High CPU temperatures

I'm a graphic design student and often run Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop at the same time. I can do this for about six hours but my CPU does get up to about 112 C while the fans stay at around 2000 RPM. It had only shut down twice. Now it gets to the same temp, more often, despite sitting its concave cooling fan. Plus it shuts down and I'm just on the web surfing or whatever, no heavy stuff...with my cooling fan plugged in and running in a 70 F apartment. Is it possible that damage was done earlier and now it just can't handle "normal" heat temps?

Menageryl,

Thanks a lot. It is good to hear that there are some improvements in Win7. Less heat is certainly a good thing. Still, it is hotter than OSX itself, so there is a room for improvements. Anyway, I guess I will skip Vista and go directly for Win7 because of that.

Mid-sixties on idle and mid-eighties when doing some work.. And the fans? What are the typical speeds in OSX and in Windows on idle? Do they automatically change their speed in both OSX and Windows on your Mac?

Thank you very much.

' proside! Some more info for ya!!!
' Sorry for the delay in a response this time around - the past week and a bit have been STUPIDLY busy at work, with me pulling several ridiculously long shifts and getting seriously little sleep!! All of today was "recharge" day...

' Anyways - replies to your last questions:
' My fans have worked in a manner I've considered "normal" from day one through today (though admittably I mean normal for Apple - which means different tolerances than on other machines) - I've never experienced the kind of problems I've heard others have had - when the system gets warm from load, the fans ramps up, and the system cools pretty well and rapidly from there... The fans have always seemed to do a pretty good job at it too. Even whilst gaming for extended periods, there have been points where the temp has hit near-scary levels (as I've mentioned previously), but I can sit back and relax, knowing that they'll do their job and keep the heat managed!

' As for specifics? Well I've not kept detailed track of that data specifically (not feeling the need)... It doesn't help that I haven't yet found an app. that can read fan speeds when I'm running Windows - but then I haven't exactly searched too hard - again, not feeling the need! So I only have specifics from when in OSX.
' I've seen my fans hit around 5000, perhaps a little over - rarely. And there seems to be a logical, acceptable algorithm controlling the speeds at different temperatures.
' In Windows I've not had numbers to work with, but the apparent speeds of the fans at different temperatures seems near-identical to what I experience in OSX - at least judged audibly.

' I know that's not exactly the sort of detail you were looking for mate, but hopefully I've managed to communicate how I feel about the situation and that in itself should suggest much to you.

' If you're still interested I can try keep a better eye-out and maybe a log for you - but again, likely only to be numbered-data from time in OSX as I haven't the time to devote to finding something to work in Windows when I'm not really even likely to use it going forward. I've also been spending a lot of time in Windows of late - though that may change now that I plan on trying out the 10.5.8 update. 🙂

' Otherwise I'll be catching ya around the boards later!

' ~Menageryl

Hi again,

Thanks for all the details. It looks like the fans do work roughly the same way in OSX and in Windows on your Mac, I mean they generally spin faster as temperature increases. That is certainly good for your computer. The problem I have is that fans spin up with some delay, not following the temperature rise immediately. Which usually leads to some relative (as compared with other laptops I used) and temporary overheating.

Anyway, I was mostly interested if the idle temperatures in Windows were higher than in OSX (they are according to your previous reply) and if those higher temperatures were also complemented by faster fan rotations in idle Windows than in idle OSX. I understand it may be difficult to measure the fan speed since there are no tools. In OSX, I use iStat. In Windows, indeed there are no tools, at least I don't know any. If you can subjectively estimate that the fans run faster on idle in Windows please let me know. They may also be running at the same speed, even if temperatures are higher. The thresholds for the fan speed must be the same in both Windows and OSX (since it is controlled by SMC, not OS), but what exactly is the temperature threshold when fans go faster than 2000 rpm? That can be with some precision determined by checking the rising temperatures and listening to the fans. In my case, fans start to run faster than 2000 rpm only when the temperature goes in upper 80 and 90.

Thank you.

' Proside, I from what I've seen, my machine behaves pretty predictably whether running Windows7 or OSX. Obviously this is what one would expect - as you mentioned, the fans are actually supposed to be controlled by the SMC - leaving the OS out of the equation... We only turn to OS-level 3rd-party solutions when we decide that the SMC isn't doing what we expect or want of it!
' I've been fortunate enough that my machine seems to have always behaved itself from that perspective.

' Without having worked with my head / ear up against the casing of the system, I usually notice the fans in my system ramping up somewhere between 75 to 80 degrees C. What that would seem to imply is that there is a little speeding up before that sort of temperature is reached, as I only really begin to notice the fans audibly from that point - and I reckon I wouldn't be hearing anything under 3000rpm, maybe even 4000rpm if you consider the ambient sound and where my focus otherwise is and so-on in such situations.

' As I said before - my system has always seemed to behave properly - never had issues from this perspective. 🙂

~Menageryl

also i have this problem...no news? my macbook temperature max is 94° and then the fan increasy the speed...I do not know if this is a problem or is normal.
thanks
macbook pro 2.53 13.3 whit 10.6.1

Hey guys,

I have been looking around for info on high temps on the new unibody Macbook Pros.

I have a problem where my temp seems to get up around 105 C before the fans bother to do anything about it, surely this can't be right.

Also, after only 6 days of owning my macbook, I have been plagued with hardware issues to do with my Trackpad/Internal Keyboard.

Upon using the computer for a few minutes I start to experience intermittent disconnects of both devices, at first I thought I was just imagining it, but Hardware Growl tells me they are in fact disconnecting and reconnecting annoyingly often.

Has anyone else heard of this problem?

I am very disappointed with my new macbook and am going to the Apple store tomorrow.

My 3 month of MBP 17" (the new version) seems to be getting hotter and hotter.

It has a Clean install of Snow Leopard (well, it was cleaned installed).

It seems to be reaching temps of 103 degrees Celsius as displayed here;

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2540/40552190787dc6f52e4bo.png

Am really starting to worry about it - had already had the battery replaced because of other issues.

Is this kind of temperature normal? I would think not, but i have no idea..

Message was edited by: Aaroona

You might want to check the accuracy of the software you are using to measure such things.

I know that Marcel Bresink, for example, recently introduced new algorithms to Hardware Monitor to cater for changes in readings from some Intel processors that could lead to inaccuracies of as much as 15ºC . Given that Marcel is usually way ahead of the pack where such things are concerned you might want to make sure your own temperature monitoring software is both up to date and accurate.

Not saying this IS the problem, but it is worth considering, though in your case the apparent presence of hardware issues suggests that all might not be well with your machine in other areas.

Cheers

Rod

Hi Rod,

Thanks for your reply. I have decided to install another monitor and run them side by side (the one you mentioned, and iStat).

throughout the test (where I ran a secure delete on my recycle bin, using the same file each time), they both reported the same temps.

at the moment, consistently, it is running at 92-95 degrees C while doing a secure delete, the max temp being 102 degrees C.

Message was edited by: Aaroona