temps when gaming in windows.

[samuelmacdaddy]

should i worry about the higher than normal temps when playing games like bioshock,nfs shift on windows 7 through bootcamp?
will the macbook pro shutdown still when it gets to critical temps even if your on windows 7?
is there any fan controller software that works?
what sort of temps do you guys get?
sorry for all the questions, just dont want to turn my baby into a paper weight

 

[cathyy]

should i worry about the higher than normal temps when playing games like bioshock,nfs shift on windows 7 through bootcamp?
will the macbook pro shutdown still when it gets to critical temps even if your on windows 7?
is there any fan controller software that works?
what sort of temps do you guys get?
sorry for all the questions, just dont want to turn my baby into a paper weight

My CPU hits up to 75C and my GPU hits 85C while gaming. Occasionally they might peak at 80C and 90C respectively before the fans kick in to cool them down.

As long as they stay below 90C, they are still within their limits. The CPU will automatically shut the computer down if it exceeds it's temperature limit.

I don't bother with any fan controllers because my fans spin at 2000RPM regularly and automatically raise their speed to 6000RPM when I start gaming. There are however a lot of complains about people's fans not spinning faster. Personally I have never had any problems with my fans. There is smcFanControl, but you can only operate it from OS X amd not Windows.

 

[Mindinversion]

The trick to fan speeds in windows bootcamp is to install SMC fan control in OS X, set your base fan speed, then do a RESTART on the machine and boot into windows. Your fan control settings will still be active. Shutting down the machine will clear this, hence having to start into OS X first.

There's also a program called "Fan control" [not to be confused with SMC] that allows you to set minimum fan speed AND ramp up speed (what temp you want fans to be at max)

 

[Pax]

As long as they stay below 90C, they are still within their limits. The CPU will automatically shut the computer down if it exceeds it's temperature limit.

Depends on the model of the CPU. All the Core2Duos (Except one, can't remember which) have limits of 105 C. I've seen a few unibody MBPs and they can all reach 105 C for a few minutes if you exercise the CPU hard. Mine certainly does.

The CPU has in-built protection as Cathyy says. It will throttle its clockspeed at 105C and shut down at (IIRC) 125 C. The fans are designed to manage the heat very well. This is all independent of the OS. Don't worry about it.

 

[A.W.E.S.O.M.-0]

In order to control your individual fan settings for either the CPU or GPU or both in Windows 7 you can use a clever program called Lubbos Fan Control.

The downside to this program is that it cannot run side by side with the bootcamp services so you won't be able to adjust sound or brightness through the function keys.

I always make sure to keep the GPU (the lethal 8600) of my MBP SR below 80 degrees celcius in order to keep it's second logic board alive as long as possible. The Rain mStand is a great help for this since it works as a giant heatsink, but other stands wih build in fans can also help a great deal.

Basically always try to keep your MBP, as cool as possible to ensure a maximum lifespan and better performances

 

[Pax]

The Rain mStand is a great help for this since it works as a giant heatsink, but other stands wih build in fans can also help a great deal.Basically always try to keep your MBP, as cool as possible to ensure a maximum lifespan and better performances

I disagree with all these statements

- your Mac's lifespan won't be materially altered by its CPU temperature. The rest of the enclosure gets nothing like as hot as the CPU, well within component specifications. Heat won't kill your Mac, it's vastly more likely to die from other causes

- heat won't affect it's performance. The fans won't put the CPU in a situation where it throttles its clockspeed. It will run just as fast at 30 C as at 104 C. The early white Macbooks had a problem where the CPU might throttle but that was a design flaw which has been fixed

- stands won't help much. On the modern unibody Macs very, very little heat comes out through the case. It all comes out as hot air from the vents. Stands won't make any significant difference. If you have an older (eg Santa Rosa) MBP they might make a tiny difference.

Just use your Mac. Play games in Bootcamp, whatever. Heat won't kill your Mac.

 

[22Hertz]

Heat most certainly will reduce the lifespan of any electronic device.

Even though there are temperature ranges considered normal if you read the tech sheet you will see there is a life expectancy operating at different temperatures within the considered normal ranges. As temperature goes up life expectancy drops.
Above the normal operating temperature range (plus the safety margin) = death.

