New 2011 MacBook Pro Heating Issue?

Hello,

I want to replace my 13" MBP, to get the new 2.2GHz 15" i7 / 512 SSD for the high-res display, larger memory (16GB) and the larger SSD for my VMs.

So I don´t play games, but I am using most of the time VMware and I need a mobile device... so no MacPro possible...

I read this posts and I have some questions... it would be great if somebody can answer.

Can I go to a to a Apple service provider to check the thermal paste?... without charging € / loose of warranty / service?

What are the "real" temperatures if the system is idle? What are normal values and what not?

I know that aluminum MBP getting hot under load, also my little nice 13" MBP and for those reasons I use smc fan control, to speed up the fans on demand.

Many thanks for an answer.

Schwaa, what macbook pro do you have ? if so, have you had any issues with it and what do you mainly use it for ?

If anyone else is reading this thread that does not have any problems, I will be interested to know what applications are used and which machine you may have.

Ive noticed alot of 2.3GHZ models but have not really seen anyone with problems on a 2.2 version (or maybe I missed it) - would be very interested in finding out if its the whole range or specific models that are having problems ?

Nicholas

I have a 2011 15" MacBook Pro w/ the 2.3GHz i7 quad, 8GB RAM, and an OWC SSD. I frequently use my MBP to convert Blu-ray Discs to 1080p and 720p H.264 M4V files using MakeMKV and Handbrake. I also do some occasional gaming. (touch wood) I haven't had any issues yet.

I submit that high temps aren't in and of themselves a problem. Only if you're having lockups could they be considered a potential issue, but I suspect you'd be seeing high idle temps also. Depending on the symptoms and circumstances, I think the lockups could be caused by something else.

Message was edited by: Schwa72

I don't believe this is a temperature issue.

I've monitored the system and it never breaks 85 C, and i can "force" it to break by window switching a full-screen game.

I've also gotten this freeze moving a windowed game from one monitor to another (dragging it).

I honestly think there is a system call OS X is generating that the ATI chipset doesn't know how to handle. Leave it up to Apple to completely leave this untested before release, though. I mean seriously how many gamers would it have taken to find this out before release? ONE?

Thanks Schwa,

Does anyone with SSD have these issues.??

Can I go to a to a Apple service provider to check the thermal paste?... without charging € / loose of warranty / service?

No, probably not. I would expect any service provider to charge you for disassembling the machine, and I wouldn't expect any service provider to be willing to disassemble it without very good cause. No one is likely to be enthusiastic about performing work that may not be necessary or productive and then having to provide a "repair" warranty on it afterward. That would probably be seen as just inviting trouble.

Posting my experience on this forum as well as the "Freeze" forum:

I received my MBP on Tuesday (upgraded from a 2008 MBP). I run windows 7 with VMWARE fusion 3.2. Using a program called Blue Iris, I was thrilled to see that the CPU cores did not max out like they did on my previous MBP. However, when running this graphics intensive program and playing back an MJPEG file the fans started up and shortly after I got the freeze everyone mentioned. The CPU's were running at about 25% at the point of incident. Cursor was still working but only the power-on button was functional.

The next day I called support and went through the motions (verify disk etc). This morning I got another freeze. Then I found this forum. Called support, got to 2nd level, was told the problem was with VMWARE. I was told I was the only one reporting this symptom. Was told to call back if it froze with the apple side of the world in control of the keyboard. So I decided to try some experiments. I opened some terminal windows, entered "yes > /dev/null" to max them out while playing back MJPEG recordings. The fans ramped up and the computer froze. Installed istat 3.0, repeated the experiment a few times while watching the temperature readings. Each time the laptop froze exactly at the point where the first CPU core hit 100 celcius.

Called back apple 2nd level and mentioned this. Was told to take the computer into a store for a check. If the check shows a problem, it should be replaced, it not it is software.

What bothers me is the support person claims I am the only reporting this issue. He also says that I should create a new VM and try that (I can cause the freeze at will without fusion running at all, the advice doesn't inspire confidence).

I am an ASIC developer of 25 years. For nominal silicon to hit 100 degrees in a cool 68F room with fans at max the design is fundamentally bad. Moving that computer into a room at 85F or run the disks and GPU's with a worst case pattern (which I know I would not be able to hit on with my first little tests) and you will easily overheat ... add to this voltage tolerances (V-squared law) of the power supply and corner lot silicon the margins are negative. Unless the temperature diodes/sensors are off, this is a real problem.

Just for giggles, I thought I'd give this stress test a shot. I have eight instances of "yes > /dev/null" going on my '11 MacBook Pro (15" 2.3GHz quad i7) plus a full-screen 1080p H.264 M4V file playing, and (while the video is dropping frames here and there) my CPU temperature as reported by iStat is pegged at 80C with my fans spinning at 5900rpm. My CPU is definitely maxed out too (92% user, 7% system, only 1% idle). Ambient is about 68F.

Not sure, but it looks to me that if you're hitting 100C, you might have a cooling issue. However, I don't think everyone's having overheating problems...I think there are other issues at work here as well causing some of the lockups being reported.

90 c might be well within spec for the cpu but its well outside of spec for humans.

