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How long did you have it working before it failed? How did you use it (gaming, vids, work, etc?)

Gaming, and when not gaming it was doing SETI.
The temps were above 95C constantly.
It is a late 2011 MBP bought in mid 2012 used.
I will stay on my SuperMac G5, where temps stay under 65C, and my AMD PC where temps stay under 60C.
 
What temps are safe on rMBP?

Yes, a target of 65C works well on both of my 15" MBP`s. UltraFan will spool up the fans more aggressively, and in my experience helps to prevent thermal saturation. Apple`s approach is very different as the fans will not spool up until the system has already reached a high temperature threshold, which to my thinking is rather reactive.

UltraFan is the very opposite with the fans kicking in sooner the system stays cooler longer, short of very heavy loads fan noise in general is less intrusive, as by the time Apple`s algorithm kicks in the CPU/GPU are generally north of 80C - 90C transferring more heat to the internals which in turn requires higher fan RPM`s to remove for longer durations.

UltraFan`s premise is to control temperature, not fan RPM that is simply a byproduct, every other app available for modern Mac`s only overrides fan RPM`s as far as I know.

Sounds good. Hypothetically speaking it is much cheaper to replace overworked fans than it is a logic board or fried CPU. I'm gonna go check it out, thanks!
 
Gaming, and when not gaming it was doing SETI.
The temps were above 95C constantly.
It is a late 2011 MBP bought in mid 2012 used.
I will stay on my SuperMac G5, where temps stay under 65C, and my AMD PC where temps stay under 60C.

Yeah, thats how my mother 2 laptops died (HP, Asus.) I gamed on it like no other. Guess Apple is the same. sig Thank you.
 
Sounds good. Hypothetically speaking it is much cheaper to replace overworked fans than it is a logic board or fried CPU. I'm gonna go check it out, thanks!

In principle yes, larger, larger differences in temperature accelerate thermal fatigue and induce premature failure. Apple have obviously run the numbers and have a mean time between failure for their various models deeming the values to be acceptable.

Equally you are not going to do any harm other than possibly accelerate dust ingress (arguable as fans don't peak as frequently or run as long) by running a more aggressive cooling plan. Keeping the system cooler and temperatures more equalised in general will only help longevity, the bigger question is by how long.

Most immediate benefit is the system will be cooler to the touch and less prone to reaching max fan RPM`s for sustained periods of time. Bottom line is UltraFan is just an app you can try and if it does not meet the need simply uninstall with no lasting effect, and it`s free.
 
The ramping on the fans is actually pretty aggressive - the issue isn't the fan ramp strategy, it's the (lack of) efficiency in pulling the heat from the CPU.

Prior to lapping my heatsinks and applying an appropriate amount of Arctic Silver 5, my late 2011 17" MBP would be running quietly and in a matter of seconds ramp all the way to 5500rpm.

I became concerned with the heat output, and started looking into what the actual culprit of this issue is. Turns out, the heatsink machine work is horrible, and there is way too much heatsink compound on the dies of the CPU/GPU.

Since rectifying those issues, even a full on 1080p encode doesn't suddenly turn my MBP into a jet fighter.

As shown here -
you can see that both the fan ramp strategy and cooling capabilities directly resulting from my work far exceed what even this quad core i7 2.5Ghz Sandy Bridge can pump out. Also note that my CPU never drops below 2.8Ghz, and frequently stays at 3.1-3.2Ghz.

I would love to see someone upload definitive proof of their 2012 rMBP doing the same, without having needed replace the heatsink compound or lap the heatsinks.

I've *read* a lot about these systems, but never seen a video demonstrating the talk.
 
The ramping on the fans is actually pretty aggressive - the issue isn't the fan ramp strategy, it's the (lack of) efficiency in pulling the heat from the CPU.

Prior to lapping my heatsinks and applying an appropriate amount of Arctic Silver 5, my late 2011 17" MBP would be running quietly and in a matter of seconds ramp all the way to 5500rpm.

