iMac Heat Issues

This is my first post and my first Imac . I love the machine and everything about it. Today I witnessed the first flaw. Basically it overheated in short terms. Its 5 months old march 09 personal use at my home. Been encoding and running graphics programs most of the day. Nothing out of the ordinary and running actually quite cool to the touch. After downloading some free brushes from legit-able site for photoshop I went to install the packs while my computer just couldn't keep up with the packs I was loading. So the software hung and I force quit. After loading several packs at time instead all at once. I was notified reached capacity and forced me to another force quit. While loading another app. everything hung. No mouse functions or keyboard. Held power button. Turned back on to an all white screen that did not change. I powered down manually again. Turned on the white screen finally showed the apple and the loading then went to the light blue like normal for brief moment then to darker shade of blue unfamiliar with mouse cursor showing. Desktop loaded finally after a minute but nothing was able to be clicked. Mouse moved keyboard had MACHD selected but wouldn't do anything. Scrolled through dock and icons never enlarged like my settings are to do. Did this for to restarts. I finally put 3 fans on let it sit for 10 mins and powered up. Booted slow to me but all is fine.
Should I be worried if i burned something up? Most definitely overheated but out of nowhere and not even running any software really when I have complexed stuff usually running.

Possibly some data corruption on the HDD. Try using Disk Utility on the install dvd to perform disk repair, but you might need DiskWarrior.

(Noting the time of your post, I'm sure you'd have received a quicker response from someone else by starting your own thread.)

Message was edited by: myhighway

Just check the iMac Freezing topic to learn about heat related issues. It's a whitespread problem. Forums are full of people commenting that they lost their harddisk. My power supply was always way to hot as well (over 80ºC) and it heated up my harddisk as it is placed next to the harddisk. Heat problems are whitespread due to hardware problems, not environmental problems. That Apple is good in repairing their own machines isn't the question, that you have to pay for hardware design failures and that the machines are not reliable, that's the problem.

A temperature sensor anywhere inside a computer that reads 80ºC is a cause for concern, and does not need "proper tools" to diagnose.

To be honest, your argument that "only Apple engineers know for sure" is terribly weak. I would suggest a better response in the future. Temperature diodes are temperature diodes. The suggestion that Apple is somehow hiding or disguising this information so that only an Apple engineer really knows what "80ºC" means is bordering on conspiratorial. Heck, I can take the iMac apart and give you the direct reading from the temperature diode independent of the hardware. Anyone with some experience with electronics could do this. Temperature diodes are not proprietary to Apple, nor is the data they provide.

My power supply is also hanging around 80-81ºC. HDD also at 57ºC. The HDD doesn't worry me so much, but the Power Supply does. The fact that the top left of my iMac registers approx 110ºF on the surface and 140ºF at the port (all of this while idle) concerns me as well. And I'll go one further to add to your concerns and help debunk just a bit those who don't seem to understand hardware tolerances so much: I had an HDD failure. Whether it was heat-related or not is obviously impossible to know, but it may be more than just coincidence that a power supply running at 80ºC and an HDD running near the upper level of its tolerance led to a failed HDD.

Also a bit more evidence: Google returns many threads of people posting things like "my iMac Power Supply is running 80ºC" with many replies of "mine runs at 60ºC." That's a significant range. Add to this the fact that the Genius at the Apple Store the other day said to me "yeah, 10.5.7 made a lot of iMacs run hot" and we've got an interesting picture. (Of course, he also said 10.5.8 fixed it, which it hasn't). For some reason, Apple has chosen to follow an extremely conservative route with respect to fan usage.

myhighway wrote:
+want it to work properly+

You have yet to state a problem.

Sure he did. Power supply running at 80ºC and HDD running just 3ºC shy of the manufacturer's upper thermal limit.

By the way, I'm running a late 2008 iMac, so this heat issue is not unique to 2009 models.

And I am running a late 2007 iMac with same issue. And the 2006 have same overheating problem (Check the thread iMac Freezing). I had to replaced the HD after 18 months of use. So far no graphic card problems as the 2006 owners report (the thread has over 36k views !). My PS is also running @ 80C when idle & my HD @ 54C.

The Geniuses @ the Bar told me that the heat sensors are working fine ... and if the computer overheats it would shutdown by itself ... hmmm ... Really?

PS temp went up to 82C while typing this comment with no other activity! ...

Hello Xandraa.

82ºC is far to hot for the power supply. Mine is running now always below 60ºC after removing some foam isolation material as reported in the iMac Freezing topic... As a side effect my harddisk sensor is now always below 45ºC.

I have a 2006 intel imac. It is basically inoperable at this point due to overheating and graphics failure. The processor may shut down when its too hot but the GPU sure doesn't. Having said this, I'm wondering with all these heat issues, if Apple is doing a major overhaul on the iMac as I haven't received any emails informing me of new imacs in quite some time. Just food for thought or maybe just me hoping they can put the nail in this coffin.

phantasia, your premise is wrong.

The design and operation of the aluminum iMac models is substantially different from the 2006 models, much of it due to the improved Intel processors and case redesign, thereby avoiding the prior heat problem. Since the aluminum intro, there have been plenty of threads relating the specifics.

Furthermore, there are millions of HDs operating close to 60 C, and relatively few of them fail.

None.

myhighway wrote:
Furthermore, there are millions of HDs operating close to 60 C, and relatively few of them fail.

Sorry, but no. (Not that you could even begin to prove that statement)

You would still do well to read: http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.html (PDF link below). Specifically, look at the 3-year AFR for drives operating above 45ºC.
"What stands out are the 3 and 4-year old drives, where the trend for higher failures with higher temperature is much more constant and also more pronounced."

Also from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MinimizingHard_Disk_Drive_Failure_and_DataLoss
"If the temperature exceeds a preset threshold, perhaps 50 °C, the monitoring application can be configured to log the event, warn the user, and shut down the drive or computer. If the drive includes a thermal monitoring feature, it shuts down the drive if its temperature reaches a critical level, perhaps 65 °C."

Please don't post nonsense here.

Message was edited by: Xian Rinpoche