How can a laptop that humans touch be 'acceptable' at these temps, I know my laptop is highly un comfortable to have my hand resting on at 70 c how the **** am I supposed to touch it at 90 c ?

Apple are on the up grade band wagon just like everyone else with every release having to be faster faster so they can sell another machine to some shmuck who doesnt even need a new one.

Anyway apple, its me to the rescue! I have the solution.

design the metal backing of the screen to be a radiator, large surface area = good cooling.

that way the heat never gets to your hands or lap, dam my Industrial design degree is going to waste, I should work for apple.

Also posted under - MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze.

When quitting application (game) which was using the larger graphics card AMD the os automatically switches back to the integrated graphics card that is on the cpu this can in itself produce a little heat but I don't think that is the culprit. What happens is that the memory usage for the graphics card automatically allocates 384mb (as a minimum) hence the application/game(hungry memory usage) just quit may still have allocated memory as it quits and any little memory for the IGP may not be sufficient, as this can happen at the same time it may be possible that memory is not distributed properly and causes the crash.
This is just the theory that I have come up with but I know little about how this works especially as I cannot test this myself until my mac arrives any day now.

Why not switch off the automatic graphics switching in system preferences ?- this may work but other applications may be switching the onboard cpu graphics on and off and can lead to other errors or sudden heat issues which may be the reason for sudden temp increases and the fan does a slower kicking than should which can lead to a freeze.(not sure about this).

Other factors like running the games in smaller windows etc may help however whenever there is access to the finder window or the App tries to access it when saving etc this may also be a problem.
Can some pros look into this and see if this is possibly the case. Sorry about the explanation being a bit vague but Im not a tech specialist and some of what I have written may not be accurate either but there may be a relevance as most incidences occur when quiting games/apps.
By also having other control software for fan control temp reporting gfx etc this probably does not help either so a clean install may temporary help but is not the solution.
This may well be a graphics and RAM memory allocation issue switching back and forth between the two graphics cards. This can produce the sudden heat problems especially with the onboard graphics on the CPU (I think thats where it may be - so the paste can also be a problem).
There are many problems to be addressed here and I think Apple may take their time on this one. I just hope there is no need for a hardware modification.


Regards
Nicholas

It's not that easy for me to hit 100C.

If I just launch 8 instances of "yes", the fans never even max out and the temperature of "CPUA" stays below 90C, closer to 80. The CPU's are of course pegged.

If I play a DVD in full screen, CPUA stays in the 80's as well.

In order to hit 100C, I had to open several instances of .avi movie files and play them with quicktime, AND use the mouse to force one of the movies forward and backward and forward repeatedly(speed the video through). I think this causes some massive GPU activity but I'm no expert. In that way I can get CPU1 or CPU2 to hit 100. CPUA always displays a lower temperature than the other 2, don't know what that means.

Granted, this may be an extreme corner and completely invalid.

I do agree and actually hypothesize that this failure inducement mechanism is not likely the same as the others, when my unintentional freeze(s) occurred it was with low CPU utilization and the fans were just beginning to ramp. Also, the cursor was still available and the fans ramped down following the event. With this induced mechanism the cursor was dead and the fans stayed pegged. But only a power cycle recovered either one.

One thing that I have noticed in my normal operating environment is that the temperature readings on CPU1/CPU2 increase fairly quickly. I've seen them hit mid 90's just as the fans start becoming audible. It's as if a background task went nuts for just a second and caused a local spike. The CPUA reading seems more stable. The fans go on and the temperature drops.

Fair enough, but what you describe is an extremely unlikely usage scenario. I've been encoding two videos simultaneously (one with Handbrake, one with iMovie) for well over an hour and didn't have any lockups. For me, that's good enough. I'd be more concerned with the other scenario(s) you've encountered, but I strongly suspect that, at least in the majority of cases, they're software/firmware related. We're on the first OS iteration that even supports these new computers so I'd expect, right or wrong, to see some growing pains. I'd just hate to see folks go through the hassle of swapping out multiple computers if the issue is indeed one that can be fixed with Software Update.

Yeah I'm not going to swap it out, as someone in the thread has already indicated that didn't fix the issue.

My current plan is to wait until the weekend passes to see if there is any news. If not, I'm going to return it for a full refund and wait for them to fix the problem.

I'm not sure Apple is going to be interested in hiring an industrial engineer who thinks he's solved the heat dissipation problem by using the display back as a radiator, but hasn't figured out how to get the heat TO the display back so it can be radiated from there.

Doing a multi-core/RAM preview in After Effects CS5 with my friends macbook pro 2010
made no fan noise what so ever. Mine peaks at 6200 rpm just for short 3-5 second RAM previews.
That is not normal in any sense.

I got tired of this...

Just got of the phone with Apple, they are shipping me a new one:

MBP 15.4
With following configurations:
PROCESSOR 2.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
MEMORY 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
HARD DRIVE 256GB Solid State Drive
DISPLAY MBP 15"HR Antiglare WS Display

I will get to keep my current macbook pro at home meanwhile,
and when the new one arrives, I will still have a new 14-day
return policy to lean back on. I doubt the new one will be any different
but at least then, I will most likely have ruled out any hardware issues.

Hoping for a firmware update soon, another friends MBP 2010 model had this issue aswell,
until apple released a firmware update, and the fans went dead silent.

/d