Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

'Typical' Temps for Macbook Pro?

H

hakr

macrumors regular
Original poster
I've got a recent generation MacBook Pro with the 2.4 cpu and four gigs of ram. Just wondering what the "safe" or "usual" operating temps are for this unit? I've used one of the utilities to run the fans at a constant 3000 rpm, and I don't think the temp reports I get are high...but I just don't know what is considered high.

Thanks!
 
There are a lot of these posts on these forums, a simple search would have answered your question, but i'll be nice and give you it as well.

Typical temp - 50 degrees with the fan at 2000rpm. This is what mine is like at the moment and i have opera, itunes, adium, excel, aptana and safari open with it connected to an external monitor.

Safe temp - 0 to 115 degrees. When you render video (or do something that will quite happily suck as much CPU power as it can) and turn on the 9600GT you will get above 100 degrees and do so safely. MBP's get hot because they're design too, thats just the way these things are.
 
allanibanez said:
There are a lot of these posts on these forums, a simple search would have answered your question, but i'll be nice and give you it as well.

Typical temp - 50 degrees with the fan at 2000rpm. This is what mine is like at the moment and i have opera, itunes, adium, excel, aptana and safari open with it connected to an external monitor.

Safe temp - 0 to 115 degrees. When you render video (or do something that will quite happily suck as much CPU power as it can) and turn on the 9600GT you will get above 100 degrees and do so safely. MBP's get hot because they're design too, thats just the way these things are.
Click to expand...

I presume you are referring to Celsius temps, not Fahrenheit temps!

Mine - an early 2008 vintage MBP with the 2.4 cpu - typically runs at 60 to 70C with my 21" external monitor running at 1600x1200 resolution.
 
Constant 3000 rpm is a REALLY bad idea. If you are working the computer hard, it won't be able to speed the fans up and it will get way to hot. If you want to manually control the fan speed, pick a utility that allows you to pick a base speed, but varies the speed as required (I am using SMC fan control which allows you to pick a base speed, base temp and rate of fan speed increase vs temp increase).
 
Unibody 2.53 connected to an external monitor running at 1920x1200.

Idle ~62-63 degrees C
Loaded ~88-90 degrees C (with spikes to 95+)

That's until I installed Coolbook and undervolted it by 20%, now it's as follows:

Idle ~62-63 degrees C
Loaded ~72-73 degrees C
 
jampat said:
Constant 3000 rpm is a REALLY bad idea. If you are working the computer hard, it won't be able to speed the fans up and it will get way to hot. If you want to manually control the fan speed, pick a utility that allows you to pick a base speed, but varies the speed as required (I am using SMC fan control which allows you to pick a base speed, base temp and rate of fan speed increase vs temp increase).
Click to expand...

I have SMC fan control, too, but it is unclear to me how you have set it up.
Where or how do you set rate of fan speed increase versus temp increase?
 
I have a 2.53 GHz, Unibody.

Mine normally hovers around the high 40s. If I'm actually using it as a "lap"-top and have it sitting on my lap instead of on a flat surface, it goes up close to 60.

My fan speed is around below 2000 at 50 and totally silent. Once it gets to around 3000 is when I start hearing it.
 
hakr said:
I have SMC fan control, too, but it is unclear to me how you have set it up.
Where or how do you set rate of fan speed increase versus temp increase?
Click to expand...

SMCFanControl only sets the minimum speed. The fans will still speed up if the CPU/GPU get too hot.
 
hakr said:
It seems as if 2000 rpm is the lowest setting on mine...
Click to expand...

Same here.

I admit that it would be nice if we could change the temperature/speed map. I'd like to not have to crank up the fans manually when I feel that it's too hot.
 
I have a recent (2 week old) MBP, 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM.

The temperature right now is 42˚C, fans at 2000rpm. It's usually lower than 50˚C. I'm using iStat Menu to monitor the temperature.

I've never seen it go over 85˚C (even with yes > /dev/null pushing the CPUs to 100%) or the fans over 3000rpm.

Compared to the earlier MBP versions, this truly is a laptop - the bottom is only slightly warm to the touch.

Edit: I just pushed the CPUs to 100% again to doublecheck. The temperature got to 90˚C before the fans went over 2000rpm. They're currently at 2700rpm and keeping the temperature at 85˚C.
 
I honestly don't understand why people worry so much about their temps. If it's defective and going to die from heat I'd rather get it over with under warranty. I don't WANT a computer that I have to baby and go out of my way to keep cool.

If it's acting flaky due to heat, then take it to Apple and get it replaced or repaired... don't go seeking add-ons to work around it.

I mean if my fans are running 6000rpm all the time and loud or something, that's one thing. Or if it's locking up or throttling down due to heat, then I'll worry about it.

To each his own, I guess these are as much toys as tools for many. Just saying that I don't "get it" personally.
 
brentsg said:
I honestly don't understand why people worry so much about their temps. If it's defective and going to die from heat I'd rather get it over with under warranty. I don't WANT a computer that I have to baby and go out of my way to keep cool.

