109°C (228°F) CPU temperature, fans idle @ 2k rpm!!!!!! I'M SO MAD

That one I've not tried, but everything else tried made my fans fail before.

I've also tried with a full reboot, both in Mac OS and Bootcamp and it works now. Fans is spinning up! 😀

Is it possible that you could put the computer to sleep to try this out?

I used the "reparing permissions" function several times without any effect.
My Macbook Pro 15" 2.53 GHz (SN: Серийный номер: W8845 ****) still runs with fans speed 2000rpm only independently of CPU load. But I have found the transient solution:
http://www.enermaxusa.com/catalog/productinfo.php?cPath=28_57&productsid=155
Works perfect and absolutely quietly!

Apple service answered that they will change the logic board later.

Consider decaf.

Call Apple or take it in to an Apple repair center.

Hi,

same problem here with my MacBook Pro late 2008!
Fixing the permissions did NOT solve the fan issue!

Apple need to release a SMC Update to fix it as soon as possible or the MacBooks could be damaged.

Christopher

Message was edited by: Bonzo87

Message was edited by: Bonzo87

Have the same issue with my machine. During high cpu usage my temps get up to 90ºc. When I spoke to Apple Care they directed me to do a PRAM reset which hasn't resulted in a permanent solution. Currently using Fan Control to cool the machine. Not too worried as I'm sure Apple will release an SMC update to fix. And if they don't, I'll just wait till you can't get the 2.8Ghz machine anymore then let the machine cook itself.

Odd that they did an incremental update to the CPU in such a short timeframe... perhaps there was an issue with last batch of chips...

Hi,

Did some CineBench R10 benchmarks with 9400 and 9600 GPU and noticed something interesting: when running the test with the 9600, the CPU results are lower than with the 9400, particularly when using both cores; I assume as the 9600 generates more heat, the cores reach their cutoff temp. of 104/105°C faster and get throttled down, so apparently, there's a safety net in place which won't let the machine overheat itself!

Secondly, it looks like the first time the fans ramp up once this CPU throttling kicks in (at about 105°C); upon further usage, the fans kick in sooner.

Best regards,
Michael

Would just like to chip in with my two penneth as another new Unibody MBP user suffering this problem. Admittedly I haven't gone through quite the level of diagnostic tests that many in this thread have, I wouldn't know how having only just made the switch to OS X.

However, the CPU temp (monitored with iStat Nano) will merrily climb to 95C with fans still at 2000 rpm, at which point I called it quits and shut the program down - either WoW or EvE Online. Sometimes, perhaps when I've done a proper shutdown rather than a sleep, the fans will ramp up to 6000 rpm, but even then long after I would've liked them to @ 85C +.

I'm not au fait with the way macs work, but that seems an inordinate temperature for a laptop with top of the line technology, when my 4 year old desktop with an ageing AMD 64 chip, NV6800GT and 1GB Ram would cruise through the same taskload. Seems a bit odd to me, I would've thought my MBP would run WoW without so much as breaking into a jog.

Anyway, I've read numerous posts advocating Fan Control and SMCFan Control, though having also read negative comments on both - and on them not relinquishing control back to standard apple software when uninstalled - I'm unsure on which to use. Can anyone advise?

Just an addendum to what I wrote above. I tried the SMC Reset just now, and upon rebooting my CPU temp was 50C (haven't stressed it yet) with the fans already at 3000 rpm. They have now dropped to 2000 rpm again as the temperature has dropped to 40C. All fine and dandy, but before the reset 50C+ wouldn't get the fans above 2000 rpm.

Clearly the Apple firmware seems to work as intended after an SMC reset, but the fact that such behaviour is reset dependent doesn't seem good news to me.

I thought this might be of interest to Travis A, who in all of the threads on fans/heat I've been researching, seems to be the most vocal opponent of fan control utilities, asserting that Apple must know what they're doing and it must be working as it should be.

