Updated to 10.4.8 and the MBP is extremely hot!

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Level 3

805 points

Updated to 10.4.8 and the MBP is extremely hot!

OK, I bet there's a billion threads about heat around, and I've tried to search for my problem, but has not been successful with it.

So here goes:

I updated to 10.4.8 (from 10.4.7) and as always when I install anything I always run Repair permissions both prior to the install and after the install. So nothing really different from what I normally do and done since I started with 10.0.0.

I notice a HUGE increase in heat since the upgrade from 10.4.7 to the new 10.4.8. It's so major that my whole computer feels like the hot area near the F-keys and if I sit and work more than 10 minutes sweat are pouring down. After one of the updates (I forgot if it was .5 or .6 the temp dropped together with the firmware upgrade and the computer was wondeful to work with), but now it's worse than ever!

Anyone else noticing this?? I mean it's a huge temperature difference and the fans only kick in when I run some major stuff in Photoshop (which I run a lot) - but I never notice that the computer is any cooler thanks to the fans. And even in almost "idle mode" when browsing the web or no other applications running at all but Mail.app and Safari, the machine is still toasty hot.

Ideas or fixes for this problem?

TIA!

MacBook Pro 1.83 - 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 15, 2006 12:19 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 15, 2006 12:46 PM in response to Petra Hall

Petra, I'm sure that the heat you are experiencing isn't due to OS 10.4.8 itself.

Obviously, your CPUs and perhaps your graphics processor are working hard, and that results in heat.

Your computer should not be that hot at idle, and probably not even when you are doing Photoshop work.

I use a preference pane called MenuMeters (Google it). This places a continuous display of CPU core usage and memory usage in my menu bar. If there's heavy CPU activity when the computer is idle, I suspect a runaway process or perhaps a stalled application. Activity Monitor (set to display all processes) can identify the offending process and allow it to be quit.

There's lots of discussion on the forum recently about a little utility that allows one to set the minimum fan speeds to a level that results in cooling the case. But even if you decide to use that, you should clear up any problem with continuous CPU demand at idle.

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Answer 2

Petra Hall Author

Level 3

805 points

Oct 15, 2006 1:00 PM in response to Bill DeVille

Hi Bill,

Thanks for replying to me so quickly.

However, I do suspect 10.4.8 alone, as that's the only thing that's different since I notice the change in temperature a week or so ago. This whole summer season I've been running Adobe's Camera Raw with Photoshop CS2 and sure, the computer do get hot, but was never this hot running 10.4.6 and 104.7. This is extreme, as now I don't have to work with that many images anymore (the wedding season is over), and just browsing the web (even after a rebooted machine) the computer is much hotter than before the upgrade.

I'm now trying out the smcFanControl that I found in one of the threads here, just to get the heat down for a while. But I don't know what the perfect setting is for it, when I'm running my applications normally. The last 15 or so minutes I've run it at 3500 rpm, just to cool the machine down, but I'm sure there's a better "normal" setting for a constant cooling instead of this huge increase I'm using now.

Would love to hear some suggestions on a good setting.

MacBook Pro 1.83 - 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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Answer 3

Oct 15, 2006 1:26 PM in response to Petra Hall

Hi, Petra. I disagree that 10.4.8 was the cause of your observed higher operating temperatures. I've seen no temperature increase. And some have reported cooler operation under 10.4.8. 🙂

But there are lots of other things that can and do increase operating temperatures. And coincidences do happen.

Now that you can adjust fan speeds you can simply experiment. Although fans will generally have a pretty long life, they will obviously wear out much sooner (and be noisy) if run at the 6000 rpm maximum speed. You might play with settings between 2000 to 3000 for minimum speed.

But first check the temperature at idle, and examine the processor activity. At idle, you will see continual fluctuations of CPU usage but the total combined activity of both cores should average 5% or less. If CPU activity is significantly higher than that (and Spotlight isn't indexing), you should investigate the cause, as something may be robbing your computer resources. If that's happening, those resources won't be available for your Photoshop or other useful work.

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Answer 4

Petra Hall Author

Level 3

805 points

Oct 15, 2006 1:48 PM in response to Bill DeVille

Bill,

Thanks for your reply (once again!) 🙂

I'll play around with the settings in the smcFanControl. Turned down both fans to 1500 rpm now, although Fan #2 is still trottling at around 3300-3400 rpm, even with the new setting.

