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What is normal HD Temperature?

S

Saviorrisen

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 8, 2012
25
0
I have a late 2007 iMac that runs between 40-47/48. Curious what "normal" is? What is healthy?
 
Saviorrisen said:
I have a late 2007 iMac that runs between 40-47/48. Curious what "normal" is? What is healthy?
Click to expand...
That's quite normal. Your CPU and GPU are the two furnaces in your Mac. They will typically have the highest temps. Unless something is very wrong, you never need to think about drive temps.
 
GGJstudios said:
That's quite normal. Your CPU and GPU are the two furnaces in your Mac. They will typically have the highest temps. Unless something is very wrong, you never need to think about drive temps.
Click to expand...

And the GPU can get quite a bit hotter correct? I think if I am playing a game like Age of Empires 3 or something it gets around 65..
 
Saviorrisen said:
And the GPU can get quite a bit hotter correct? I think if I am playing a game like Age of Empires 3 or something it gets around 65..
Click to expand...

Again, a perfectly acceptable temperature, in Fahrenheit and Celsius.
I have the same iMac (2007 Aluminium iMac) and get temps between 40 and 70 for CPU and GPU.
 
Saviorrisen said:
And the GPU can get quite a bit hotter correct? I think if I am playing a game like Age of Empires 3 or something it gets around 65..
Click to expand...
The Intel processors used in Macs are designed to automatically shut down to prevent damage if they truly overheat. CPU Tjmax = 105C (221F), GPU Tjmax = 100C (212F) on i3, i5, i7 processors. (Source: Intel)

If you're not already using it, iStat Pro (free) or iStat Menus ($16) will give you accurate readings of your temps and fan speeds, among other things.

Unless there is a rare defect in a Mac, most temps are well within the normal operating range, considering the workload being put on it. Websites with Flash content, games and other multimedia apps will put higher demand on the CPU/GPU, generating more heat. This is normal. If you're constantly putting high demands on your system, such as gaming or other multimedia tasks, expect temps to rise and fans to spin up accordingly. It's just your Mac doing its job to maintain temps within the normal range.

It is also quite normal for your Mac to become extremely hot to the touch during intensive operations. The aluminum body transfers heat more effectively than other materials used in computer casings, so you will feel the heat more. This doesn't indicate that it's overheating and will not harm the computer to be hot to the touch.

Your fans are always on when your Mac is on, spinning at a minimum of 2000 rpm (for MBPs) or 1800 rpm (for MBAs, MBs and minis). iMacs have 3 fans with minimum speeds in the 800-1200 range. They will spin faster as needed to keep temps at a safe level.

If your fans are spinning up without increased heat, try resetting the SMC.
(PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with these issues, so resetting it will not help.)

The intake and exhaust vents are in the back of the computer near the hinge on all Mac notebooks (except the new MBP with retina display, which has intake vents along the sides at the bottom). The iMac vent is a slot on the back near the top of the computer. Make sure the vents remain unblocked to allow your computer to perform at its best.

Learn about the fans in your Mac
Apple Portables: Operating temperature

For Flash-related issues:
 
Last edited:
GGJstudios said:
The Intel processors used in Macs are designed to automatically shut down to prevent damage if they truly overheat. CPU Tjmax = 105C (221F), GPU Tjmax = 100C (212F) on i3, i5, i7 processors. (Source: Intel)

If you're not already using it, iStat Pro (free) or iStat Menus ($16) will give you accurate readings of your temps and fan speeds, among other things.

Unless there is a rare defect in a Mac, most temps are well within the normal operating range, considering the workload being put on it. Websites with Flash content, games and other multimedia apps will put higher demand on the CPU/GPU, generating more heat. This is normal. If you're constantly putting high demands on your system, such as gaming or other multimedia tasks, expect temps to rise and fans to spin up accordingly. It's just your Mac doing its job to maintain temps within the normal range.

It is also quite normal for your Mac to become extremely hot to the touch during intensive operations. The aluminum body transfers heat more effectively than other materials used in computer casings, so you will feel the heat more. This doesn't indicate that it's overheating and will not harm the computer to be hot to the touch.

Your fans are always on when your Mac is on, spinning at a minimum of 2000 rpm (for MBPs) or 1800 rpm (for MBAs, MBs and minis). iMacs have 3 fans with minimum speeds in the 800-1200 range. They will spin faster as needed to keep temps at a safe level.

