Acceptable CPU temperature?

Hi guys,

I've been worried about my Mac Mini (Core Duo 1.66 2GB RAM) after I had two complete system shutdowns, both happened while I was watching video for like 5 hours straight (ya know, series episodes)

So I downloaded smcfancontrol which lets you set a minimum fan speed. The usual minimum is 1500 rpm.

My Mac used to be at around 70 degrees Celsius - 167 F with the default setting (1500rpm) and then I changed the minimum to 3125rpm, now the average temperature (that's doing usual stuff like surfing the web, email, Office) is at 60 Celsius degrees, or 135 Fahrenheit. I watched some movies with this setup and didn't have any problems. I can set the fan as high as 5500 rpm with this app btw.

Are those temperatures normal for a Mac Mini? Am I risking any component by manually forcing the fan to operate above the default level?

I'm always under the impression my Mini is too hot, even with those settings. I live in a hot country (Brazil) but even on colder days (today for example the external teperature is 71 degrees F, remember it's summer here hence classifying this as 'cold').

Btw I changed the fan speed to the max - 5500rpm since I started this post and the app now reports 125 F (should be less if I leave it on for like an hour), but I wonder if 'abusing' my fan won't cause me any trouble, as well as not being sure about the ideal temperature for the Mini to run on.

Thank you very much!

I am not using a Mac Mini so I don't know if those numbers are within the acceptable range. This thread may or may not be of some help.

Good luck.

Calistoga said:

I am not using a Mac Mini so I don't know if those numbers are within the acceptable range. This thread may or may not be of some help.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. Seems those 27 inch iMacs are running at about 100 degrees F, my Mini's temperature is usually 170 with the default fan setting. Now let's hope somebody tells me if it's worrysome of not, but thanks anyway, nice to see how hot other macs are running

CPU's can handle temperatures of around 80 C before they will start to get damaged. And you would have to force it to stay above 80 for a long time. Your computer should shut off if it hits the temperature danger zone, anyways. If it gets around 80ish under load just monitor it. Core 2 Duo's shouldn't go above 70 tho, ever.

Thanks a lot, s2odin. Btw do you happen to know why Core 2 Duos can't go above 70? I've been thinking about the newish mini which is a Core 2 Duo 2.4.

And I guess that's exactly what happened (the shut off, maybe because of the temperature) when I was watching my 5-hour Entourage marathons, because there was no error message, nothing, the computer just turned off and the screen turned black, completely unlike when OS X totally locks up (which happened like thrice since 2007 for me) and you get that error message you should turn off the computer via power button.

Well right now my Mac is comfortable at 60 C (the fan is spinning only at 1500rpm) but we have crazy weather here and sometimes even on a winter night we get 30 degrees Celsius, the same way it's unusual for a summer night like this to be only 21 C.

Thanks again!

kioshi said:

Thanks a lot, s2odin. Btw do you happen to know why Core 2 Duos can't go above 70?

Click to expand...

Just their thermal design. Above 70 they are usually designed to shut themselves off.

Depending on how you have your environment setup, high temp's like 70 degC might cause the freeze/crashes. When I had my Mac Mini I used smcfancontrol and set the fans to operate at around 3000 RPM and that kept the temps around the 45 degC which and up to about 55 degC under heavy load which just seemed better to me..

Regards

Raz0rEdge said:

Depending on how you have your environment setup, high temp's like 70 degC might cause the freeze/crashes. When I had my Mac Mini I used smcfancontrol and set the fans to operate at around 3000 RPM and that kept the temps around the 45 degC which and up to about 55 degC under heavy load which just seemed better to me..

Regards

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll follow your tip and leave it at the setting I created in smc (3125), that seems to leave my Mac at 60ish degrees.

My room is quite cold but I live in a hot place. As for peripherals, I have an external FW HD but I don't turn it on most of the time and my peripherals ar basically an old inkjet Epson, a wireless MS Mouse (not bluetooth, and uses batteries) and a USB MS Keyboard (I love the comfort curve 2000 from MS, on my second one in five years lol). I also have a powered USB hub for things like GPS dock, iPod cable, webcam (for windows), card reader, usb headset, etc, but these are things I don't use often so I don't even keep the usb hub plugged on.