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temperature problem on i5 MacBook Pro?

A

applefieddarwin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
15
0
I have a 2.4Ghz i5 MacBook Pro, and noticed something strange/interesting, and I am wondering it there is something wrong.

I decided to encode something in Handbrake, and noticed that through iStat, the CPU temperatures touched 200 degrees F. even with such high temperatures, the fans remained at 2000 rpms. Is there a problem here?

I feel that the fan speeds are not dependent on the CPU temperatures, but the CPU heatsink temperatures. While the CPU was at 200 degrees F, my heatsink remained at 130 degrees F. Has thermal paste been horribly applied to warrent such a big difference in temperatures (then possibly leading to the low fan speeds?)
 
The fans won't spin up faster unless the higher heat is sustained for a period of time.
 
thanks for the answer. I guess I will try it out (see if the fans spin up if i leave them alone).

Can you explain the discrency between the heatsink and the CPU diode? I think 70 degrees F difference is a little excessive.
 
Your MBP knows how to monitor temps and control the fans, accordingly. You really don't need to try to "micro-manage" the process. Just use your Mac and let it take care of itself, as it's designed to do.
 
GGJStudio's advice, as always, is excellent.
Don't worry about it
Use MRoogle to search, you will see dozens of threads on here, they'll help reassure you.
 
When smokes comes out of the back though.. something is wrong ;)
 
GGJstudios said:
Your MBP knows how to monitor temps and control the fans, accordingly. You really don't need to try to "micro-manage" the process. Just use your Mac and let it take care of itself, as it's designed to do.
Click to expand...

Actually, I kind of doubt the newer MBP knows how to "take care" of themselves that well. I just got a i7 2.66 MBP and the machine allows the CPU temps to get way too high before the fans start to spin up from 2000 rpm. I ran a Cinebench session and the CPU went to 90 C before the fans even started to spin up. By the time the fans were in full speed, the CPU had already touched 100C. I know that it's still not quite at TDP yet, but any CPU running at 90 C+ for prolonged periods of time can't be very healthy. It certainly isn't healthy to the user if they happen to have the machine sitting on their lap! That would leave a red mark pretty quickly.
By comparison, my 2007 MBP does a much better job of trying to cool things down before it gets out of hand. Sure the fan noise is much louder by doing this, but I'd much rather tolerate the noise than to have my expensive machine sitting there happily cooking itself. I think Apple has gone too far in trying tune the machine for quietness and sacrificing long term reliability of the machine.

Any way to adjust the smc control parameters ? I know there is smcFanControl, but it doesn't seem to allow temperature based speed adjustments.
 
bzshutter said:
any CPU running at 90 C+ for prolonged periods of time can't be very healthy.
Click to expand...

It's within Intel specs for the i5/i7. I wouldn't worry about it. These "my MBP temps are too-high" posts come up all the time, Intel and Apple engineers are informed on these issues and made the necessary design choices to balance temperature, geometry, performance, noise, and longevity.
 
bzshutter said:
Actually, I kind of doubt the newer MBP knows how to "take care" of themselves that well. I just got a i7 2.66 MBP and the machine allows the CPU temps to get way too high before the fans start to spin up from 2000 rpm. I ran a Cinebench session and the CPU went to 90 C before the fans even started to spin up. By the time the fans were in full speed, the CPU had already touched 100C. I know that it's still not quite at TDP yet, but any CPU running at 90 C+ for prolonged periods of time can't be very healthy. It certainly isn't healthy to the user if they happen to have the machine sitting on their lap! That would leave a red mark pretty quickly.
By comparison, my 2007 MBP does a much better job of trying to cool things down before it gets out of hand. Sure the fan noise is much louder by doing this, but I'd much rather tolerate the noise than to have my expensive machine sitting there happily cooking itself. I think Apple has gone too far in trying tune the machine for quietness and sacrificing long term reliability of the machine.

Any way to adjust the smc control parameters ? I know there is smcFanControl, but it doesn't seem to allow temperature based speed adjustments.
Click to expand...

Yea. I use SMC fancontrol. I just think that when it comes to fan speeds and noise, Apple always makes a compromise in all their computers. So for very intensive work, like encoding movies or playing games, I pump up my fans to around 5000 rpms.

In my old early 2008 MacBook Pro, I used a utility called fancontrol 1.2. Just google it. It allows temperaturre based speed adjustments. But when I installed it on my i5, it had problems reading the fans and temperatures, so I deleted it.
I guess all I can say is try at your own risk.
 
applefieddarwin said:
I have a 2.4Ghz i5 MacBook Pro, and noticed something strange/interesting, and I am wondering it there is something wrong.

I decided to encode something in Handbrake, and noticed that through iStat, the CPU temperatures touched 200 degrees F. even with such high temperatures, the fans remained at 2000 rpms. Is there a problem here?

I feel that the fan speeds are not dependent on the CPU temperatures, but the CPU heatsink temperatures. While the CPU was at 200 degrees F, my heatsink remained at 130 degrees F. Has thermal paste been horribly applied to warrent such a big difference in temperatures (then possibly leading to the low fan speeds?)
Click to expand...

About your comment on thermal paste...yes it is horribly applied. If you don't believe me, open up your MBP and have a look for yourself ;)
 
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