I became concerned with the heat output, and started looking into what the actual culprit of this issue is. Turns out, the heatsink machine work is horrible, and there is way too much heatsink compound on the dies of the CPU/GPU.

Since rectifying those issues, even a full on 1080p encode doesn't suddenly turn my MBP into a jet fighter.

As shown here - YouTube: video you can see that both the fan ramp strategy and cooling capabilities directly resulting from my work far exceed what even this quad core i7 2.5Ghz Sandy Bridge can pump out. Also note that my CPU never drops below 2.8Ghz, and frequently stays at 3.1-3.2Ghz.

I would love to see someone upload definitive proof of their 2012 rMBP doing the same, without having needed replace the heatsink compound or lap the heatsinks.

I've *read* a lot about these systems, but never seen a video demonstrating the talk.

My MBP 2012 runs at 55C - 65C during 1080p playback (25C ambient) fans @ default value, difference is mine is stock. Replacing the thermal compound is one route, equally it should be looked at carefully and treated as more of a last resort. Your system was likely defective from day one, the majority likely are not...

No one doubts you had issue with your 17" MBP, equally it`s time for you to accept not all 15" & 17" Quad Core MBP`s are inherently flawed, they are not. Yesterday after over five hours of continuous 1080p playback (latest VLC) my 2012 15" fans never moved off the default value. These are extremely large files with equally high bit rates. The same system will also sit 24/7 under full load at 3.1GHZ, no throttling, no drop in power consumption, no drop in performance.

Short of sitting down in front of such a machine and seeing the result from start to finish you will likely continue this tirade. Even if a video is posted, it`s only a snapshot in time, as are yours. Am I an Apple evangelist no:

  • Apple has inconsistent assembly.
  • Apple has inconsistent support service depending on your geographic location.
  • Apple is for me going very much in the wrong direction for the MBP.
  • Apple no longer caters for the professional sector in the portable market.
  • Apple has a tendency to "reinvent the wheel" proclaiming it then to be unique and fabulous, when in reality it`s little more than "spin".
  • I don't like IOS, iPhone or iPad they are all useless for my needs. I have tried them all, got rid of them all.
  • Apple suffers from hubris and greed, like many other multinationals it may just well be it`s downfall.
  • My last portable I bought was a ThinkPad UltraBook to replace a 13" MBA, and highly likely I will replace one of my 15" MBP`s with a portable Workstation from Dell, HP or Lenovo as the myriad of options available meet my needs more. As much as I prefer OS X business is business, these systems need to perform and work for me with the least issue, looking cool is not a prerequisite.

What Apple does do is bring a premium consumer product to market, backed by one of the best sales strategies ever conceived. In general a notch above the rest, but no more than they absolutely need to be.

I have no doubt your intentions are good, equally there are so many factors that result in elevated temperature that simply plastering the forum with the same videos is simply tedious and inaccurate. First and foremost people need to ascertain exactly why system temperature is elevated. If everyones MBP performed as yours did, Apple would be inundated with returns, are they? As others have stated it`s not the message it`s the delivery, sending the car to the shop to teardown the motor may not be overly prudent, if one has simply run out of gas...
 
My MBP 2012 runs at 55C - 65C during 1080p playback (25C ambient) fans @ default value, difference is mine is stock. Replacing the thermal compound is one route, equally it should be looked at carefully and treated as more of a last resort. Your system was likely defective from day one, the majority likely are not...

No one doubts you had issue with your 17" MBP, equally it`s time for you to accept not all 15" & 17" Quad Core MBP`s are inherently flawed, they are not. Yesterday after over five hours of continuous 1080p playback (latest VLC) my 2012 15" fans never moved off the default value. These are extremely large files with equally high bit rates. The same system will also sit 24/7 under full load at 3.1GHZ, no throttling, no drop in power consumption, no drop in performance.