I'm not having a go mind Travis, but to me it's obvious that when working as intended following a reset, Apple want my fans at 3000 rpm for a 50C temp, no doubt at 4000 rpm for 'X' temp and 6000 rpm at 'Y' temp too. That they don't do this most of the time strikes me as a fault, and I'm tempted to use a 3rd party solution to 'mimic' what Apple would like my fans to do. So that I don't stress my fans more than they should be, I'm now going to check the fan speeds at a number of increasing temperatures, as controlled by Apple firmware following a reset. Then I'll just mimic those results with Fan Control, knowing that I'm not making the fans work any harder than Apple would like them to anyway, if that makes sense?

Hope some/any of that is at all helpful.

I suppose my reputation precedes me if I'm singled out on this one already! 🙂 haha I'm not the only one, though. I do believe that my belief is the same as yours on this issue, that being that +these fan control applications should not be necessary on these machines+. So, being that my machine has not experienced a thermal shutdown yet (not even close) I won't put my machine into the hands of a 3rd party application that may not play well with the standard programming of the machine (whether the "standard programming" is correct or not is for Apple to determine).

On that note, many people have called in to Apple and detailed exactly what you describe and Apple tells them that the behavior is normal. My take on that is that we have not had a machine fried yet, maybe we should trust Apple on this one a little bit. If it ever happens, that's what the warranty is for. That's why (among other reasons) I'll be purchasing Applecare for mine.

asserting that Apple must know what they're doing and it must be working as it should be.

The thing about this statement, and the way I will reply, is that nobody here has a significant reason as to why things are not working as they should be. We don't actually know what sort of heat these things were designed to tolerate. I'm certainly not an engineer, so I won't pretend that I know anything about the heat tolerances of the machine. I just know that mine has always worked fine (up to mid-80's celsius) and there's never been a problem.

Your data obtained after the SMC reset is interesting and I, like you, would like to hear an official explanation for it. That doesn't mean I think we'll ever hear one. Perhaps the behavior immediately after the SMC reset is faulty. Nobody really knows for sure; we are all just speculating.

Nonetheless, I maintain that if anyone thinks they are having issues with cooling their machine, they should call Apple. Explain to them the circumstances that lead you to believe that. Ask them if it is ok for the machine. If they say yes, then don't worry about it. If not, then they will attempt to repair the machine.

--Travis

Dear Travis,

Thermal spec for Intel's T9600 is 105°C: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLB47

Best regards,
Michael

Nah don't worry I know it's not just you, just stood out from all the others as I was trying to get a view of the 'consensus'. Thanks for the reply, very constructive and to the point, much appreciated.

I think you have a point on the idea of being wary to trust 3rd party workarounds. However, and this may not apply to Macs as much (being new I can't comment), years of using PCs has instilled in me the notion that not everything useful, reliable, clever, well programmed etc. has to come from official 1st party companies i.e. Microsoft in my case. Had I stuck with only the tools I could have obtained from them I would've missed out on masses of cool tools that enhanced my use of the hardware no end. I view a PC/Mac as a platform giving me access to all the tools out there, as opposed to say a gaming console where it is only a small percentage who may find a use in unauthorised hacks. Therefore I have no objection to using a fan control utility on the grounds of principle.

I can't object to your comments on being unsure of the actual tolerances, or being without test information that Apple have had when designing the product. Admittedly the CPU seems to be getting hotter than conventional wisdom/previous experience with computers would suggest is wise, but that's not to say the Macbook Pro hasn't been made with this in mind.

The crux to me is the differing performance from Apple own firmware pre/post SMC reset. If the behaviour was constant and uniform, I would be much more likely to go with the idea that Apple know what they're doing - not that catastrophic hardware faults are unheard of just because a company is well known. Due to the fact that it isn't, I can't see why the temperature/fan rpm relationship shouldn't be the same at all times, it makes no sense and suggests to me that one of them is wrong. It should be behaving one way or another, and lacking any in-depth programming knowledge common sense dictates that the 'temp goes up, fan speed goes up' scenario is the correct behaviour. It is possible that the post SMC reset behaviour is the faulty one, but does that really seem likely? Having fans that can go to 6000 rpm but deliberately never having them rise above 2000 rpm at the expense of escalating CPU temps?