Heat and high voltage transients are the two killers of electronics. Keep both at the absolute minimum possible for maximum life.

 

[ayeying]

Heat most certainly will reduce the lifespan of any electronic device.

Even though there are temperature ranges considered normal if you read the tech sheet you will see there is a life expectancy operating at different temperatures within the considered normal ranges. As temperature goes up life expectancy drops.
Above the normal operating temperature range (plus the safety margin) = death.

Heat and high voltage transients are the two killers of electronics. Keep both at the absolute minimum possible for maximum life.

True. Except you have to wonder what is the true lifespan of an electronic device? Most users switch within 2-4 years. Long users are out there, but they usually switch out within 7-10 years. If the electronics have a lifespan of 100 years, pretty sure 10% of that won't be affected too much by heat.

That said, my Core Duo system runs about 40-70 deg C for CPU and GPU under OSX (gaming conditions included) and 60-80 deg C for CPU/GPU under Windows.

 

[Pax]

Heat most certainly will reduce the lifespan of any electronic device

Sure, if I toast my logic board at 140 C like the interior of my car EMU, it will die. But the questions here are "How much" heat and "how much" lifespan.

Running your logic board components at 55 C is way within their specification range. Components don't even blink at 55 C. Heat won't MATERIALLY affect the failure rate.

Heat and high voltage transients are the two killers of electronics. Keep both at the absolute minimum possible for maximum life.

No, the killers of electronics (laptops) are
- obsolescence
- user damage (droppage, Coke)
- mechanical, especially for laptops hinges
- LCD and peripherals
- HDD
- batteries

- then, I guess, electronic failure of which logic board failure is a part

Heat is not the dominant failure mode of your Mac, as ayeying says

If you bought 100 Macs on Day 1 and cooked them for 3 years (~1000 days) 10 hours a day, say playing WoW, that's 10k hours. At the end of that time I expect that 90 of them will still be working, 6 will have been damaged by the user, 2 will have other problems and 2 will have logic board failure. If a repair costs $300 the average cost of logic board failure is 300 x 2 / 100 = $6 over 3 years.

If you then go and install magic fan algorithms, cooling pads and other snake oil, suppose you can reduce the 2 logic board failures to 1 (I doubt it would make anything like that much difference but let's assume so). The saving to your average Mac user is 300 x 1 / 100 = $3 over 3 years or about $1 per annum.

Let's compare with other costs of ownership
- WoW fees $13/month x 36 months = $468
- broadband fees $20/month x 36 months = $720
- depreciation say 50% over 3 years = $600
- electricity 60 W for 10k hours @ $0.1/kWh = $60 just of electricity.

So the total cost of ownership is over 3 years is >>$1000 of which $1 is insuring against heat related logic board death.

So let's get this straight, worrying about the potential cost of heat induced logic board failure is pointless.
(a) it ain't gonna happen, heat will not kill your logic board, everything is peachy inside and
(b) the cost to the average user of fixing it is tiny even compared to the cost of electricity to run your Mac

 

[A.W.E.S.O.M.-0]

Sure, if I toast my logic board at 140 C like the interior of my car EMU, it will die. But the questions here are "How much" heat and "how much" lifespan.

Running your logic board components at 55 C is way within their specification range. Components don't even blink at 55 C. Heat won't MATERIALLY affect the failure rate.



No, the killers of electronics (laptops) are
- obsolescence
- user damage (droppage, Coke)
- mechanical, especially for laptops hinges
- LCD and peripherals
- HDD
- batteries

- then, I guess, electronic failure of which logic board failure is a part

Heat is not the dominant failure mode of your Mac, as ayeying says

If you bought 100 Macs on Day 1 and cooked them for 3 years (~1000 days) 10 hours a day, say playing WoW, that's 10k hours. At the end of that time I expect that 90 of them will still be working, 6 will have been damaged by the user, 2 will have other problems and 2 will have logic board failure. If a repair costs $300 the average cost of logic board failure is 300 x 2 / 100 = $6 over 3 years.

If you then go and install magic fan algorithms, cooling pads and other snake oil, suppose you can reduce the 2 logic board failures to 1 (I doubt it would make anything like that much difference but let's assume so). The saving to your average Mac user is 300 x 1 / 100 = $3 over 3 years or about $1 per annum.

