Cooling Theory

Not going to get into a lengthy discussion.

If you want a cooler machine

1: Open the machine up and remove the fans, but you shouldn't have to disconnect the cable, clean the cooling fins, fan floor and blades of dust.

Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's

2: Use the machine in a cold air conditioned environment, the cold air will be drawn through the machine cooling it a whole lot better than a external contraptions.

3: Yes, get a tower for heavy workloads, that's what they are designed for, also the dust is easier to clean out of them.

A while back in another post the originator was a an engineer and I posed to him the question of placing the MBP on some thick aluminum plates and what affect it would have on the cooling process (which I have done). His answer was that any massive heat sink would be of benefit.

Anyone who says that the aluminum body of the MBP does not contribute to the cooling process simply does not understand the laws of physics.

My observation has been that the room temperature has an affect on the operating temperature of a MBP. A cool air conditioned environment will be beneficial. If necessary and you have the component materials, I suggest a large aluminum plate larger that the MBP, 3/8" thick or more resting on an ice pack. That should help mitigate your heat problems/

I would be interested to know what temperature levels you are experiencing?

Ciao.

Apple has maintained the case bottom is part of the heat disipation system since the first Al-cased portables came out. Just how effective it is remains hard to pin down.

I agree with ds store on using a desktop model for heavy lifting. I doubt any current portable, regardless of who made it, is designed for heavy-duty heat disapation. The sizes of fans and air paths are sacrificed at the Alter of Compactness and Portability. Desktop computers have massive fans and plenty of room inside.

You can have some peace of mind because your computer has buit-in thermal protection. It will shut down before the internal temps reach the point where the computer innards fry. However, the shut-down will cost you your unsaved work.

The only thing I can add to ds store's recommendations is to check for any runaway background processes that could be using processor cycles and runing up the temps.

Here is the Apple articel on how to check:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1473

NOTE: It's not included in the article but the only way to get the test to show the real culprits is to use the computer normally for several hours and do the check WITHOUT a restart. If you restart, all processes start over and any troublesome ones won't show up for a while.

Michael Marks wrote:

...I have installed smcFan control and run that aggressively, I have an elevated aluminum cooling stand with three built-in fans blowing at the rear base of the laptop and I have astrong external fan parked right behind it blowing a whole bunch of air across the entire thing...

If any of the air being blown by all those fans is aimed at the back edge where the hinge is on the MBP, it may be interfering with the internal fan's air transfer inside the computer. It's my understanding that both air intake and exhaust occur through that hinged area on the MBP (but not the rMBP).

And, FWIW, my Mac Pro can heat the room it's in in winter all by itself when it's working hard. A lot of heat is generated with heavy use and there's a much more restrictive limit on what a laptop can do about it.

...Affixing something like a desktop-style liquid-cooling waterblock or some other way to press a perpetually cold object against the rear underside of the MBP seems logical to me...

Would that run any risk of internal condensation if the cooling system got way ahead of the MBP heating up or the MBP was idling for a while?

I am doing some hefty 3D rendering for a video project and heat is a real problem.

First off anything 3D is heavily graphics processor/video card intensive, so if your using a 13" MBP, it doesn't have the more powerful dedicated graphics processor, the CPU is doing it all using the Intel HD graphics.

If your using a 15"-17" then it does have a extra graphics for 3D, however it's a laptop model and thus throttled in performance so the heat doesn't get so bad that the cooling system (little as it is) can keep up.

You didn't give a specific model of your machine, but looking here you can see it's no match for a tower

http://www.cbscores.com/index.php?sort=ogl&order=desc

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Fat Mac wrote:

And, FWIW, my Mac Pro can heat the room it's in in winter all by itself when it's working hard.

Brigns back memories. Before retiring I had a G4 MDD running Adobe CS, an older PowerMac, plus an Windows tower--all with big CRT monitors. The office was about 15x17 feet and, even during Idaho winters, I didn't need much extra heat to stay comfy at work.

Thank you for your service.

My nephew did a tour in Iraq and, even though he was "in the rear with the gear" much of the time, his computer was a sandy mess when he got home.

Glad you are safe.