Very worried about Macbook Pro's temps

paintballswimgu · Feb 10, 2009

I have a 2.2 ghz c2d macbook pro, santa rosa chipset, with 4 gigs of ram. I would consider myself a power user most of the time. it is not unheard of for my mac to spend several hours at or about 200 degrees F. with my fans hovering around 6000 rpms. I have smc fan control installed, but it doesn't really help considering my typical cpu load.

I also have big time temperature problems when i run windows xp via virtual-box.

Basically i need to know if i need to call apple and send this puppy in or not. If anyone can offer any thoughts it would be much appreciated

link shows cpu readings and temp

azn_xxxd · Feb 10, 2009

I do have this problem as well on my Air. Try this, if you using for a short time, unplug the charger, if you using for a long time, then put it on sleep, fully charge it to 100%, and then use . Cause you using while charging it might cause high temp.

scathe · Feb 10, 2009

wouldn't be so sure, charging the battery only heats up the battery and not so much even ... overall temps won't be that much lower .... or are they really? hm

paintballswimgu, you probably should get a stand for your laptop, it should help the air flowing beneath it, but you need an external monitor and keyboard to use it that way, unless you like your hands hanging in the air

I don't think the computer will fry itself anytime soon, after all it's not some plastic cheap toy, but just to be on the safe side.

is it this this high on temps and performance all of the time or just maybe a few hours a day? if not, don't worry about it

paintballswimgu · Feb 10, 2009

scathe said:
wouldn't be so sure, charging the battery only heats up the battery and not so much even ... overall temps won't be that much lower .... or are they really? hm

paintballswimgu, you probably should get a stand for your laptop, it should help the air flowing beneath it, but you need an external monitor and keyboard to use it that way, unless you like your hands hanging in the air I don't think the computer will fry itself anytime soon, after all it's not some plastic cheap toy, but just to be on the safe side.

is it this this high on temps and performance all of the time or just maybe a few hours a day? if not, don't worry about it

I have it on one of the targus chill pads that sucks the hot air off the bottom of it all the time, and i have it hooked up to a 22 in display and keyboard that i run dual displays with. It runs about 6 hours a day straight at these high temps. with the average being around 160 F the rest of the time.

scathe · Feb 10, 2009

ever consider a mac pro? it'd be chilly and laughing straight at ya

anyway, it is normal for high temperatures when it's being squeezed all the time (and looking at the screenshot, it's working alright!) and I personally think it can handle it, but just to be safe, you could always call apple and ask if it can really stand the heat

I'm not much help, but hopefully there will be some1 else with a comment

btw, must be really noisy huh?

paintballswimgu · Feb 10, 2009

yeah it runs pretty darn noisy. Right now i have it sitting in my lap. temp is 205 F fans at 6000 rpm i've had my virtualbox windows xp paused for an hour since i went to battery life. and i'm just playing enigma a low instensity game.

i have 3 years of applecare, so i'll give them a call today. I'm sure its probably a thermal paste issue, but i don't know enough to fix that and i don't want to void my warrenty.

scathe · Feb 10, 2009

so you're saying it runs like wild even when you're not doing anything?? you should check Activity Monitor to see what's eating up that cpu

andyboutte · Feb 10, 2009

If its covered under apple care and you have 6000 rpm fans then something needs to be fixed.

paintballswimgu · Feb 11, 2009

andyboutte said:
If its covered under apple care and you have 6000 rpm fans then something needs to be fixed.

so i called apple and they said that it should idle at between 70 to 85 F. I've never seen mine go below 115 F ever. So they are air mailing me a box to send it to them and they are gonna take a look at it. We shall see what happens.

But for future reference apple said that even under a full load my mac should never reach 210 F they said 190 F was more like it.

mdfuller · Feb 11, 2009

paintballswimgu said:
Right now i have it sitting in my lap.

I never use mine on my lap. You are just asking for a hot running machine if you do.

paintballswimgu said:
so i called apple and they said that it should idle at between 70 to 85 F. I've never seen mine go below 115 F ever. So they are air mailing me a box to send it to them and they are gonna take a look at it. We shall see what happens.

But for future reference apple said that even under a full load my mac should never reach 210 F they said 190 F was more like it.

Mine idles around 117F. I turn up the fans when I reach 160F or so. The only time I see temps around 85F is when I am bringing it out of sleep.

paintballswimgu · Feb 11, 2009

mdfuller said:
I never use mine on my lap. You are just asking for a hot running machine if you do.

Mine idles around 117F. I turn up the fans when I reach 160F or so. The only time I see temps around 85F is when I am bringing it out of sleep.

the majority of the time its on a chill pad, which was where it had been the entire day when i called apple. how much past 160 do you normally go though, my fans are set to turn up around 155 and they are set to run at a minimium of 2000 rpm and i still get my ridiculous temps

paintballswimgu · Feb 15, 2009

so i switched it back from my 4gigs of ram, to the 2 gigs of factory ram, and now the temps seem to be a lot better, its not nearly as fast though. Can anyone explain this?

andyboutte · Feb 15, 2009

bad ram? is it apple ram? if it is take it into an apple store.