If it's acting flaky due to heat, then take it to Apple and get it replaced or repaired... don't go seeking add-ons to work around it.

I mean if my fans are running 6000rpm all the time and loud or something, that's one thing. Or if it's locking up or throttling down due to heat, then I'll worry about it.

To each his own, I guess these are as much toys as tools for many. Just saying that I don't "get it" personally.
Click to expand...

I'm not anal about it, but I am interested in knowing the "nominal" operating temps. 😀
 
why do you guys care how hot the machine runs? If there is a problem with it, Apple will replace the machine.

Surely Apple's engineers wouldn't run the fans so slowly if they thought the machines couldn't handle the high temps. 😕
 
I have a (look in sig)

I run it in clamshell, powering a 22" 1600x1200 resolution monitor. Usually, I have Safari w/ Flash running, EyeTV with Progressive scan (eats up more CPU), mail and other normal apps...

My fans are usually running at 2K-rpm and between 75-80c. This is the GPU diode. Also, I'll usually use 25% of my processer for current tasks.

When I have encoding video or other really intensive things, it'll spike to 3k-rpm to 5.5krpm. Never I have I seen it go over 90c or over 6k-rpm.
 
My early '08 MBP (specs below) usually runs between 40 and 60 degrees, varying based on use. Note, though, that my normal use does not involve heavy gaming.
 
I'm reading forums, and the cpu is at 37, when I'm actually being productive it's closer to 50, and the max I've seen it is about 90.
 
I think worrying about temps in any computer is a waste of time. If you're running at spec core speeds and your fans are turning on regularly your processor will be fine. If it breaks within the warranty you can get another. If it doesn't it probably won't for the lifetime of the machine's usefulness. Temp worries are for PC extremists, not for laptop workers.
 
60C idle is quite high. My MBP usually is around 45C (idle) and about 50-60C on high load.

My HP Elitebook on the other hand idles at a cool 32C (the fan rarely ever turns on). 😎
 
Mark2000 said:
I think worrying about temps in any computer is a waste of time. If you're running at spec core speeds and your fans are turning on regularly your processor will be fine. If it breaks within the warranty you can get another. If it doesn't it probably won't for the lifetime of the machine's usefulness. Temp worries are for PC extremists, not for laptop workers.
Click to expand...

Blaine said:
why do you guys care how hot the machine runs? If there is a problem with it, Apple will replace the machine.

Surely Apple's engineers wouldn't run the fans so slowly if they thought the machines couldn't handle the high temps.
Click to expand...

brentsg said:
I honestly don't understand why people worry so much about their temps. If it's defective and going to die from heat I'd rather get it over with under warranty. I don't WANT a computer that I have to baby and go out of my way to keep cool.

If it's acting flaky due to heat, then take it to Apple and get it replaced or repaired... don't go seeking add-ons to work around it.
Click to expand...

Wow, lots of cavalier and rich people on this forum... Why should you keep an eye on the temperature of your laptop? Because a constantly overheated laptop eventually leads to motherboard failure and load of other nasty problems. Maybe you guys ought to check out some of the threads on this site of Macbooks and MBPs dying from heat before brushing others off about this.

And do you expect to keep your $1500 laptop for only one year? Kudos for you then, I guess. In any case, I would rather not have my laptop melt down, under warranty or not. That's a much bigger inconvenience than spending 10 seconds to install a temperature monitoring utility. 🙄

Finally, I would like to have children someday too. 😀
 
buddhaface said:
And do you expect to keep your $1500 laptop for only one year? Kudos for you then, I guess. In any case, I would rather not have my laptop melt down, under warranty or not. That's a much bigger inconvenience than spending 10 seconds to install a temperature monitoring utility. 🙄
Click to expand...

I mostly see thread after thread of people worrying about temps. I don't see many people with melt downs, other than that popular melted keyboard story. If you computer over heats bet your bottom dollar there was something wrong with it and it was going to die no matter what.

Don't wrap your laptop in a blanket, don't cover the vents, try not to keep it on a soft surface, like a bed. It most likely won't over heat if its healthy to begin with. If its not, you're problem isn't the over heating. That's just a symptom.
 
is it hard on the computer or damaging to increase the min fan speeds to 3k-3.5k?

i have smc fan control installed on both my mbp and my mba, but only to monitor the temps...ive yet to mess with settings
 
I'm using my 15" MBP (see specs below) in clamshell mode with a USB-powered fan below it. Here's what iStat says right now (it's been on for a while):

CPU: 144 degrees (all this is fahrenheit)
Battery: 87
Enclosure bottom: 91
GPU: 127
GPU heatsink: 133
Heatsink A: 131
Heatsink B: 111
Mem Bank A1: 144
Memory controller: 126
Hard disk: 100

Fans are at about 2500 rpm.

If you want me to show you some scary numbers, let me whip up a Handbrake rip. 🙂
 
hmmm
all these seem pretty high guys, im on my mbp unibody now with the 9400m running a 2048x1152 screen and im at 32~ degrees centigrade.
Cool 😀
pun not intended 😛
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back