Hey everyone. So i bought a retina macbook about a week and a half ago. The macbook seems to overheat very easily and has shut off on me twice already. Is this a sign that I need to go exchange the macbook for a new computer? Also, i bought the retina macbook from best buy. Will I be able to exchange it inside an Apple Store under manufacturers warranty? Any ideas?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Retina Macbook Overheating Issues!
- Thread starter seventhreewun
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Did you do something very CPU-intensive? The system automaticlly shuts down the computer when overloaded.Download istat pro (search in apple's website, it's a dashboard widget) and see all the information about CPU tempand fan speeds,look up activity monitor (in the utilities folder) to check any unusual processes that are taken your CPU power
Install iStat Pro to get accurate readings of your temps.
- Launch Activity Monitor
- Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
- Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
- Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
- Take a screen shot of the whole Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
- Post your screenshots.
It's possible nothing is wrong with it. It could be a runaway process, for example. Checking before making a trip to Apple is a sensible thing to do.
Even with a runaway process it should NOT turn off, the thermal management of cpu/gpu should just throttle themselves down if they stray outside acceptable temperature envelope too much ( tested this on my 2011 MBP, cpu throttled down to barely over a ghz when maxing everything out as hard as possible to make sure it was ok in such situations ). Turning off is a sign of hardware fault, possibly just a bad application of thermal paste.
If sufficient demand is placed on the CPU, it will throttle at about 100C, but that doesn't remove the demand. If sufficient demand remains, it will shut down at 105C. That's built into the Intel chips.
Which is why I said unless you're in a /very/ hot environment, otherwise the hardware failure is apples, most likely in not applying the thermal paste well enough. If it's used within the environmental spec apple state, it should NEVER be possible to make it shut down like that, as that's what they've designed it to cope with under worst use scenario.
yesterday i was
on safari with like 12 tabs open, had google maps on there ( looking at properties) had facetime with my GF to talk about the houses, and was practicing on some java script ( just starting to learn)
cpu was around 36-39 and GPU was around 38-41 C. i was so amazed that it was only the slightest bit warm on the bottom and that was only because i was comparing it to the rest of the laptop which was cool.
A notebook shutting down under load is not normal, regardless of what the software does.
Yes, it will shut down at a certain temperature as a last resort to avoid physical damage, but that's just a safety fallback in case the cooling system fails or the air vents are obstructed.
My advice: Take it to the Apple Store (if you have one near). They'll probably just exchange the whole unit.
Yes, it will shut down at a certain temperature as a last resort to avoid physical damage, but that's just a safety fallback in case the cooling system fails or the air vents are obstructed.
My advice: Take it to the Apple Store (if you have one near). They'll probably just exchange the whole unit.
Last edited:
Same story, different release. You are going to see throttling before shutdown which can be a sore point for some reviewers.
Shutting down is a bit far though. It is summer, what is the ambient air temperature?
Shutting down is a bit far though. It is summer, what is the ambient air temperature?
If it was over 35C, then admittedly, it might just be too hot. That's what apple state as the max operating temperature. If ambient is any lower than that and it shuts off, then it's 100% a hardware fault. Any higher, and it might be arguable either way.
Same issue
I couldn't be more disappointed with that computer. It overheaths nearly on anything-Just browse the internet with Firefox, even leave it open for 30 minutes with the browser on. Horrible. Not only it overheats-performance goes down and it's slower than my old MacBook Air from 2008. Not only CPU is an issue-Graphic memory overheats and I get no refresh on windows, scrambled pictures and all sort of things. Only reason I got this laptop so quickly was because I was traveling to Europe for 3 weeks. Never will do it again. Can't believe I got the lemon.
I couldn't be more disappointed with that computer. It overheaths nearly on anything-Just browse the internet with Firefox, even leave it open for 30 minutes with the browser on. Horrible. Not only it overheats-performance goes down and it's slower than my old MacBook Air from 2008. Not only CPU is an issue-Graphic memory overheats and I get no refresh on windows, scrambled pictures and all sort of things. Only reason I got this laptop so quickly was because I was traveling to Europe for 3 weeks. Never will do it again. Can't believe I got the lemon.
iStat has not updated for Ivy Bridge, try www.bresink.de Temperature Monitor it`s also a far more comprehensive diagnostic tool, Hardware Monitor ups the stakes further although it is not Freeware like Temperature Monitor.
Realistically you can do little unless you find a runaway process and I seriously doubt that would force a rMBP to shutdown. Take your computer to Apple and explain the situation, my own rMBP has yet to even show any sign of getting hot, let alone throttling and shutdown; web, bench testing, installing multiple app`s & updates all very calm and cool. Video transcode soon and I do expect that to spool up the fans, however so far the rMBP has been literally bullet proof
I dont have any monitoring SW presently installed as I want the App`s to have as little interaction with OS until Mountain Lion is installed.
I can honestly tell you that in my entire life I've never had a laptop whether windows or mac shut down on me due to over heating! Laptops do get hot but should never shut down unless there is some manufacturing issues such as very little to no contact with thermal paste found in the heatsinks.
Take it back to the apple store and get it fixed or exchanged. You got a lemon instead of an apple.
Take it back to the apple store and get it fixed or exchanged. You got a lemon instead of an apple.
I recently returned my mid 2012 [ ivy bridge ] 15" classic MBP because it's temps got up to 95 degrees C rendering it near impossible to type on!
Just picked up a base rMBP and it's amazingly cool no matter what kinda load I put on it.. Example: I've been running Firefox with 12 tabs open, spotify in the background, downloading MS Office and some updates in the background and transferring some backed up data from my flash drive and the computer is almost cold to the touch!!
After about 2 hrs... the GPU is 33 and CPU 34... barely feel it!!
Take yours back and swap it out!!!
Goodluck.
Just picked up a base rMBP and it's amazingly cool no matter what kinda load I put on it.. Example: I've been running Firefox with 12 tabs open, spotify in the background, downloading MS Office and some updates in the background and transferring some backed up data from my flash drive and the computer is almost cold to the touch!!
After about 2 hrs... the GPU is 33 and CPU 34... barely feel it!!
Take yours back and swap it out!!!
Goodluck.
