Macbook pro 15 inch (late 2013) gaming and overheating issues

Tobin,

I changed my macbook already 4 times... if they telling you that they going to change the motherboard that means they are going to give you a brand new macbook.. I had the same problems.. even blew up my graphic card so the only thing I had left where stripes on my screen. The last time I went back and made a big fuss at the Apple store they offered me a 17% discount just to calm me down 😝 " Thank you Apple "

And about the Fan controller... if I let my computer run without istats or what kind of fan controller my computer will get to warm.. even when I use Photoshop it's overheating or when I watch a movie I have that problem.. it's not a sensor problem it's a software problem

Even if my fans break down I think it's more easy for Apple to replace a fan rather than a new mainboard, but I also expect you have apple care plan for in case your retina breaks down or something else?

i don't know which country you comming from... but here in Hong Kong the service is awesome. When i go stand on my stripes they change it for me at the spot without any problem...

and about your future new macbook .. you will have the same problems.. you need to install that plugin i showed in my previous posts and i promise you that the problems are solved.. the main problem is that the fans don't wanna turn on ... so it's a software problem and not a hardware problem .... don't let apple fool you buddy and please don't get frustrated...

http://www.crystalidea.com/products?ref=fancontrol_mac

install this app please and monitor your temp and adjust your fans with this software or you download istats menu gives you even more details about your temp and other sensors.

Hi again Tristan,

What settings did you use for Macs Fan Control. It tends to ramp up the fans for 2 seconds and then down again. I understand how this works but the temperatures I have are commonly above 80C. Below are my settings:

I reside in Malta a little island in the Mediterranean. Thanks for the settings. I've set them as you suggested I'll monitor it. The only thing is it will keep the fans going constantly higher as my temperatures are rarely below 70. Check my log from iStat:

It's great that everyone is going on about how poor the CPU/GPU rate of cooling but no one has stated the ambient temperature of the enviroment there using the machine. A heat sink and fan cant cool a body below the ambient temperature.

For example; You live in spain and the ambient temperature is 36 Degrees C then your machine will reach 90 Degrees faster on a small load ie running itunes, than compaired to someone living in England with an ambient temperature of 10 degrees C is avarage and you can run a far greater load before your machine reaches 90 degrees C.

I've managed to solve my problem with running Mac fan control and set the fans to increse at 50 degrees C and max fan speed at 68 degrees C and I've been able to run a game few games at max for no problem.

I'd also like to point out that it seems the default settings for the fans are 2144 RPM at a normal temp of 35 Degrees C Fans will increase at 70 degrees C and Max fan speed at 85ish degress C at 6000 RPM.

Check my thread below. I have the same issue and seems it hasn't changed since the new macbook retina was released. I would return it if you still have the warranty.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5224148

Just came across this topic, and Lukaspechar, I fully agree.

There are other topics where the same issue is discussed:

Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro Heat Issues when Gaming

MacBook Retina 15" late-2013 Heat (my post here)

With this topic included I think it's safe to say these aren't just incidents but a design flaw for this rMBP model. It seems Apple underestimated the combined heath of the Intel CPU and the GT750m. So that makes me wonder whether any repairs done by Apple would help. That is, until they made a new board revision or some other kind of hardware changes. Nevertheless, if anyone gives the Apple Support route a try please post here about your experiences, whether they swap the board etc. (and ofcourse whether this helped solve the heating problem).

I haven't checked the fan speeds during gaming, but judging from the noise it sounds like it's already ramped up to max. I'll give the fan control application a try though.

I do not think this is a rMBP hardware issue. I believe there to be a problem with the firmware as I don't see this heating issue with other Macs.

Please review my post here. The action listed in my post fixes the problem although it does reoccur after a day or two. I have reported this to AppleCare. Not sure if there will be a software fix in the future.

If you got burned by your MacBook Pro then something is wrong. You should contact Apple about it. They are always concerned with the safety of their customers.

Contact Apple using www.apple.com/support/contact if you are in a country that supports it or call the appropriate phone number on this page. Alternatively carry the MacBook Pro in to an Apple retail store or service provider.

Best of luck.

I pulled the trigger on a baseline (Haswell 2.0GHz, 8GB, 256 GB) 15 inch rMBP. I am a designer and front end developer so that meant some Photoshop, Illustrator, Webstorm, Sublime Text and xCode. Nothing that demanding that such machine can't handle.

