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safe temperature for macbook pro cpu?

shaktimage

shaktimage

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 18, 2009
72
4
everyone knows that the macbook pro gets hot... but how hot is safe and how hot is too hot. I have a widget who monitors the heat of many components, the average for the cpu is 60 to 65 degree Celsius, (140 to150 Fahrenheit) the highest temp is the cpu diode that is usually around 70 Celsius,(158 f) sometimes up to 76 C (169 F) enough to cook eggs...
I am under the tropics (India), i am setting up a fan system, i just want to know what is the safe range for the cpu... THANKS
 
Your results are perfectly normal, and almost exactly reflect my own results. (and i'm in the US) Your average sounds right. Generally i've read you should keep your highest intensive-cpu tasks in the low to mid 70s. My highest ever was between 76-78 as well.
 
cool!... In fact, pretty hot but nice.... So no more than 76 celcius right?
 
that is perfectly fine. the computer will control the heat perfectly fine and it will let you know if it is too hot (by shutting down).

it is not uncommon to see temperatures of 90°C+, mine idles at around 80°C.

stop worrying lol, its fine! just beef up your fans a bit more.
 
My MBP runs around 40-50c during idle and some light work, it ticks up when running VMware and other things into the low 60s. I manually crank up the fans via smcFanCrontrol whenever I see the temps creep into the 70s
 
MacModMachine said:
not that i know of,

90-100, 105 is the breaking point of those chips.

http://www.cpu-world.com/info/Intel/Intel_Core_2_Duo_Mobile.html

great site for chip comparisons.
Click to expand...

my computer constantly hits these areas in summer and has never "broken" after 3 years of 24/7 use. my friends MB has hit 120°C and not force shut itself down. the chips are rated very high temperature wise and can withstand high temperatures (not for lengthened periods of time of course), there is nothing to worry about in this situation.
 
thank you all for your answers! It is not so much about worry but efficiency; i have noticed in the past that my old window laptop was slowing down pretty much while processing big files when too hot. The fan really improved the cpu's efficiency. So i guess for my MBP i will set the bar at 80 Celcius...
 
DoFoT9 said:
my computer constantly hits these areas in summer and has never "broken" after 3 years of 24/7 use. my friends MB has hit 120°C and not force shut itself down. the chips are rated very high temperature wise and can withstand high temperatures (not for lengthened periods of time of course), there is nothing to worry about in this situation.
Click to expand...

105 will reduce the chips life drastically...it may not have broken right away, trust me exposure to that constantly and it wont last long.
 
maflynn said:
My MBP runs around 40-50c during idle and some light work, it ticks up when running VMware and other things into the low 60s. I manually crank up the fans via smcFanCrontrol whenever I see the temps creep into the 70s
Click to expand...

how safe is that?
the highest ive seen my computer go is 60˚, then i put it on my glass desk and it usually goes down to 50˚.
 
mine usually always runs 120-130F...but when It's on 2000rpm it will always go up to about 150 - 160F,

i use smcfancontrol to keep it at 130F by keeping fans at 4000 rpm, only bad thing is having fans at 4000 I assume makes the battery run out faster. I can't see keeping it running at 160F being good for it... even if it is, that is very hot to me... But I guess this is normal ?
 
MacModMachine said:
105 will reduce the chips life drastically...it may not have broken right away, trust me exposure to that constantly and it wont last long.
Click to expand...

Agreed. High temperature kills semiconductor devices. Also, no one ever discusses the fact that there are components located near the CPU that are exposed to this heat also.
 
MacModMachine said:
105 will reduce the chips life drastically...it may not have broken right away, trust me exposure to that constantly and it wont last long.
Click to expand...

lol i know that, you just were saying that it would "break" the chips if it ever got that high, and it clearly will not.

helloimD4NNY said:
how safe is that?
the highest ive seen my computer go is 60˚, then i put it on my glass desk and it usually goes down to 50˚.
Click to expand...

thats FINE and NORMAL. no need to worry. :)
 
My mac after some heavy sweaty xxx i mean video editing or gaming goes around 80c to

helloimD4NNY said:
how safe is that?
the highest ive seen my computer go is 60˚, then i put it on my glass desk and it usually goes down to 50˚.
Click to expand...

I wish I had your Macs thermal paste. is it artic silver or something LOL
 
Got my first Macbook a week ago. It's a refurb 2.4 GHz Macbook aluminum. When I do stuff like ripping a dvd or a spyware scan,the cpu temp goes to 80C then the fans work to cap it there. I was told a Belkin laptop cooler might help,and it's still under warranty. Running it at 80 for the half hour plus doesn't seem like a good thing.
 
My temp gets pretty hot sometimes....80 maybe? according to SMC.

I have noticed that restarting the computer about once every 3 to 4 days REALLY helps a lot.
 
Geenix said:
Got my first Macbook a week ago. It's a refurb 2.4 GHz Macbook aluminum. When I do stuff like ripping a dvd or a spyware scan,the cpu temp goes to 80C then the fans work to cap it there. I was told a Belkin laptop cooler might help,and it's still under warranty. Running it at 80 for the half hour plus doesn't seem like a good thing.
Click to expand...

I run my MacBook Air at 93-102 deg C according to smcFanControl or 80-85 deg C according to coolbook for 8-9 hours straight every night.

You're fine.
 
ayeying said:
I run my MacBook Air at 93-102 deg C according to smcFanControl or 80-85 deg C according to coolbook for 8-9 hours straight every night.

You're fine.
Click to expand...

