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Is it normal for my Mac to get hot while playing games?

I like to play games on my relatively new MacBook Air such as the Sims 4.


When I play it for around 20-30 minutes, it'll start to get hot in the top left corner of my laptop keyboard, and the keyboard will start and it'll go for a few minutes, the computer will cool down and it'll stop for a bit depending on what I'm playing and/or doing in the game.


The battery also goes down relatively quick.


I mostly play it sitting at my desk because I know I shouldn't play it on a soft surface.


Is it safe for my to be playing this on my Mac? Is there any signs that might mean it's defective or broken? Is there any way I can prevent this?


Is it just the MacBook Pro, or does the MacBook Air also shut down when it reaches a temperature that's unsafe?


Please help, super worried!

MacBook Air, iOS 11.2.6, 2017 MacBook Air

Posted on Mar 2, 2018 2:19 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Mar 19, 2018 2:02 PM

Most Macs has a really bad thermal design. It's normal for it to get hot by doing anything more intensive than browsing Facebook. If they get too hot they will thermal throttle, which means they will lower the performance to prevent damage from overheating.


This is how it looks like inside my own Macbook Air 11". You can see the tiny little fan at the bottom left corner. It blows the hot air out the back of the computer, and it pulls cold air in from.... wherever it finds it's way in. I can't really find any reasonably engineered air intake in this computer. I decided to put on Noctua NT-H1 which is one of the best thermal pastes out there.

User uploaded file

Also, the green stuff is conformal coating that I did to prevent water damage. This computer was water damaged when I bought it, which is why I got it cheap. I have fixed it and it's now fully working. I don't recommend opening up your Mac if it's under warranty.


What you may want to consider is a laptop chiller, which is basically a bunch of fans blowing at the underside of the computer. It may help a little bit.

User uploaded file

3 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 19, 2018 2:02 PM in response to morganmc22

Most Macs has a really bad thermal design. It's normal for it to get hot by doing anything more intensive than browsing Facebook. If they get too hot they will thermal throttle, which means they will lower the performance to prevent damage from overheating.


This is how it looks like inside my own Macbook Air 11". You can see the tiny little fan at the bottom left corner. It blows the hot air out the back of the computer, and it pulls cold air in from.... wherever it finds it's way in. I can't really find any reasonably engineered air intake in this computer. I decided to put on Noctua NT-H1 which is one of the best thermal pastes out there.

User uploaded file

Also, the green stuff is conformal coating that I did to prevent water damage. This computer was water damaged when I bought it, which is why I got it cheap. I have fixed it and it's now fully working. I don't recommend opening up your Mac if it's under warranty.


What you may want to consider is a laptop chiller, which is basically a bunch of fans blowing at the underside of the computer. It may help a little bit.

User uploaded file

Is it normal for my Mac to get hot while playing games?

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