Macbook Pro Retina heat issues?

This is after 3 minutes of watching a youtube video which by the way ate 2% of battery (no external monitor)

Watching DVD 5 minutes used 4% battery (no external monitor)

Group,

I have been following this thread since the Retina Macbook Pro was released.

Besides a Macbook Pro 13, I own a Lenovo Think Pad W520. I am not aware of the battery size difference between a regular Macbook Pro and a Retina version, but what I have been hearing is similiar to my experience with my gigantic ThinkPad which has the optional really high res screen. The power consumption is absurd.

The W520 was not designed to support such a high resolution display on battery power. The regular resolution W520 I use for work does wonderful. Battery lasts forever. She runs really cool and all is well in the world. Slap a high-res display onto a laptop which has a power system designed for a different display type, and all bets are off, don't forget your giant power brick.

I am very happy with my regular old-school 2012 Macbook Pro 13". She runs like a champ and I love the dedicated Ethernet, and firewire ports. Since everything works better when it is native.

Plus wired ethernet in a hotel will always run faster than crappy hotel wifi.

Thank you for your time

Matthew Sievert

Idle with an external monitor and internal monitor off.

A couple minutes of a single youtube video in the latest version of fire fox with latest flash plugin. External monitor with internal monitor disabled. Computer is noticeably warm to the touch.

Hi Alex

As already often mentioned here, I have the same problem.

My MBPR 15" is "Mid 2012", what ist yours?

Please may I ask everyone with the same problem to reply to this question?

Thanks to all in advance,

Roland

alexpadden wrote:

For any of you that have the new Macbook Pro with Retina Display, are you guys feeling excessive heat along the keyboard and on the aluminum directly under the screen? Just wondering, because I am. Let me know. Thanks!

My MBP 15" Mid 2012 is also very hot - most of the time.

Running about half an hour: Safari, Mail, Terminal, Spotify, Skype, Filezilla, iTunes (not playing), Outlook 2011, Team Viewer, Acrobat (with dedicated GPU).

Temperature Gauge: 71 Degree Celsius CPU Average

And this whilst the MBP is nearly making nothing. During the Summer i get close to the 100 Degree (Celsius).

My warranty ends next month, so i pay for an apple care i think. I also have two dead pixels since february, so it anyway walks soon to an apple store...

There must be a compete series of MBPR 15 with NVIDIA 650 GPU having a problem on the logic board. I gave mine back to Apple to fix this.

I had the possibility to test this with other Mid 2012 MBPR 15" - same configuration than my own - and I can 100% confirm, that some of them do NOT have this problem and e.g. doing heavy video edit with FCPX, temperature remains at 40-50 °C.

Doing the same editing with my own, temperatur of CPU jumps up to 100 °C within one minute.

A quick workaround: Go to http://gfx.io, install gfxCardStatus and disable the use of GPU. This will not 100% solve the problem, but temperature remains at 70-80 °C and HD 4000 is fast enough for most applications even FCPX and Aperture. Of course, this is only a workaround and not a solution.

If you want the problem solved and your MBPR working as expected: Give it back to Apple. This is what I hardly recommend to everybody having the same problem.

On MBPR Mid 2012 working normal, the temperatures shown below have been max. 60 °C with (!!!) GPU active.

This is what my MBPR 15 (I gave back to Apple) was showing with GPU activated:

This with GPU deactivated by gfxCardStatus:

peste76 wrote:

My MBP 15" Mid 2012 is also very hot - most of the time.

Running about half an hour: Safari, Mail, Terminal, Spotify, Skype, Filezilla, iTunes (not playing), Outlook 2011, Team Viewer, Acrobat (with dedicated GPU).

Temperature Gauge: 71 Degree Celsius CPU Average

And this whilst the MBP is nearly making nothing. During the Summer i get close to the 100 Degree (Celsius).

My warranty ends next month, so i pay for an apple care i think. I also have two dead pixels since february, so it anyway walks soon to an apple store...

Beeblebrox64 wrote:

Hi Alex

As already often mentioned here, I have the same problem.

My MBPR 15" is "Mid 2012", what ist yours?

Please may I ask everyone with the same problem to reply to this question?

Thanks to all in advance,

Roland

alexpadden wrote:

For any of you that have the new Macbook Pro with Retina Display, are you guys feeling excessive heat along the keyboard and on the aluminum directly under the screen? Just wondering, because I am. Let me know. Thanks!

Late 2012 MBP 15" Retina . Same exact problem as reported by these most recent posters like yours bad performance, absurd temperatures while not fully loaded, impossible to use FCX effectively. My only difference didn't matter if I was on the GPU or not.

I can't believe how poor the product quality is and that it spans multiple runs of the same product (i.e. mid and late).

Ouch, this sounds bad. Looks like Apple made a lot of money by selling expensive trash.

It's so weird, I have been testing MBPR 15" with almost similar config, not having the heat problem, example below.

Both Mid 2012:

My heat problem ones config:

• 2.7 GHz CPU
• NVIDIA
• 16 GB RAM
• 768 GB SSD

Not having heat problem config:

• 2.3 GHz CPU
• NVIDIA
• 16 GB RAM
• 256 GB SSD

Hard to believe, but it's probably the 2.7 GHz CPU indicating the problem.

@brsm1990 and all others having the heat problem: do you also have the 2.7 GHz CPU?

Late 2012 MBP 15" Retina . Same exact problem as reported by these most recent posters like yours bad performance, absurd temperatures while not fully loaded, impossible to use FCX effectively. My only difference didn't matter if I was on the GPU or not.

