Safe Imac operating temperatures.

They all look perfectly normal.

tb, they are "normal", like Kappy said.

The CPU and the GPU are the hottest normally and they shut down the system when too hot.

When the CPU is above 90C you should be "worried" because it means it has probably a "runaway" process eating it completely, the fan will speed up and be audible, the system slows down perceptably.

You can start Activity Monitor, set <all processes> and click the %CPU column to see what processes use the CPU, any above 50% is a maneater and when consistently above 50% you better quit it in Activity Monitor and restart the iMac.

I said "worried", not worried. Do not worry, the Mac takes care of itself, CPU 1 or 2 or heatsink most of the time practically the same temp.

If you have for longer periods , say longer than half an hour, a very high CPU temp, then check what it is, like I said above. For now: you have a beautiful machine with very healthy temps!!

Lex

I have two machines from the same era as yours. In my view it's a design fault by Apple. I have been plagues with random crashes from my two 24" iMacs for a good 2-3 years now. I too thought it might be due to temperature issues. Despite having Applecare, I received no support on this issue from Apple.

A second model, I took to a reseller who performed all sorts of 'private' Apple diagnoistics on the machine and concluded it was a graphics chip issue and was beyond economic repair. Do you have a

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics subsystem? If so, then you're in the same boat.

Bad design. Bad performance.

This thread is almost dead already, perhaps you start a new thread.

A few years ago there was an issue with a certain Nvidia card, I do not remember exactly which one, I think it was in a certain MacBookPro model; they were exchanged in a recall as far as I remember.

If you have Apple Care they should exchange a faulty piece of hardware, or even replace the iMac completely, period.

You have to call Apple Genius and make it happen. Here in the forum are only users trying to help solve issues and answer questions.

Sure - I understand the point you're making.

The machine I took to the reseller was out of AppleCare.

Maybe I wasn't insistent enough with Applecare on the 'phone, after all, a crash can be caused by all sort of things and hardware is often way down the list. They suggested I created a new account and see if that crashed. Frankly, I didn't have time to stop using my iMac productively to muck about trying things.

When both machines went the same way, I was suspicious. To hear of someone else in the same boat makes me think I was on to something and not going mad. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple have stats on these failures which could well point to a design failure.

I'm bitter as I lost a lot of time on the whole issue - faithfully filling in crash reports etc and when I called up for support I was fobbed off. Next time I will just unplug the lot and take it to the Genius bar!

I'm not looking for support now though, I'm just *******' 🙂

Oh, OK, looks like I got censored - my last word should be "complaining" 🙂

I understand 😉

Have you changed your name? Are you neverfunctional?

Click Apple Icon, then "About this Mac", then "More Info", there you can see the Graphics Card, click "System Report" and you can see more info under "Graphics/Displays".

Sorry, yes I am. I got caught out with the MobilMe/iCloud/iTunes multiple personality thang...

Yes, I have one of "NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS" these in my system(s)

As far as I know there is/was never anything wrong generally with the Nvidia gforce 8800gs in general.

And there was nothing wrong to see in the iMac of tbdesign when the "temperatures" question was asked.

Is there any specific issue that you want to discuss?

LexSchellings wrote:

As far as I know there is/was never anything wrong generally with the Nvidia gforce 8800gs in general.

And there was nothing wrong to see in the iMac of tbdesign when the "temperatures" question was asked.

Is there any specific issue that you want to discuss?

Ths is well known. Lots of hits. Here's one in particular,

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1085213

Hello guys.

It got quite hot these days and my readings show more than 60 (Celsius) for both GPU and Power supply while just watching a movie.

When I leave the system alone graphics readings go "down" to 52-55 but PS still on 62. Ambient is 27-28.

Should I be worried? How do I know it's time to rather shut down. Where can I see when the system would do so?

The case is very hot when touching it. Got an iMac 2011 27" i5.

Thanks!

Scroll through these threads to see my various posts on temps, smcFan Control etc. You can also run a fan at the back of the computer, which will help cool things down. That said, if the ambient temp is very hot, no amount of blowing hot air around is going to help.

You should also post all the temps. The ones you've given don't look that bad. "Just watching a movie"--
a movie is very graphics and CPU intensive. You should expect the temps to go higher.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3617828?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3219643?start=0&tstart=0