree structure to determine the next move like 10 moves ahead. That requires quite a bit of work on the processor load.

So no, chess is a lot harder than what you think. I presume that you didn't checkmate the puter eh? :D
 
My fans act up quite a bit, especially when playing STALKER or BF 2142 on the windows partition, however I have only ever gotten graphics corruption once or twice, and I immediately shut down and let everything cool off for a while before trying again.

I would say the the fans spinning up like mad is pretty normal (sadly) because of the way the case is designed. It is so slim, and uses the case material to vent a good portion of the heat, so that when larger amounts of heat are generated, the fans have to kick in full force just to keep up. Unless you start seeing graphic problems or the computer starts shutting down to prevent from overheating, I wouldn't worry.

Another option is to prop the computer up. For example, mine is now resting on two big, thick books (The Mists of Avalon and The Lord of the Rings) with a gap between the two, and that seems to help a wee bit with heat disipation.

Good luck!
 
I got my MBP C2D in January, its updated 10.4.9, --- so I guess having fans on for intensive work is normal for MacBook Pros -- though even my little Dell Inspiron fans dont get so worked up even with high usage -- i think Apple are erring in the design over function aspect -- trying to build it to look in a certain way and dimensions while letting down in heat dissipation issues -- sure it'd need to get bigger,, but i think more preferable than a haywire heating issues in a thin case -

I believe Apple should rethink their case design and focus on heat dissipation-
 
Felldownthewell said:
My fans act up quite a bit, especially when playing STALKER or BF 2142 on the windows partition, however I have only ever gotten graphics corruption once or twice, and I immediately shut down and let everything cool off for a while before trying again.

I would say the the fans spinning up like mad is pretty normal (sadly) because of the way the case is designed. It is so slim, and uses the case material to vent a good portion of the heat, so that when larger amounts of heat are generated, the fans have to kick in full force just to keep up. Unless you start seeing graphic problems or the computer starts shutting down to prevent from overheating, I wouldn't worry.

Another option is to prop the computer up. For example, mine is now resting on two big, thick books (The Mists of Avalon and The Lord of the Rings) with a gap between the two, and that seems to help a wee bit with heat disipation.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Uh, I wouldn't be caught putting a laptop on top of the LOTR book. That would be considered blasphemy by many of the novel's fans :D
 
Wow... interesting concepts you guys have on what is "overheating".

Fans turn on to PREVENT overheating. The fans turning on is NOT an indication of overheating. You're fans start to turn on when the system is loaded up, ie playing games, even watching videos sometimes. The fact that they turn on is a GOOD sign.

You should be aware that ALL laptop's have fans which turn on to high when the system is being used hard. This includes Chess and definitely includes games.

Overheating is when the heat within a system passes a threshold and the system no longer remains stable. This WILL occur if your fans don't turn on.

You have to realize that Laptops have dynamic cooling. When it is idle, it is quiet. When it is on load, it is noisy. Desktop's generally don't share this property since the fans are on 100% (already newer desktops have dynamically controlled fans as well).

Because laptops have a much smaller form factor, fans need to be louder (ie run faster) in order to keep the temperatures down. This is perfectly normal.
 
When I first bought my PB 2 years ago I had the same concern, even bought a fan for 20 bucks to keep under my laptop, in time the heating died down, or maybe I've gotten used to it.

Some tips:

As said before keep the comp on a solid surface.

Also if possible the room should be just BELOW room tempurature...

I've had my comp now for 2 years, but if your computer gets to the point of pixelating you should not take it lightly.. after all you did spend 2k on a comp
 
My C2D heats up quickly as well. I tried that game SecondLife and the temp jumps from 120 to 160 F in a matter of seconds. The fans, at 6000 rpm, keep the temp hovering at 160. I've played Medieval Total War 2 in XP and the fans crank too, but I don't know what the temps are.
 
princealfie said:
Of course, the chess game is processor intensive because it has to calculate the tree structure to determine the next move like 10 moves ahead. That requires quite a bit of work on the processor load.

So no, chess is a lot harder than what you think. I presume that you didn't checkmate the puter eh? :D
Click to expand...
I was surprised by the "sjeng" process that opened up with Chess. 100% load on one CPU.

You haven't seen Pentium 4-M or LGA775 based laptops have you? :rolleyes:
 
The fans kick in hard for any app that's pushing multiple cores + graphics. Chess is one of them. Ditto for almost any game. The behavior is completely normal--nothing is overheating--but there's definitely a sense of wrongness about it. I'll clarify that.

There are frequent threads about how much noise notebooks make ("Are they quiet?") and how fast they are. The two are in complete conflict. The MBP/MB is quiet...until you start running an app that pushes the system: one that makes use of both cores, one that makes heavy use of graphics, one that gets the vector math units going, one that constantly runs at full speed instead of sleeping until the user does something. Any of these cause lots of heat, and that causes the fan to kick-in.

So you can have quiet...as long as you aren't willing to make full use of the processor and graphics card.
 
Since WC3 was patched to be a Universal Binary my Mac Pro has been overheating with great regularity... Sometimes when fans are at a normal volume, and sometimes when fans are at full throttle.
 
Temujin said:
So your system crashes/shows artifacts?
Click to expand...

Global freeze. Force quit doesn't work... The whole system just locks up. And if i switched to Windowed mode within 5 minutes or so of a freeze, it has major video glitches.
 
The best thing is to let the fans roar.

Load up smcFancontrol and turn it up to max before you start gaming. The standard fan control procedures seem to work after the fact - i.e. when it's already burning up.

'course, if you bought a proper machine which could handle the power without turning into a BBQ grill in the first place... but I'm not going there :p
 
rsunusi said:
One thing -- fans start whirring away a few minutes after playing the bundled Chess game ... why are the fans acting so ?

The fans were put there to prevent overheating when the CPU temp clocks above a certain temp -- so obviously overheating.

But overheating for a simple chess game ?
Click to expand...

Well, obviously preventing overheating.

With your thinking, I should certainly remove the brakes from my car, because when I brake the car slows down which proves I was driving too fast in the first place, right? :mad:
 
Imagine driving to work with a radiator hissing ,, i understand your point and understand that squeezing all those internal components into the case just makes needs good fans to dissipate the heat and prevent overheating, just didn't expect the noise ,, but Im ok with it now
 
Increase fan base level

I think it is generaly agreed that games are always processor intensive. There was some debate on the Civ IV boards that a glitch meant that the processors were always running at 100%.

Strangely enough I like to use a laptop on my lap and find even a reasonable level of heat a bit worrying.

In other threads there have been comments that Apple have deliberatly set the fan levels low in order to minimise noise levels.

If I am about to play a game I use smcFan control to set the fans at a baseline of 2,500 rpm.

I find that, unlike earlier comments, my MBP does not speed up it's fans till it is quite hot - so setting them high in advance keeps my MBP nice and cool, say about 120 f.
 
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