Short of sitting down in front of such a machine and seeing the result from start to finish you will likely continue this tirade. Even if a video is posted, it`s only a snapshot in time, as are yours. Am I an Apple evangelist no:

  • Apple has inconsistent assembly.
  • Apple has inconsistent support service depending on your geographic location.
  • Apple is for me going very much in the wrong direction for the MBP.
  • Apple no longer caters for the professional sector in the portable market.
  • Apple has a tendency to "reinvent the wheel" proclaiming it then to be unique and fabulous, when in reality it`s little more than "spin".
  • I don't like IOS, iPhone or iPad they are all useless for my needs. I have tried them all, got rid of them all.
  • Apple suffers from hubris and greed, like many other multinationals it may just well be it`s downfall.
  • My last portable I bought was a ThinkPad UltraBook to replace a 13" MBA, and highly likely I will replace one of my 15" MBP`s with a portable Workstation from Dell, HP or Lenovo as the myriad of options available meet my needs more. As much as I prefer OS X business is business, these systems need to perform and work for me with the least issue, looking cool is not a prerequisite.

What Apple does do is bring a premium consumer product to market, backed by one of the best sales strategies ever conceived. In general a notch above the rest, but no more than they absolutely need to be.

I have no doubt your intentions are good, equally there are so many factors that result in elevated temperature that simply plastering the forum with the same videos is simply tedious and inaccurate. First and foremost people need to ascertain exactly why system temperature is elevated. If everyones MBP performed as yours did, Apple would be inundated with returns, are they? As others have stated it`s not the message it`s the delivery, sending the car to the shop to teardown the motor may not be overly prudent, if one has simply run out of gas...

I agree its not the ultimate fix but it cannot hurt. And if I have the laptop being serviced (taken apart already) why not ask them too?
 
I have no doubt your intentions are good, equally there are so many factors that result in elevated temperature that simply plastering the forum with the same videos is simply tedious and inaccurate. First and foremost people need to ascertain exactly why system temperature is elevated. If everyones MBP performed as yours did, Apple would be inundated with returns, are they? As others have stated it`s not the message it`s the delivery, sending the car to the shop to teardown the motor may not be overly prudent, if one has simply run out of gas...
I absolutely agree. While some Macs may have a problem with thermal paste, it is ludicrous to assume that all do. I challenged that assumption in the thread that Doward has spammed the forum with links to, but it fell on deaf ears. Even the title of that thread is false and misleading.

The fact is, Mac notebooks tend to run normally at higher temps when under heavy workloads. Such temps are not hazardous, since they're not sustained at that level all the time.

Yes, generally speaking, heat can damage electronics over time. The fallacy of that argument is that people assume any heat is bad for any period of time. The variables that these people don't know is how much heat and how much time is involved, and how that heat and time affects various components.

Macs are designed to handle the expected workloads and perform reliably for many years. If that time is shortened by 10 minutes or 10 days or 10 weeks, most users would never notice, as they'll likely replace their Macs long before they could experience a heat-related failure.

Most users never need to worry about opening their Macs or messing with thermal paste. For those that choose to do so, that's up to you. But it's foolish and irresponsible to try to convice everyone that they need to do the same. I've been hammering the same MBP for 12-16 hours a day for over 5 years and never had a thermal problem at all. The same is true for the hundreds of Mac users I've supported over the years, and for thousands upon thousands of users reporting no heat problems in this forum and elsewhere.

If a Mac is running hot, the first and most likely culprit is a software issue, such as a runaway process or an app placing high demands on system resources. It's ridiculous to start the troubleshooting process by opening the Mac, rather than doing some very simple and basic software troubleshooting.
 
Safe temp?

70F is the highest one should accept. Anything above and one should be really, really concerned about one's mental health for still using it while not learning about how to really control this issue of HEAT. Go search on utoob all about heatsync and how to make it more efficient, there is a guy on there who tears down his entire notebook and gets really great results with managing heat. It is a long video but it is really informative. Not for the faint of heart, so if you can't trust yourself to do the job, hire someone who can. Or just do like some on here and gamble - get a new one and see how long it takes it to do the same thing, gamble over and over again till God gets it right cos meh, we're humans?
 
