Fan speed not increasing when cpu/gpu runs hot (causes black screen)

I've spent a good deal of time trying to narrow down the cause of all the crashing to black screen issues that I've had in both boot camp and OSX. I had first noticed it in boot camp while playing fallout 3 and warhammer online. After playing for awhile, when the gpu hits around 85C, the screen will turn black and the audio will begin looping. A cold reboot is then required.
Running COD4 in OSX led to the same problem. I figured it might be an SMC issue so I reset it and launched COD4 again. The first time I tried, I thought I had fixed it but when I launched the game again, the fans no longer sped up to cool down the machine.
I believe there is definitely something wrong with the SMC on my machine and the same issue may be affecting several other people who have reported the black screen problem when gaming. Will speak to apple tech support tomorrow to see if there's an SMC upgrade coming up. If not, I'll need to replace the MBP AGAIN. What is up with apple QC these days?

macbook pro late 2008, Mac OS X (10.5.5), 2.8ghz

Posted on Nov 12, 2008 7:13 PM

18 replies

freejak Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 2, 2008 2:40 PM in response to ltethe

I've been using SMCfancontrol to keep the temps in check for the last few days. Like you said, even with the fan turned up, it still gets ridiculously hot in boot camp. You know something's wrong with your computer when the keyboard starts causing pain to your fingers.

alastc

Level 1

0 points

Dec 19, 2008 4:00 AM in response to freejak

+1 for this (MBP 2.4 late 2008), I noticed it when rendering some video. That uses ~80% of the CPU, and the CPU temp was going up to 79-80 deg C.

I believe that the Intel chip prevents it going higher, but the weird thing is that the fans were just sitting at 2000 rpm. I started smelling burning plastic!

I've installed the smcFanControl, and I can keep it down, but that's hardly a good solution, it should increase the fans proportionally to the temperature.

arcandoz

Level 1

7 points

Dec 19, 2008 4:26 AM in response to freejak

Many aspects discussed here were also discussed in this thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1767221

I think it would be good to post in the thread I linked as well. The above thread has already been quoted by some internet sources and if we keep it alive maybe one day apple will comment on issues with the graphics processor.

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Fan speed not increasing when cpu/gpu runs hot (causes black screen)