I can't believe how poor the product quality is and that it spans multiple runs of the same product (i.e. mid and late).

No it´s not. I´m having heavy heat problems and got the i7 with 2.3 GHz but....but with Mavericks is a lot better!

I have the 2.3 GHz also. I am still having horrific heat problems. It's on the third logic board.

I saw Apple deleted your other thread which really belongs up here. Allow me to bring it back to life.

Beeblebrox64 wrote:

peste76, thanks for reply.

The MBPR 15 I could use to compare is a 2.3 GHz with Mavericks, 16 GB RAM and NVIDIA 650 GT. It remained 50-60 °C cool.

But Mavericks didn't help on 2.7 GHz CPUs with Turbo Boost mode. 1 Minute working with FCPX and CPU is 103 °C hot, activity monitor showing only 15-25 % CPU usage.

The Mid and Late 2012 MBPR 15 with 2.7 GHz CPU are all faulty by design, you can not use it. 😟

Does anyone also has problems to give the computer back to Apple? I do so (in Switzerland). And I am thinking about...

[edited out because I think this is the part that scared the slime balls at Apple into deleting it]

For any reply many thanks in advance!

@jkd22: Thanks! 🙂 Hehehe, and I learned a new English saying: slime balls. I really like it. FYC: I am not a native English speaker, mother language ist German.

I bought a year ago this disastrous MBPR with all extensions, 16 GB RAM, 768 GB SSD, NVIDIA and 2.7 GHz Turbo Boost CPU, expecting I will get a fast computer and was willing to pay CHF 4007.-- for it. The first time I was complaining, was about a week after unboxing it, now it's the third time back to Apple and I could yet not really use it. 😟

Instead of excuses and a spare device, they currently try to assure me, that this is normal... Hello? My MBA 13" Mid 2011 with 4 GB RAM and only HD 4000 graphics is faster - and was much cheaper...

jkd22 wrote:

I have the 2.3 GHz also. I am still having horrific heat problems. It's on the third logic board.

I saw Apple deleted your other thread which really belongs up here. Allow me to bring it back to life.

Beeblebrox64 wrote:

peste76, thanks for reply.

The MBPR 15 I could use to compare is a 2.3 GHz with Mavericks, 16 GB RAM and NVIDIA 650 GT. It remained 50-60 °C cool.

But Mavericks didn't help on 2.7 GHz CPUs with Turbo Boost mode. 1 Minute working with FCPX and CPU is 103 °C hot, activity monitor showing only 15-25 % CPU usage.

The Mid and Late 2012 MBPR 15 with 2.7 GHz CPU are all faulty by design, you can not use it. 😟

Does anyone also has problems to give the computer back to Apple? I do so (in Switzerland). And I am thinking about...

[edited out because I think this is the part that scared the slime balls at Apple into deleting it]

For any reply many thanks in advance!

Hi Shen23

It does not power off completely. It just slows down that Turbo Boost CPU with 2.7 GHz can cool down. The more I investigate, the more I think the Turbo Boost CPU is the root of all evil.

Please see also: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4029639?answerId=23914886022#23914886022 and a little bit above the temperatures of mine after 2 minutes of work with FCPX: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4029639?answerId=23815590022#23815590022

CU

Shen23 wrote:

Just a general question - is the macbook turning itself off or you are doing it in fear of it overheating?

I know that it powers itself off when the processor heat is 'beyond spec' - 100-105 C I think - but that would make me think that is the 'last resort' option - and whilst it may prevent further damage, it certainly doesn't bode well for the processors when it gets that extreme, longevity and all. I have never had it power itself off. Generally speaking, even under most extreme games, my GPUs get to around 70-75 C.

I think the smaller macbook pro would be worse for heat, because two reasons: It does not have a seperate GPU like the 15 inch do (Nvidia 1 gig on mine + integrated gpu) - so more burden would be put on the processors and integrated GPU. Also, it's a smaller case, less room for hot air, therefore heating up more.

Like you said, I dropped 2k so I expect it to do quite a few things and still last. I'm developing Apps and programming , along with graphic design. It does that stuff no problem. But occasionally, I like to take a break - use Bootcamp and start in Windows to play a game (Hence the reason I got the version with 1gig NVIDIA GPU). Bootcamp is an official mac product from my understanding. My only concern is that when I play pretty much any game on Steam - in Windows- it will spin the heatsink fans more (which is obv. a good thing) and GPUs heat up to 75 C.

From my understanding, it's OK... Just a little worrisome, 2k ain't cheap! I'd be a bit nervous if the GPU's got above 80 for prolong periods of time.

And also - if you are playing an intensive game or program - I woud make sure the power plug is in to keep power from being drained from battery completely , again, just to be safe. As well as a flat surface so heat doesn't get trapped (I have a laptop 'tray' thingy I got off amazon , around 20-30 bux).

One thing I might suggest is everybody with the heat issue file a bbb.org complaint against Apple. I don't know if it will let you do it when you're outside of the states but if it won't just use a friend's US address and pretend like you are in the US. It doesn't mattery, Apple's warranty is worldwide. You could buy in europe and get service in the US or vice versa. Just go to http://www.BBB.org and file it against the headquarters at 1 infinite loop in cupertino, CA. Let's make some noise about this that cannot be ignored. If enough people put in a complaint and Apple continues to ignore BBB.org will independently give them a unsatisfactory rating.

First of, i drive tomorrow to an Apple Partner to change my Display (should take 2 days or so) - to get rid of my 7 ⚠ dead pixels...the heat is not the most important for me, but i let it check them too.

You should be worried about the heat too. Excessive heat destroys stuff and/or shortens the life span!