70F is the highest one should accept. Anything above and one should be really, really concerned about one's mental health for still using it while not learning about how to really control this issue of HEAT. Go search on utoob all about heatsync and how to make it more efficient, there is a guy on there who tears down his entire notebook and gets really great results with managing heat. It is a long video but it is really informative. Not for the faint of heart, so if you can't trust yourself to do the job, hire someone who can. Or just do like some on here and gamble - get a new one and see how long it takes it to do the same thing, gamble over and over again till God gets it right cos meh, we're humans?
Lol, you clearly didn't read the thread. And 70ºF? Are you sure about that? :eek:
 
70F is the highest one should accept. Anything above and one should be really, really concerned about one's mental health for still using it while not learning about how to really control this issue of HEAT. Go search on utoob all about heatsync and how to make it more efficient, there is a guy on there who tears down his entire notebook and gets really great results with managing heat. It is a long video but it is really informative. Not for the faint of heart, so if you can't trust yourself to do the job, hire someone who can. Or just do like some on here and gamble - get a new one and see how long it takes it to do the same thing, gamble over and over again till God gets it right cos meh, we're humans?
You are quite uninformed. Rather than using YouTube as your source for information, you should spend some time reading specifications on Apple's and Intel's sites. You absolutely do NOT need to mess with anything inside the MBP for heat issues, except in very rare cases. It is quite normal and safe for MBP components to be higher than 70F or even 70C. Please educate yourself so you can stop posting false and misleading information in the forum.
 
No, iMacs have 3 fans. One fan for CPU cooling, one for cooling the hard drive and one for cooling the optical drive. Im not sure about the late 2012 model. I think has has two.

No, you're mistaken. I said new iMacs, as in 2012. If you look at the promotional video on Apple's website, they tout the efficient one-fan design.
 
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70F is the highest one should accept. Anything above and one should be really, really concerned about one's mental health for still using it while not learning about how to really control this issue of HEAT. Go search on utoob all about heatsync and how to make it more efficient, there is a guy on there who tears down his entire notebook and gets really great results with managing heat. It is a long video but it is really informative. Not for the faint of heart, so if you can't trust yourself to do the job, hire someone who can. Or just do like some on here and gamble - get a new one and see how long it takes it to do the same thing, gamble over and over again till God gets it right cos meh, we're humans?

Apple's Macbook Pro is designed to ideally stay under 90C under stable full load.

Anything stabilized over 95C is suspect of inferior cooling.
 
No, you're wrong. I said new iMacs, as in 2012. If you look at the promotional video on Apple's website, they tout the efficient one-fan design.

No you are still wrong. The intake fan is the one you can't see in the video because it is hidden by the logic board.

Edit: Oops my fault... I found the picture and you're right... Sorry
 
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You are quite uninformed. Rather than using YouTube as your source for information, you should spend some time reading specifications on Apple's and Intel's sites. You absolutely do NOT need to mess with anything inside the MBP for heat issues, except in very rare cases. It is quite normal and safe for MBP components to be higher than 70F or even 70C. Please educate yourself so you can stop posting false and misleading information in the forum.

I am only sharing my own experiences and what geniuses have been asking me to do, to return the computer if it is heating up rapidly and at such high temps while word processing, emailing and watching small videos.
 
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I am only sharing my own experiences and what geniuses have been asking me to do, to return the computer if it is heating up rapidly and at such high temps while word processing, emailing and watching small videos.
As I stated in another thread, "Genius" is only their job title, and not an indication of their knowledge, experience or expertise. They are frequently wrong, as has been reported many times in this forum and elsewhere. No informed Apple representative would ever tell you that 70F/21C is a temperature to be concerned with. Even 70C/158F is quite normal for a Mac running a heavy workload.
 
... and no other manufacturer's machines do this (to anywhere near this extent) that I've experienced in over 15 years dealing with portable machines.

