rMacBook Pro 15" Hot while lid closed?

[case2001]

Hi,

I love my rMacBook Pro 15" had it a couple of weeks. Open box at Best Buy. Great deal. One cycle on the battery and had a Samsung display. It is a great machine!

So now to my question. I usually just close my lid a few minutes before I leave the office. Put the machine in my bag until I get home. I have turn off the option of wake while sleeping on Battery in power management. I took out my machine place it on the desk plugged it in to charge and forgot about it. Came up just a minute ago and found it warm. Open it up look at iStat and found the CPU temp 153 degrees F. I think that's strange, but then remember I did not disable the Power Nap option while on charge. No big deal now because my Mac was open on my desk. I remember though earlier this week, didn't take it out of my bag I just unzipped it and plugged in a charger. Look at iStat and my CPU die temp was over 180!!

Ok so I have now disabled Power Nap while on charger. I will now take my machine out of bag all the time. My question are there any things I should worry about? Any thing I should check. She seems to be working fine now.

Thanks for any help. Maybe this will help someone else too!!

 

[Yahooligan]

It will shutdown automatically if it overheats, so I wouldn't be too worried. Being in the bag is what did it, not the lid being closed. Both of my MBPs stay running with the lids closed and they're just fine.

I do miss the status light on the rMBP, it would be nice to know if it were asleep simply by looking at it.

 

[portishead]

It's weird. Sometimes my rMBP will have been asleep for an hour, and I'll go to pick it up, and it's pretty warm. I believe it's usually plugged in when this happens.

Other times the lid is open, but the display is dim, and it's really cool.

It might just be Power Nap running or something, and I don't think the fans come on even though it uses some processing power.

 

[swerve147]

180 degrees F is nothing to be concerned about on a 15 in. MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as long as it's not completely idling at the time.

On average you should be idling between 40-55 degrees Celsius (~110-130 degrees Fahrenheit), and under load temps (non-gaming) should be about 80-85 degrees Celsius (~175-185 degrees Fahrenheit). At least from what I've seen on this board.

Leaving it in a bag with Power Nap active is probably not a good idea, otherwise Power Nap should not be causing high temps just sitting on a desk. My suggestion would to be, the next time you're witnessing high temperatures, is to go to your Activity Monitor and note the processes with high CPU usage. Those processes are generating your high temps.

 

[case2001]

Thanks for the replies guys. I did some more work googling the forum and found a thread with similar issues. That post indicated that both Power Nap and WiFi wake for net access were the culprit. I have disabled both in battery and power modes. From now on I will turn off my machine before placing it in my bag.

If the lid is closed, I really do not want my machine to perform any tasks. Even if the machine is on my desk. I think I will go from just closing my lid, to shutting her down any time I am done with it.

Thanks Again!

 

[case2001]

I also just ran across this information at Apple.

When Power Nap is enabled, your computer may be warm to the touch even if it is sleeping. Power Nap operations will be suspended if your computer exceeds a predefined temperature; your computer will not overheat when using Power Nap.

So I guess Power Nap probably shut the machine down well before thermal shut down by the CPU. That makes me feel a whole lot better. The above makes sense because I know many of us just close the lid and place the machine in a bag. Apple probably included that as a safety mechanism for just the situation I encountered.

Yeah!!!

 

[Yahooligan]

If the lid is closed, I really do not want my machine to perform any tasks. Even if the machine is on my desk.

Why not? They work just fine and were designed to work fully with the lid closed.

 

[case2001]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. You are correct. They are designed to run in clamshell mode. However, in my case I let my machine charge while in my bag. I do not take it out of the bag sometimes. I do not want to take a chance on the machine activating from Power Nap or Wifi access while in my bag again to cause it to heat up. I cannot look at it while closed to tell if it is off or sleep. There are no external indicators which mode it is in.

Next time the Power Nap software might not shut her down, or it could lock up. At that point, I would depend on hardware to shut down. I would prefer not to let it get to that point. If I leave her on my desk, I have no problem with her running, as she has adequate ventilation and cooling.

I guess I could leave power nap enabled and always shut down my machine before it goes in my bag. At this point, I have no need for Power Nap. I am sure for many it is a great feature.

 

[bcaslis]

Do you have the wake on network access checked in the power settings? I've found a weak or flaky network can cause the machine to wakeup all the time. Interesting, when my thunderbolt to gigabit ethernet adaptor is in, it seems like the adaptor is constantly going to sleep then waking up and causing it to stay awake. I've restored to not connecting it until I open the machine up.

 

[case2001]

Yes i did have that activated as well. I have disabled that option. I have found other threads which comment on this issue as well.