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What to do about 2011 MBP heat

BJB Productions

BJB Productions

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 10, 2008
1,314
136
Hi,
I know there's been many threads about this, but I really need a solution.

Just playing a video will kick my fans up to 6000rpm which is ridiculous... SMC fan control does not work, and plus, if I was able to slow down the fans, that would in turn, overheat my computer... What can I do? I'm not very confident with taking out the logic board and removing the thermal paste... I could try, but it's risky. Options?
 
SMCFanControl is for bumping up your fan speed, not forcing it to slow down.

Personally, I'm just waiting for the paste and tools to arrive to redo the thermal paste. I guess your option would be to try a notebook cooler. I know someone posted on these forums about a company out there makes a gel pad one, no fans, that supposedly works well for about 30-60 minutes of use. You could try doing a Mroogle search to find that thread.
 
Flash, iTunes, Movs.. etc

CPU hits about 195ºF

FYI- have it on a cooling "stand" to allow 360 airflow, but it's not doing much.
 
BJB Productions said:
Flash, iTunes, Movs.. etc

CPU hits about 195ºF

FYI- have it on a cooling "stand" to allow 360 airflow, but it's not doing much.
Click to expand...

That's 90.6° C, what CPU usage do you have?

Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
Acitivty_Monitor.png
 
Thanks... I check that and nothing huge is being taken up... Safari most times takes up the most.
 
Complain at the Apple Store; that's pretty much the only way if you don't want to risk taking apart your machine.
 
I may have to take it apart... This is crazy. I called Apple and mentioned the heat generated from the MBP and how it hits 200ºF many times and my fans hit 6200RPM. She asked what software I was using to monitor this. I told her iStat. She said she had never heard of it, so it's most likely not reliable, and that "It's normal" to get that hot. Oh gosh...
 
BJB Productions said:
I may have to take it apart... This is crazy. I called Apple and mentioned the heat generated from the MBP and how it hits 200ºF many times and my fans hit 6200RPM. She asked what software I was using to monitor this. I told her iStat. She said she had never heard of it, so it's most likely not reliable, and that "It's normal" to get that hot. Oh gosh...
Click to expand...

Do you live near an Apple store? I'm sure if you went and talked with someone more knowledgeable (read: intelligent) they could sort it out for you.
 
90 degrees C sound like a common figure for these units under load.

With that said, i doesn't sound like your doing anything too taxing.

Are you running to an external monitor? Supposedly that was generating more heat.

I am soooo close to pulling tha trigger on a 15 or 17" MBP, but these threads sc:apple:Re me.
 
TheUndertow said:
90 degrees C sound like a common figure for these units under load.

With that said, i doesn't sound like your doing anything too taxing.

Are you running to an external monitor? Supposedly that was generating more heat.

I am soooo close to pulling tha trigger on a 15 or 17" MBP, but these threads sc:apple:Re me.
Click to expand...

i'm not sure if this counts as "under load" but when i ran yes > dev/null 8 times my temperature went up to 85 and then stabilised to about 75 for 15 minutes.

take it into an apple store and ask if they can open her up, maybe there's a buildup of dust or something. you could also mention the thermal paste and ask if they wouldn't mind reapplying it for you.
 
No external monitor. Yeah I think I'm going to have to bring it in. It's been running at 190-195F for quite a few hours now. Fans at a constant 6200RPM (max)
 
my MBP has reached 93C before, but that was transcoding video with Handbrake, at 800% CPU for an extended period of time. Even watching 1080p flash video on youtube (which I'm sure is about the most CPU intensive thing you can do when it comes to watching video, stupid flash), my MBP doesn't heat up that much.

If there's a Mac Store near you, take a trip on down and show them how hot it gets just playing videos, that's really not normal, unless your video is using 800% CPU.
 
Btw- it only hits the 190F and 1600RPM when I'm exporting video, or working in Final Cut or something... but that still seems really crazy. Brings back memories of the old MBP and it's heat issues.
 
I don't get why it's crazy. The temperatures are normal. Fans are there to reduce heat - why would you fault them for spinning?

I wish I had a PC around with similar specs to make a comparison. I do remember my fans spinned in the PC's way louder and longer than the MBP's. The air coming out of them was actually HOT too, unlike the MBP's.

Not trying to be a fanboi but it seems like a lot of people just need to get some realistic expectations. If your computer is not going over 100 degrees C, it's not TOO HOT.
 
kappaknight said:
I don't get why it's crazy. The temperatures
I wish I had a PC around with similar specs to make a comparison. I do remember my fans spinned in the PC's way louder and longer than the MBP's. The air coming out of them was actually HOT too, unlike the MBP's.
.
Click to expand...

Quite sure the air coming out of a macbook pro is hot too.
 
I had this problem and I got it replaced. Thing is, with Apple support, it's often hit or miss. A genius at the Apple store told me the 85-95C temps I was seeing was "normal" even though I stressed that I was seeing these temperatures while not doing too much. The Applecare support line agreed with me and I spoke to two different people, and then took it into the store again. This time around, the guy seemed to change his opinion completely after I mentioned my conversations with applecare (which I had email proof of), and they offered to swap it out.

With my new system, I rarely see it go that high, though it has happened once or twice but that's usually if I'm using Xcode, garageband and have a bunch of tabs open in my browser.

Also, another thing to note is that I will often see higher temperatures on varying surfaces. For example, in my schools library, they have these study desks that have some sort of a plastic finish and I did notice my MBP runs a lot hotter on that than my wooden desk. Perhaps it's irrelevant, but just thought I'd mention it.
 
Definitely get Apple to act on this. Run the same videos (youtube?) on their machine in the store with Activity monitor open and compare, etc. Warranty. Be prepared to receive a new MBP.
 
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