I'm also checking the Activity control that comes with Mac OS X and in idle (or actually while I type this). The list of processes are as follows:

Photoshop approx 5% (it fluxuate between 4.5-5%)
Word approx 3.5%
Safari approx 2-3%
Activity control approx 1.5%
GoLive 1.3%

Then the rest of the list is under 1%

However, and this is interesting, Safari is using a lot of RAM while typing this, 459.25 MB (while Photoshop is at 275 MB while idle anad iWeb at almost 300 MB while idle).

Could this (i.e. RAM) be the problem ,as the processor use is not very high at all, there's no visual peaks really to speak of and there seem to be about 90-95% that's idle? As my profile states I have 2 GB of RAM (and about 7GB free on my drive - and my guess is that the VM is taking up a few GB's right now as it was a while ago I rebooted [actually about 3 days ago]).

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Answer 5

Oct 15, 2006 3:27 PM in response to Petra Hall

Hi, Petra:

You appear to be a bit light on free disk space (although 7 GB isn't critically low), especially if you process large images with Photoshop. Restarting once in a while does clear the Virtual Memory swap files. You might want to run one of the maintenance utilities such as OnyX, Cocktail, TinkerTool System, etc. that can clean out old cache and log files. Heavy use of Virtual Memory slows down CPU-intensive processes, as data is constantly being written to and read from the hard drive.

If you work in Photoshop with large images, using layers, effects, plugins etc. even 2 GB RAM isn't enough to avoid using Virtual Memory. You will find that closing all other applications and restarting occasionally will help keep Photoshop running as quickly as possible. When Adobe finally releases a Universal Binary version, you will find that Photoshop will run more quickly and require less memory.

I use Hardware Monitor (Google it) to check CPU temperature. There's both a free and shareware version.

As it's October in Sweden, I doubt that you are working in a high ambient temperature (unless you use your computer in a sauna). When Winter comes, you may appreciate a warm MacBook Pro. 🙂

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Answer 6

Petra Hall Author

Level 3

805 points

Oct 15, 2006 3:52 PM in response to Bill DeVille

Hi again,

I'm snickering a bit, as it's only you and me here... we could very well talk privately... 🙂

Anyway, yeah I know I'm strained for harddisk space, and I will get rid of a few weddings soon, when they are back from the lab and can go into storage. It's a curse with only 120 GB disk in a laptop, even if I have backups on external drives, I prefer to work on the images locally. I don't work much with layers etc, as I try to get most of things right in the camera, but yeah it does happen sometimes that there's a few adjustment layers in my files.

I was a bit stressed this summer when I had even smaller harddisk space (my machine came with the 80 GB drive, that I replaced for the 120 GB and put the 80 GB in an external SATA 2.5" enclosure). If the machine had been this hot, I wouldn't been able to work at all, as we had extremely hot weather for months. So in a way it's a blessing I have this heat problem now, in october (and no, I don't normally work in a sauna). 🙂

The available 7 GB is with the VM being used, as Photoshop usually takes up 3 GB or so. After a reboot I have a bit over 10 GB.

I do own Cocktail, but last I looked it had no Intel support, so I might have to look at some other maintenance software until Cocktail is updated (unless it was released recently as Universal and I can use it again). I kind of like to support a Swedish software author, even if I know there's other applications like OnyX or Tinker Tool.

I guess a trip into Versiontracker should be a good idea right now, to see what I can dig up. 🙂

Thanks for your help and if you ever want to help a blonde (yeah I am!) Swede, you can always reach me on AIM - username CyberPetraH.

Even if I don't feel my problem is totally resolved, I'm going to mark this as question answered, as you've been very helpful.

Thank you!
Petra

MacBook Pro 1.83 - 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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Answer 7

Oct 15, 2006 7:13 PM in response to Petra Hall

Petra,

I installed smcFanControl earlier this weekend and found a target RPM of 1800 with temperature barriers of 45c/75c works very well; I can barely tell the difference in fan noise, and the casing is much, much cooler, with the cores averaging 50c on relatively heavy use (Safari, wireless, bluetooth, Eclipse IDE, Mail, Oracle DB server, etc., open at once and being used).

Regards,
Ray

MacBook Pro 2.0GHz/2GB/100GB 7200 RPM Mac OS X (10.4.8) Powerbook G4/1GHz/1GB/100 GB 7200 RPM, iBook G3/600MHz/640MB/70GB 7200 RPM

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