If your fans are spinning up without increased heat, try resetting the SMC.
(PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with these issues, so resetting it will not help.)

The intake and exhaust vents are in the back of the computer near the hinge on all Mac notebooks (except the new MBP with retina display, which has intake vents along the sides at the bottom). The iMac vent is a slot on the back near the top of the computer. Make sure the vents remain unblocked to allow your computer to perform at its best.

Learn about the fans in your Mac
Apple Portables: Operating temperature

For Flash-related issues:
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the informative reply!
 
Saviorrisen said:
How hot can it get with it still being okay?
Click to expand...

I do not know the Tmax for the GPU, but if the iMac gets too hot, it just shuts down to prevent any heat damage. It never happened on my iMac in five years and there were several nights when the CPU was calculating highly CPU intensive tasks (200 % CPU usage) for several hours or days.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
50 to 60 ° Celsius.
Click to expand...

Hard drive operating temperatures are normally between 5 and 55 degrees Celsius. Some operate at up to 60 degrees Celsius. However, a hard drive operating at over 45 degrees Celsius for long periods will have a shorter life span than one operating below 40. A hard drive should really be operating at around 30 to achieve maximum life span. But hey, that's why we have iMac hard drive replacement programs to make up for that little oversight. Having said all that, around 45-50 appears to be "normal" for an iMac.
 
theSeb said:
Hard drive operating temperatures are normally between 5 and 55 degrees Celsius. Some operate at up to 60 degrees Celsius. However, a hard drive operating at over 45 degrees Celsius for long periods will have a shorter life span than one operating below 40. A hard drive should really be operating at around 30 to achieve maximum life span. But hey, that's why we have iMac hard drive replacement programs to make up for that little oversight. Having said all that, around 45-50 appears to be "normal" for an iMac.
Click to expand...

there have been quite a few studies on safe hdd temps. I remember reading a white paper that tested seagates at 24/7/365

running at 35 to 40c
running at 40 to 45c
running at 45 to 50c
running at 50 to 55c

the 50 to 55c test sample had the lowest fail rate and the 35 to 40c test sample had the highest fail rate. maybe I can find the link I read this on the net more then 18 months ago I found it to be hard to believe.
 
philipma1957 said:
there have been quite a few studies on safe hdd temps. I remember reading a white paper that tested seagates at 24/7/365

running at 35 to 40c
running at 40 to 45c
running at 45 to 50c
running at 50 to 55c

the 50 to 55c test sample had the lowest fail rate and the 35 to 40c test sample had the highest fail rate. maybe I can find the link I read this on the net more then 18 months ago I found it to be hard to believe.
Click to expand...

Would love to read that. As you mentioned, it's hard to make sense of that.

Edit: I believe that I've found it

We first look at the correlation between average temperature during the observation period and failure. Figure 4 shows the distribution of drives with average temperature in increments of one degree and the corresponding annualized failure rates. The figure shows that failures do not increase when the average temperature increases. In fact, there is a clear trend showing that lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates. Only at very high temperatures is there a slight reversal
of this trend.

Figure 5 looks at the average temperatures for different age groups. The distributions are in sync with Figure 4 showing a mostly flat failure rate at mid-range temperatures and a modest increase at the low end of the temperature distribution. What stands out are the 3 and 4 year old drives, where the trend for higher failures with higher temperature is much more constant and also more pronounced.

Overall our experiments can confirm previously reported temperature effects only for the high end of our temperature range and especially for older drives. In the lower and middle temperature ranges, higher temperatures are not associated with higher failure rates. This is a fairly surprising result, which could indicate that datacenter or server designers have more freedom than previously thought when setting operating temperatures for equipment that contains disk drives. We can conclude that at moderate temperature ranges it is likely that there are other effects which affect failure rates much more strongly than temperatures do.

http://static.googleusercontent.com...arch.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf
Click to expand...

Very interesting stuff. Let your hard drives bake and be merry.
 
Last edited:
theSeb said:
Would love to read that. As you mentioned, it's hard to make sense of that.

Edit: I believe that I've found it



Very interesting stuff. Let your hard drives bake and be merry.
Click to expand...

SEB thanks for finding it.

I know that a lot of moving gear can run near redline better then

understressing it. so maybe this is the case.
 
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