The moment I started downloading, installing and setting up my machine I began noticing that it was getting ridiculously hot! I mean my old 2011 i5 MacBook Pro 13 never managed to get this hot and it was raped on a daily basis.

The fans were not kicking in though, so I thought "Well... that might be by design.". For a good measure though I was glancing at the temperatures every now and than and simple browsing, reading or watching video would bake the machine into the upper 70s.

If this was the case the machine would be ABSOLUTELY USELESS!

So I did some research and I *think* I found a solution that (kind of) works for me.

Here it is:

1. Get Chrome out of your workflow... It's doing unimaginable things to CPU and heats it like a mo#herf%cker. Simply launching Chrome and opening Digg for example rapidly increases the temperatures to 60-70. It's unbearable for me as a front end developer not to use Chrome but... I only launch it for testing things now. I found that Firefox is behaving pretty well.
2. Download http://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control. Set it up so the fans kick in earlier. Use data from the CPU Core sensor.

As I am writing this with a few tabs open I'm getting temperatures in the higher 30s (35-38 degrees) with some occasional 40-something spikes. Ambient temperature is around 25 degrees so I can't imagine what it would be if those get higher up :/

So... I really think Apple absolutely failed to understand how a PRO machine is used. They ripped out every possibility of upgradability, slimmed down the machine to a laughingly inefficient (for cooling) form factor and then for the sake of 'silence' purposefully decided to keep the fans operating at dangerously low speeds while people's fingers were getting burnt like hot-dogs. It's unfair, it's sad and it's a total rip-off to charge MacBook Pro money for a glorified Air.

Anyways I'll have to learn to live with it the next few months, I really hope they learned their lesson and Broadwells would get proper attention and tweaks!

Hi,

I've recently bought a macbook with the same configuration as yours.

I'm an iOS developer so mostly I've been using XCode, and after working a few hours, I can not type as my keyboard gets so hot, expecially the left side. My hands are small and thin and my fingers get touched the metalic area of the keyboard and it burns my fingers, If I don't move my hand on the keyboard for a while, I feel some pain in my fingers, this pain feels like pinprick...

I am not sure only my mahcine has the problem or this is a general problem but We will see soon.

Hi i have the same problem.

I ran some tests and did some research. It turns out that this problem is both software and hardware related.

On youtube there are developers who are already manufacturing a bottom case lid for the macbook pro,providing a better air flow and reduces the temperature slightly also many customers are complaining that the new OS Mavericks heats up the computers a few degrees than normal (noticable but not vast).

As a gamer a 2GB graphics card should work on most games with the settings set to medium at 1080p. The mac book display is much higher and the graphics card finds it difficult to render some games on the 2800p, so when you start a game set the settings to a appropriate degree for a more smooth performance.

The first test i did was play a browser game. The first time was very hot, i did some research and reseted the SMC or somthin, then i tried it again and it was ok, not that much heat.

Then i played Skyrim on the mac book but i could not change the settings so it was at 2800p, the laptop was soo hot it reached 150 degrees, from a typical temperature the fans made a noisier sound than the speakers. i think that the problem is somewhere in the process of knowing when to switch the built in Iris graphics with the dedicated graphics when running a game.

I had a previous laptop which overheated and burned my fingers at very high temperatures when running games.

If this problem persists then take it back to the apple store as soon as possible also contact the team about this problem.

Lastly i think that for a price of £2.2k there should not be any problems with this laptop watsoever.

Same here happening here. My MacBook Pro, same specs as you, heats up for very general use. I can be browsing the web on low-light settings and the keyboard gets so hot that I can barely touch it. I hope a solution will be figured out soon.

I have the same issue,

whatever i just playing music, or playing games, or serving intering,

my Macbook pro just keeping hot and hot,

when i playing LOL,

the CPU even up to 91℃

and finally i need to install iStat menu to keep checking the temperature, and control the fan speed manually,

i really hope this can be improve or fix soon !

Question : does your machine gets hot when you're not plugged in to AC power ?

I would test that since the CPU doesn't run at full capacity when you're on battery power. This will help pinpoint the issue to the CPU or another peripheral.