Am I ever learning :) My four year old Toshiba laptop would shutdown at 77 C. Thanks!
 
graphic card fix and cpu cooling with smcfancontrol

i bought a refurbished macbook pro 15 inch screen. it ran great for about 3 or 4 months but i noticed it was getting very hot and that would slow down my laptop. then one day i turned my laptop on and saw the checkered screen and it would freeze on the white apple loading screen.my graphic card nvidia was gone. then i watched a few vids on how to fix the issue.so i tried blowing a fan on my graphic card covering the rest of it with aluminum foil for about ten minutes and applying new thermal. that fixed the graphic checkered screen but not the overheating issue so then i opened the laptop again and unscrew the screws that tighten the motherboard to the heat sink, and slightly pushing the motherboard up from the heat sink so its not so tight and close to the heatsink. i saw some improvement it didnt run as hot but was still pretty warm. then i downloaded smcfancontol and saw awesome results. my laptop used to run at around 70 to 75 celcius. after smcfancontrol my average operating temp is at 35-43 celcius .on the setting preferences on smcfancontrol i have both fans at 4000 rpm. i use higher rmp as my favorite.my battery and charging settings are on default but ac-power is on higher rpm try this and let me know how it works and also make sure you clean your computer of unnecesarry files run mackeeper to clean your laptop for better results, let me know how it goes .
 
macbookgenius10 said:
i bought a refurbished macbook pro 15 inch screen. it ran great for about 3 or 4 months but i noticed it was getting very hot and that would slow down my laptop. then one day i turned my laptop on and saw the checkered screen and it would freeze on the white apple loading screen.my graphic card nvidia was gone. then i watched a few vids on how to fix the issue.so i tried blowing a fan on my graphic card covering the rest of it with aluminum foil for about ten minutes and applying new thermal. that fixed the graphic checkered screen but not the overheating issue so then i opened the laptop again and unscrew the screws that tighten the motherboard to the heat sink, and slightly pushing the motherboard up from the heat sink so its not so tight and close to the heatsink. i saw some improvement it didnt run as hot but was still pretty warm. then i downloaded smcfancontol and saw awesome results. my laptop used to run at around 70 to 75 celcius. after smcfancontrol my average operating temp is at 35-43 celcius .on the setting preferences on smcfancontrol i have both fans at 4000 rpm. i use higher rmp as my favorite.my battery and charging settings are on default but ac-power is on higher rpm try this and let me know how it works and also make sure you clean your computer of unnecesarry files run mackeeper to clean your laptop for better results, let me know how it goes .
Click to expand...

Not that the 70-75C temperatures are dangerous or high for the machine, I agree with upping the fans to reduce the heat. How do you find your battery life is affected? I recall when I had my MBP it took a fair chunk of time off.
 
macbookgenius10 said:
i bought a refurbished macbook pro 15 inch screen. it ran great for about 3 or 4 months but i noticed it was getting very hot and that would slow down my laptop. then one day i turned my laptop on and saw the checkered screen and it would freeze on the white apple loading screen.my graphic card nvidia was gone. then i watched a few vids on how to fix the issue.so i tried blowing a fan on my graphic card covering the rest of it with aluminum foil for about ten minutes and applying new thermal. that fixed the graphic checkered screen but not the overheating issue so then i opened the laptop again and unscrew the screws that tighten the motherboard to the heat sink, and slightly pushing the motherboard up from the heat sink so its not so tight and close to the heatsink. i saw some improvement it didnt run as hot but was still pretty warm. then i downloaded smcfancontol and saw awesome results. my laptop used to run at around 70 to 75 celcius. after smcfancontrol my average operating temp is at 35-43 celcius .on the setting preferences on smcfancontrol i have both fans at 4000 rpm. i use higher rmp as my favorite.my battery and charging settings are on default but ac-power is on higher rpm try this and let me know how it works and also make sure you clean your computer of unnecesarry files run mackeeper to clean your laptop for better results, let me know how it goes .
Click to expand...

If it was within your first year of ownership, why on earth wouldn't you have taken it or shipped it to Apple so that they could repair or replace it? Now with the modifications you've made Apple will say you've voided your warranty.
 
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macbookgenius10 said:
graphic card fix and cpu cooling with smcfancontrol

i bought a refurbished macbook pro 15 inch screen. it ran great for about 3 or 4 months but i noticed it was getting very hot and that would slow down my laptop. then one day i turned my laptop on and saw the checkered screen and it would freeze on the white apple loading screen.my graphic card nvidia was gone. then i watched a few vids on how to fix the issue.so i tried blowing a fan on my graphic card covering the rest of it with aluminum foil for about ten minutes and applying new thermal. that fixed the graphic checkered screen but not the overheating issue so then i opened the laptop again and unscrew the screws that tighten the motherboard to the heat sink, and slightly pushing the motherboard up from the heat sink so its not so tight and close to the heatsink. i saw some improvement it didnt run as hot but was still pretty warm. then i downloaded smcfancontol and saw awesome results. my laptop used to run at around 70 to 75 celcius. after smcfancontrol my average operating temp is at 35-43 celcius .on the setting preferences on smcfancontrol i have both fans at 4000 rpm. i use higher rmp as my favorite.my battery and charging settings are on default but ac-power is on higher rpm try this and let me know how it works and also make sure you clean your computer of unnecesarry files run mackeeper to clean your laptop for better results, let me know how it goes .
Click to expand...


I'm glad you have the ability to fix this stuff, but why would you not just take it back to apple since that would fall under the refurb warranty?
 
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