While I agree with your Apple comments, you obviously haven't been dealing with enough yucky PC laptops. :p

While my mid-2012 rMBP's keyboard gets too hot to comfortably use when lots of CPU/GPU are used (e.g, gaming), resulting in me using a bluetooth keyboard, I have an old HP tx2500z laptop whose CPU fan exhaust port gets ungodly hot with high CPU usage. It's also HUGE, occupying a corner: the fan grille opening along the back edge is around 1.5" x 0.5" (yes, that's in inches), and the side edge opening is around 1.25" x 0.5". And it seems as noisy as a hair dryer, although it's obviously no where near that loud.
 
While I agree with your Apple comments, you obviously haven't been dealing with enough yucky PC laptops. :p


Hah. Point taken I guess. I do get eval units before we buy (have a fleet of roughly 550 laptops) and have switched from Latitudes to Elitebooks between 2007 and now.

But still. If Dell or HP can make a machine that doesn't sound like a jet turbine to run within TDP spec, then apple should be able to do it at a higher price.

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First of all, re-applying the thermal paste is a really dumb idea (no offence meant), because it invalidates your warranty.

My warranty is already out, and I'd rather have a machine that runs quieter and cooler for the majority of its usable life than put up with the current noise and heat.

If I kill it (have been playing with PC internals since 1989, it's not rocket science) then so be it.... upgrade time.

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No it doesn't, and I don't see how you couldn't see a problem? The internal temperature reading will clearly have some tolerance, but it's not going to be 10C off.

Also, the internal sensor reading is what the machine will throttle and crank fans up by anyhow.... which is the reason I want to fix it. Fan noise. It's embarrassingly loud and annoying. In boot camp i also see regular throttling events when running games.



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If a Mac is running hot, the first and most likely culprit is a software issue, such as a runaway process or an app placing high demands on system resources. It's ridiculous to start the troubleshooting process by opening the Mac, rather than doing some very simple and basic software troubleshooting.

Whilst sure, if your mac is running hot when it should be idle then yes it is a software problem quite likely.

However... if you are expecting the machine to be running at the upper end of its thermal envelope, and can drop the temp down by 10-15 degrees while it is performing like that and lose a heap of fan noise and throttling in the process, this is a good thing. I mean if i can save it from throttling back by say 400mhz, then CPU wise it is the difference in performance between a 2011 machine and a 2013 machine.

Yes, plenty of people probably shouldn't be opening their mac to do this. It is a relatively invasive procedure.

But for the people who are qualified to do so, or have friends who are qualified to do so, knowing that apple did a really crappy job on the thermal paste is helpful to know.
 
But for the people who are qualified to do so, or have friends who are qualified to do so, knowing that apple did a really crappy job on the thermal paste is helpful to know.

If you think the thermal paste is bad, wait until you see how badly the heatsink was machined.

For anyone that has seen the bottom of their heatsink, THIS is how a heatsink bottom should look (from HardOCP):

1246474518XckjF7qmHV_2_5_l.jpg


That said, this is from an $85 heatsink.

Would YOU spend an extra $50 on your $2000+ 'Pro' machine for significantly better thermal cooling? I know i would.
 
If you think the thermal paste is bad, wait until you see how badly the heatsink was machined.

For anyone that has seen the bottom of their heatsink, THIS is how a heatsink bottom should look (from HardOCP):

Image

That said, this is from an $85 heatsink.

Would YOU spend an extra $50 on your $2000+ 'Pro' machine for significantly better thermal cooling? I know i would.

Very nice, equally it is a specialist component for enthusiasts. Mac`s run hot primarily due their form-factor, this is simply the price for ever thinner, ever lighter.

I have also had PC NoteBooks that are "cookers" although the majority I admit run cooler than Apples`s offerings. Most Mac`s run well within their limits, are not broken at source.

Just a tip the "Pro" moniker is just sales spin, Apple produce for the consumer market these days, maybe if Apple did produce a professional level portable we would both be happy....
 
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