Let's compare with other costs of ownership
- WoW fees $13/month x 36 months = $468
- broadband fees $20/month x 36 months = $720
- depreciation say 50% over 3 years = $600
- electricity 60 W for 10k hours @ $0.1/kWh = $60 just of electricity.

So the total cost of ownership is over 3 years is >>$1000 of which $1 is insuring against heat related logic board death.

So let's get this straight, worrying about the potential cost of heat induced logic board failure is pointless.
(a) it ain't gonna happen, heat will not kill your logic board, everything is peachy inside and
(b) the cost to the average user of fixing it is tiny even compared to the cost of electricity to run your Mac

You are overreacting mate. Of course heat will not instantly fry your macbook and won't affect a TCO or LCA calculation but heat is for sure damaging for all electronics. If not the chip itself, it does affect the paste and the solderings.
(I honestly have no clue if it's noticable but at least in theory more heat means more resistance (in Ohms) hence electrons move slower.)

But perhaps even more important is that running the fans at high speeds constantly will suck in a lot of dust which certainly can be damaging for any laptop.

Just recently I cleaned out a 3 year old macbook of a friend of mine, it's fan and heatsink where clogged. He had serious performance issues, like stuttering HD movies, even though the temperatures where still way within the safety limits (topped at 105 C). After the cleaning the temperatures declined significantly and the macbook is running so much faster and smoother (definatly more silently).

I also clean out my laptop once a year since I've noticed obvious benefits for sound and performance. I'm not sure what the mStand does to a uMBP but it makes my pre-unibody definately run cooler.

Besides, who is talking about fan algorythms? A simple fan control program can be useful in many ways.

Let everyone deal with his or her MBP as he or she sees fit. I'd advise keeping the temperature of any laptop as low as reasonably possible by making sure it can dispose heat trough a clear airflow, raise it a bit above the table with for example a stand and periodically clean the dust of fans and heatsink.

 

[22Hertz]

Sure, if I toast my logic board at 140 C like the interior of my car EMU, it will die. But the questions here are "How much" heat and "how much" lifespan.

Running your logic board components at 55 C is way within their specification range. Components don't even blink at 55 C. Heat won't MATERIALLY affect the failure rate.



No, the killers of electronics (laptops) are
- obsolescence
- user damage (droppage, Coke)
- mechanical, especially for laptops hinges
- LCD and peripherals
- HDD
- batteries

- then, I guess, electronic failure of which logic board failure is a part

Heat is not the dominant failure mode of your Mac, as ayeying says

If you bought 100 Macs on Day 1 and cooked them for 3 years (~1000 days) 10 hours a day, say playing WoW, that's 10k hours. At the end of that time I expect that 90 of them will still be working, 6 will have been damaged by the user, 2 will have other problems and 2 will have logic board failure. If a repair costs $300 the average cost of logic board failure is 300 x 2 / 100 = $6 over 3 years.

If you then go and install magic fan algorithms, cooling pads and other snake oil, suppose you can reduce the 2 logic board failures to 1 (I doubt it would make anything like that much difference but let's assume so). The saving to your average Mac user is 300 x 1 / 100 = $3 over 3 years or about $1 per annum.

Let's compare with other costs of ownership
- WoW fees $13/month x 36 months = $468
- broadband fees $20/month x 36 months = $720
- depreciation say 50% over 3 years = $600
- electricity 60 W for 10k hours @ $0.1/kWh = $60 just of electricity.

So the total cost of ownership is over 3 years is >>$1000 of which $1 is insuring against heat related logic board death.

So let's get this straight, worrying about the potential cost of heat induced logic board failure is pointless.
(a) it ain't gonna happen, heat will not kill your logic board, everything is peachy inside and
(b) the cost to the average user of fixing it is tiny even compared to the cost of electricity to run your Mac

Your response is pure speculation.

But what do I know, I'm only an EE

 

[Pax]

Your response is pure speculation.

Yep, I've phrased those parts as "I guess", for example causes of death. I think they're pretty good guesses though. I don't think different guesses would change the answer much.

But what do I know, I'm only an EE

Good for you. You're assuming I'm not?