LCSterling
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Q: Have a 2010 27" recently purchased that gets very hot

2.93 GHz intel Core i7  - has 16GB RAM and a 2TB HD

 

Wondering if the RAM could be making it hot? Or the HD? Or the chip ...

 

http://bit.ly/1GMZB7H

 

thanks,

LS

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), intel quad core

Posted on May 14, 2015 3:51 PM

by Mike Sombrio,Solvedanswer
Mike Sombrio Mike Sombrio
Level 6 (17,283 points)
Apple Watch
A:

I would think that by running them at speeds that high ALLthe time would have to shorten their life. Depending on what you're doing at the time that screen shot was taken your temps don't *look* extremely high to me. Your GPU seems a bit high and so does the HDD but again it's totally dependent on what you're doing at the time. You could have some dust build up inside your iMac, you could have the beginnings of a hardware problem or more likely you don't have any trouble at all. I can't tell you if yours feels hotter than mine, mine gets plenty warm and I just let the fans run as they normally do. I also don't use my hard drive as a boot disc so mine will be cooler than yours. Your BEST OPTION is to make an appointment and take your iMac in for a free diagnostic. Tell them that you think it' stunning hot and let them take a look at it.

Posted on May 17, 2015 8:25 AM

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LCSterling

Q: Have a 2010 27" recently purchased that gets very hot

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  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 16, 2015 4:06 PM in response to Mike Sombrio
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    May 16, 2015 4:06 PM in response to Mike Sombrio

    Gotcha - and that's what this iMac sounded like for the first few weeks. The fan must have been running on high all the time.

     

    I bought iStat and have it running, but don't see how to track fan speed - can you please explain to me where that is? (Looked at their help ... but it didn't help)

     

    Do you also recommend replacing the HD? Happy to do it if it's better for the life of the machine.

  • by Mike Sombrio,

    Mike Sombrio Mike Sombrio May 16, 2015 6:09 PM in response to LCSterling
    Level 6 (17,283 points)
    Apple Watch
    May 16, 2015 6:09 PM in response to LCSterling

    Look at your screen shots. See where it says HDD 3300 rpm? That's the fan speed of the hard disk cooling fan. The other two speeds are for the CPU and optical drive fans.

  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 17, 2015 7:25 AM in response to Mike Sombrio
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 17, 2015 7:25 AM in response to Mike Sombrio

    O.k., got it.

     

    This is what it looks like then set to Default:

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 8.24.18 AM.png

  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 17, 2015 8:02 AM in response to LCSterling
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    May 17, 2015 8:02 AM in response to LCSterling

    (If I leave iStat set to Medium, am I in danger of burning out fans?)

  • by Mike Sombrio,Solvedanswer

    Mike Sombrio Mike Sombrio May 17, 2015 8:25 AM in response to LCSterling
    Level 6 (17,283 points)
    Apple Watch
    May 17, 2015 8:25 AM in response to LCSterling

    I would think that by running them at speeds that high ALLthe time would have to shorten their life. Depending on what you're doing at the time that screen shot was taken your temps don't *look* extremely high to me. Your GPU seems a bit high and so does the HDD but again it's totally dependent on what you're doing at the time. You could have some dust build up inside your iMac, you could have the beginnings of a hardware problem or more likely you don't have any trouble at all. I can't tell you if yours feels hotter than mine, mine gets plenty warm and I just let the fans run as they normally do. I also don't use my hard drive as a boot disc so mine will be cooler than yours. Your BEST OPTION is to make an appointment and take your iMac in for a free diagnostic. Tell them that you think it' stunning hot and let them take a look at it.

  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 17, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Mike Sombrio
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    May 17, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Mike Sombrio

    Thanks for all your help and follow-up. Thinking as well that I should at least visit the Apple Store.

     

    Actually took the earlier screen shot not long after waking the machine up. I don't shut it down every evening - I put it to sleep <OPT-CMD-EJECT>.

     

    And I don't do much - check and respond to e-mail, read the news online ... that's about it. Sometimes I run iTunes in the background. No gaming. No coding.

     

    I'm a writer and much of my client work is writing and maintaining content for Web sites. Which are nearly all WordPress sites.

     

    So here's what the temps are like now after an hour+ of this very limited activity:

     

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 9.37.32 AM.png

  • by Mike Sombrio,

    Mike Sombrio Mike Sombrio May 17, 2015 9:19 AM in response to LCSterling
    Level 6 (17,283 points)
    Apple Watch
    May 17, 2015 9:19 AM in response to LCSterling

    A couple things could be running a little high, especially with the fan speeds set higher. Take a look at Activity Monitor and see if there's a process running that's taking a lot or resources How to use Activity Monitor - Apple Support

  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 17, 2015 9:56 AM in response to Mike Sombrio
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    May 17, 2015 9:56 AM in response to Mike Sombrio

    Everything looks quite low ...

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 10.54.10 AM.png

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 10.54.24 AM.png

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 10.54.39 AM.png

     

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 10.55.20 AM.png

     

    Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 10.55.34 AM.png

  • by Mike Sombrio,

    Mike Sombrio Mike Sombrio May 17, 2015 1:08 PM in response to LCSterling
    Level 6 (17,283 points)
    Apple Watch
    May 17, 2015 1:08 PM in response to LCSterling

    I don't see anything either. I'd say it's time to make that appointment. Post back after you get it looked at and let us know what their determination was.

  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 17, 2015 1:19 PM in response to Mike Sombrio
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 17, 2015 1:19 PM in response to Mike Sombrio

    Thank you, will do.

     

    If it means replacing the HD, happy to do it. I actually don't even care about having 2TBs vs. 1TB.

     

    The 16GB of RAM is more meaningful, along with the Core i7. Our DSL service is "up to 40 Mbps" and on this iMac I'm getting close to 50.

     

    Really want to figure out why it gets so hot and fix it.

     

    LS

  • by LCSterling,

    LCSterling LCSterling May 18, 2015 10:34 AM in response to LCSterling
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    May 18, 2015 10:34 AM in response to LCSterling

    O.k., got an early (10:15) appt. at the Apple Store and got the full diagnostics plus in-depth "repair."

     

    The computer passed all tests and showed no malfunctions at all.

     

    The very knowledgeable guy helping me cleared out a number of un-used programs (I used "Migrate" to move all my files from my older iMac to this one) so that processes were not running in the background ... which could be a source of heat.

     

    He also ran some programs programs to fix or delete or reset "ACLs" (http://apple.co/1IHL022) in order to clear out any other unnecessary programs.

     

    I will try using iStat on Default again ... but if I feel the heat, which I often did, will turn the fans to "Medium" again.

     

    By the way, I learned why "Diagnostics" wasn't starting. He said that Apple is no longer supporting that program and the instructions were incorrect - online it says to restart and "hold D" to launch diagnostics. Turns out its restart and "hold CMD-D."

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