I will give my local Apple Store a ring/make an appointment if necessary, but my one major bugbear with this is past experience of companies ignoring a commonly experienced, widely discussed issue which has often been 'solved' by budding techies, enthusiasts and the community working it out together. The old 'send it off for 3 weeks for repair' as a standard fallback answer seems all too common an excuse. Nevermind the annoyance of sending off a brand new machine for weeks at a time in the hope someone will provide the right solution.

Not judging Apple on that though as I haven't had any experience with them. But I'm also wary of accepting at face value a 'Yes it's ok' answer if all other suggestions point in another direction. I've come across far too many companies, particularly in computing, who dish this out as a catch all response.

It is refreshing to have a sane discussion on this topic, with give and take instead of the usual "I don't want to hear what you have to say" type of replies in this thread. Thank you!

years of using PCs has instilled in me the notion that not everything useful, reliable, clever, well programmed etc. has to come from official 1st party companies

This makes me smile because my years of using a Mac have me thinking that most useful, reliable, clever, and well programmed things do come from Apple! I've never really had any reason to think otherwise. I do admit that this can be a limitation to my analysis of this situation, but it has been my experience with dozens of Macs that things like fan control should never be the worry of the end-user. I guess I'm just not used to thinking of these type of issues; I have a feeling that many of the well-seasoned Mac users would agree. If you would have said to me anything about controlling the fan speed on a Powermac 7200 ten years ago I think I would have fallen over laughing. 🙂 It just wasn't the type of thing that anyone thought of. Well... anyone that I knew of at least. Perhaps this is a clear difference between some PC users and some Mac users.

The crux to me is the differing performance from Apple own firmware pre/post SMC reset.

Absolutely. For what it's worth, I do agree with what you say about the SMC reset "fixing" the issue. It doesn't make much sense to think that the behavior immediately after the reset would be faulty. The only explanation I can think of is that Apple has long been notorious for wanting things to be as quiet as possible. Perhaps it is as simple as that, and that's the reason the fans don't ramp up until absolutely necessary. Knowing Apple, I wouldn't put it past them, but I don't think we should conclude either way at this point. That's really been what I've been trying to get across in this thread...

The old 'send it off for 3 weeks for repair' as a standard fallback answer seems all too common an excuse.

I empathize with this sentiment, but I'm not sure what else there is to do. The fact that it seems to affect some machines more than others leads me to think it is some sort of hardware issue that may be able to be repaired. Nobody can really say for sure though, I suppose.

Thanks again for the constructive discussion.

--Travis

You're welcome, ditto. A lot of forum posts often seem to be written with the hope of having their own ideas bounced back at them. Understandable really if you have a tech problem, it's easy if everyone replies with exactly the same advice as then you know what to do next.

Interesting point on your Mac use/Mac users in general. Having grown up fiddling with and controlling every bit of the software/hardware on my PCs as a matter of course, and sometimes of necessity when the **** thing was playing up, maybe my natural habit is just spilling over into Mac territory where 'it just works' and I shouldn't even need to think of things like this.

I don't think I can add any more until I manage to have a chat with someone at Apple, even if just to discuss the problem rather than sending it off for testing. Can't be doing that atm, it's too crucial to work. Will pop back on here once I've got word from them though.

maybe my natural habit is just spilling over into Mac territory where 'it just works' and I shouldn't even need to think of things like this.

Well, perhaps this is a case of it not just working. Historically though, things like fan control have never been the worry of the end-user. 🙂 I would much rather that it went back that way if things are no longer going to be that way.

Will pop back on here once I've got word from them though.

Thanks for doing that, I know lots of people are interested in this thread.

--Travis