rMBP and these funky temperatures.

[Konzaleso]

So, I got myself this shiny new retina macbook pro 15" 2.3i5, love the display and looks of it... but then this new hmmm... "cooling system"

While having only safari open, one tab, this forum on it, the processor runs on 84*c. Fans on 2159rpm. Computer is on flat, solid surface, aka. my computer desk. Ramping up the fans with smcfancontrol does not make much difference, could this be some really messed up thermal paste thing?

To compare it on something, my old 2009 13" MBP, full of hair and dirt, runs the same thing on 52*c degrees.

So, is this new rMBP and its cooling system really this bad, and these kind of temperatures are totally normal.

 

[Barna Biro]

Current technology eats more power and produces more heat in order to be more performant than your old 2009 model ( not to mention that most likely your old notebook doesn't run Mountain Lion either... which is also quite a significant difference ). Although you might notice / know about it, but there are usually quite a lot of things going on in the background that the CPU must handle... The 15" models also have a dedicated GPU that also ads more heat. My late 2011 15" cMBP gets hotter a lot faster ( and quite significantly hotter ) than my 13" rMBP performing the same tasks ( the 13" rMBP gets hot too at one point in time, but my lap still finds the produced heat a lot more bearable than what my 15" cMBP is producing most of the times ).

Future CPU chips are focused on lower power consumption which also means less heat.

 

[GGJstudios]

While having only safari open, one tab, this forum on it, the processor runs on 84*c. Fans on 2159rpm.

Chances are there's a background process using more resources and causing the temps to rise. Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
   (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

 

[leman]

It is likely that some intensive task is running in the background (like indexing). Or your laptop is defective. Right now I am programming and using Safari with over 30 tabs open while having 2 number-crunshing python script (each utilising a full core and around 5 Gb of RAM) running in the background. Plus, there is a dozen of utilities and other irrelevant stuff open on my machine, like VLC (which I forgot to quit after watching a movie yesterday). My CPU temperature is 65 C, the fan is inaudible.

 

[Konzaleso]

The older MBP is running latest Mountain Lion.

Gotta do some testing now, with games and such, to see how temps behave before calling to apple.

 

[bobr1952]

Fan speed seem about right for idle--at least on my rMBP both fans run between 1900 and 2100 under light load but temps do seem high--with fans running between 1900 and 2100, minimal processes--temp is around 47C.