Macbook Pro is getting hot directly.

Hi,


I have an issue with my Macbook Pro. After startup the macbook is getting directly hot to 95 degrees average.

Because the macbook is from 2011 i did change the FAN for pre-caution this week.

I use the laptop on a flat surface and never had this problems with my macbook that it is getting this hot.

I tried already the SMC reset before i did change the fan but this did nothing.

In the background the SMC fan control is running to keep an eye on the temperature and fan speed.

There are no programs running except finder. Maybe there are some processes running which cause this problems directly after startup.


Here are the specs:

Mac OS Sierra

Version 10.12.6 (16G29)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)

Processor 2,8 GHz Intel Core i7

RAM Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Video card Intel HD-video 3000 512 MB


Hopefully somebody has a solution, thank you in advance.


With kind regards,


Marcel

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Mar 19, 2018 10:34 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 19, 2018 1:37 PM

The battery has an cycle count of 980 and is almost going to his end. The magsafe adapter is new and almost 1 year old.

Cycle count is one important bit of information. According to Apple: "Your battery is designed to retain up to 80 percent of its original capacity at 1,000 complete charge cycles." ... so, in theory, even though your battery is near that count, what's more important is the battery condition. If you click on the battery icon in the menu bar, it should provide you with one of four conditions:

  1. Normal
  2. Replace Soon
  3. Replace Now
  4. Service Battery

Note: The condition value was also available at the same location in System Information where you found the cycle count.

When the battery is not charging the mbp is doing the same thing unfortunately. Or does this also has to do than with a old battery?

FWIW. I have a mid-2010 MBP that had the original battery and the condition was reported as: Service Battery. It couldn't run at all with just the battery alone and was always connected to power. In this state, it always ran "hot." Again, the location on the case where the battery is situated, became too hot to place on my lap. Once I replaced the battery with a new one, that heat issue went away.


Furthermore, as a safety precaution, I replaced the original MagSafe adapter with a new one from Apple. I would recommend that you only get these adapters either directly from Apple or from a trusted third-party source, like Other World Computing (aka, MacSales).

10 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 19, 2018 1:37 PM in response to AlphaKingz

The battery has an cycle count of 980 and is almost going to his end. The magsafe adapter is new and almost 1 year old.

Cycle count is one important bit of information. According to Apple: "Your battery is designed to retain up to 80 percent of its original capacity at 1,000 complete charge cycles." ... so, in theory, even though your battery is near that count, what's more important is the battery condition. If you click on the battery icon in the menu bar, it should provide you with one of four conditions:

  1. Normal
  2. Replace Soon
  3. Replace Now
  4. Service Battery

Note: The condition value was also available at the same location in System Information where you found the cycle count.

When the battery is not charging the mbp is doing the same thing unfortunately. Or does this also has to do than with a old battery?

FWIW. I have a mid-2010 MBP that had the original battery and the condition was reported as: Service Battery. It couldn't run at all with just the battery alone and was always connected to power. In this state, it always ran "hot." Again, the location on the case where the battery is situated, became too hot to place on my lap. Once I replaced the battery with a new one, that heat issue went away.


Furthermore, as a safety precaution, I replaced the original MagSafe adapter with a new one from Apple. I would recommend that you only get these adapters either directly from Apple or from a trusted third-party source, like Other World Computing (aka, MacSales).

Mar 19, 2018 11:24 AM in response to AlphaKingz

I would be suspect that a 7+ year old battery would still be "good" after all of these years; however, anything is possible. The reason I suspect the battery is that older or depleted batteries "heat up" when charging. Sometimes to where the notebook's case where the battery is located under gets almost too hot to place on your lap.


So, I think there is still two possibilities here:

  1. The battery is past it's useful life, and/or Ref:

    Determine battery cycle count for Mac notebooks - Apple Support

  2. The MagSafe adapter is faulty.

    Apple Portables: Troubleshooting MagSafe adapters- Apple Support

Mar 19, 2018 1:50 PM in response to Tesserax

Thanks for your good explanation so far 😁.

The battery condition is normal regarding the battery information.

It was in my agenda to buy a battery this year as it was old, so i will exhange it as soon as possible this week.

The magsafe is a original apple, so no third party!


I will reply an update when i did exchange my battery.


Thanks for your help.

Mar 20, 2018 2:58 PM in response to AlphaKingz

With a temperature difference like that it sounds like the thermal paste has dried out and needs to be replaced. You'll need to remove the logic board to do that. If you're comfortable with electronics, it's something you can do yourself. I will link to a guide that shows you how to replace the heatsink and how to re-apply thermal paste.


For thermal paste I recommend using Noctua NT-H1 which has one of the best thermal pastes out there, and isn't electrically conductive. I use it for my gaming PC which is overclocked to the moon and back.


If you have re-applied the thermal paste and you still have a big temperature difference between the CPU and the heatsink, the chance is that the heat pipe has started to leak and therefore isn't transferring heat between the CPU and the heatsink as effectively, so you'll need to replace that. I will post a link to a video that shows you how heat pipes work. If you were to do it yourself, what you need to search for is "a1278 late 2011 heatsink".


MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011 Heat Sink Replacement - iFixit

How to Apply Thermal Paste - iFixit

What is a Vapor Chamber as Fast As Possible - YouTube


You CAN go to an Authorised Apple Service Provider, but there is a chance they wouldn't even look at it because it's considered a "vintage model". If you're not comfortable doing these jobs yourself, and Apple doesn't want to look at it, I'm sure you can find a computer workshop around that can do the job for you.

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Macbook Pro is getting hot directly.

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