my MacBook Pro gets hot!

Hazzfq · Apr 2, 2008

at the moment its on all day and it gets really hot sometimes and i don't see the fan speed increase on smcfan control is there anyway to keep it cooler? it just doesnt seem healthy for it. right now the temperature is 60'c but sometimes goes up to 70 and i think i have seen 80.

The Vindicat3d · Apr 2, 2008

My Macbook gets up around those temperatures, not to worry about it's normal, and your MBP seems overly hot because of the material it is made out of (aluminum i think) is a fantastic conductor of heat, so you'll really feel it when it heats up.

cwa107 · Apr 2, 2008

Hazzfq said:
at the moment its on all day and it gets really hot sometimes and i don't see the fan speed increase on smcfan control is there anyway to keep it cooler? it just doesnt seem healthy for it. right now the temperature is 60'c but sometimes goes up to 70 and i think i have seen 80.

The fans are thermostatically controlled and the machine will cool itself as needed. Programs like SMC Fan Control are redundant at best, at worst, they'll reduce the longevity of your fans which do have a definite meantime before failure( MTBF).

My advice: Remove SMC Fan Control and don't worry about it unless it turns itself off. The processor in your machine has built-in protection mechanisms that will shut the machine down if it begins to overheat.

PapaNoHair · Apr 3, 2008

Just in case it gets too hot - here are a few suggestions:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76566&highlight=101+things

mac57 · Apr 3, 2008

These temps sound quite normal to me, and as mentioned above, the fans will kick in as needed. Don't worry - it sounds like you are nicely in the "safety zone".

alexknibb · Apr 3, 2008

Hazzfq said:
at the moment its on all day and it gets really hot sometimes and i don't see the fan speed increase on smcfan control is there anyway to keep it cooler? it just doesnt seem healthy for it. right now the temperature is 60'c but sometimes goes up to 70 and i think i have seen 80.

Mine's been the same, I've seen temps up to the high 70s too, especially on the GPU diode (I've been using the very good istat widget). I worried about it for a while, but then I realised I had supercare so if it melts, I get a new MBP.

Out of interest, which MBP are you using?

I remember on my old PC, it got so hot during the summer months, I took the side of the case off and pointed a big desk fan straight at the mobo. Kept it icy cold, but made me jealous. :Grimmace:

Tigerotor77w · Apr 4, 2008

cwa107 said:
The fans are thermostatically controlled and the machine will cool itself as needed. Programs like SMC Fan Control are redundant at best, at worst, they'll reduce the longevity of your fans which do have a definite meantime before failure( MTBF).

Quick question here: without SMC, do the fans run at a default minimum speed? (It's impossible to turn off the fans entirely in SMC, but they're so quiet, I can't tell the difference between when they are running -- with SMC open -- and when they're "not" -- when SMC is shut down.)

cwa107 · Apr 4, 2008

Tigerotor77w said:
Quick question here: without SMC, do the fans run at a default minimum speed? (It's impossible to turn off the fans entirely in SMC, but they're so quiet, I can't tell the difference between when they are running -- with SMC open -- and when they're "not" -- when SMC is shut down.)

The fans will turn off when not needed, otherwise they will gradually spool up as needed to move enough air to bring the temps to acceptable levels.

Dysfunction · Apr 4, 2008

mine will hit 80 when CPU's over 90% for over an hour. So I don't set my MBP on my lap when I'm ripping movies doing a double pass with handbrake

theonegod · Apr 5, 2008

Put your macbook pro in a clear plasic skin or on a lap cooler and you wont eel th heat.

Mr-Fussy · Apr 5, 2008

Are you running Vista ???. Seriously.....
if thats the case it will run much warmer. I have experienced this myself but have no issues at all under leopard.

Tigerotor77w · Apr 6, 2008

cwa107 said:
The fans will turn off when not needed, otherwise they will gradually spool up as needed to move enough air to bring the temps to acceptable levels.

Interesting. Is there a fan program that allows me to turn off the fans entirely, then, or be in "observer mode," allowing the computer's own thermal regulation to control the fans without the program's interference?

Or should I not worry about it and let SMC run all the time...

ogacon · Apr 6, 2008

You don't want to force the fans off. You should uninstall SMC Fan and let your computer do what it needs to do.

cwa107 · Apr 6, 2008

ogacon said:
You don't want to force the fans off. You should uninstall SMC Fan and let your computer do what it needs to do.

Exactly. I don't understand why people feel the need to concern themselves with what the fans are doing. The system is designed to automatically regulate the fans. There is no need for manual intervention or monitoring. If you feel the machine is running abnormally hot, take it to an Apple Store and let them look it over, there is a known issue with excessive thermal compound applied to the CPU/GPU/Northbridge of some MBPs.

Tigerotor77w · Apr 6, 2008

cwa107 said:
Exactly. I don't understand why people feel the need to concern themselves with what the fans are doing.

With older MBPs, the idea was to keep the computer "cool" on the basis of personal judgment -- for instance, if the keyboard feels uncomfortably warm when letting the Mac OS do its thermal control, then SMC would at least keep the CPU running a few degrees cooler than without it. I would like to see what my temperatures are, but I suppose Dashboard (iStat Pro) can help with that. (That's what I meant by letting the fans go to 0.)

I am assuming that dragging SMCFanControl to Trash will uninstall it sufficiently?

After having done so, my fan speed hasn't gone to 0 -- it's still at 2000 RPM (my default when I still had SMC). So... the fans aren't off without SMC, after all?

ogacon · Apr 6, 2008

The fans aren't supposed to just turn off without any fan mod program. The fans are programmed to run whilst the computer is running and doing work. Be happy, or you would become very good friends (or adversaries) with the Genius Bar.

cwa107 · Apr 6, 2008

Tigerotor77w said:
With older MBPs, the idea was to keep the computer "cool" on the basis of personal judgment -- for instance, if the keyboard feels uncomfortably warm when letting the Mac OS do its thermal control, then SMC would at least keep the CPU running a few degrees cooler than without it. I would like to see what my temperatures are, but I suppose Dashboard (iStat Pro) can help with that. (That's what I meant by letting the fans go to 0.)

I am assuming that dragging SMCFanControl to Trash will uninstall it sufficiently?

After having done so, my fan speed hasn't gone to 0 -- it's still at 2000 RPM (my default when I still had SMC). So... the fans aren't off without SMC, after all?

I just assumed the fans were completely off at times, as I could rarely hear them, even on my previous first generation MacBook Pro (Core Duo/Yonah 2.0GHz). I guess it's certainly possible that it always runs at a base speed, but I'll be dipped if I can detect it, even with my ear pressed up to the area.

Tigerotor77w · Apr 6, 2008

Gotcha.

I used SMC more to monitor than to control the fans -- after all, if my fans were set to 2,000 RPM and the temps went up to 80, the Mac OS would still kick up the control mode to higher RPMs. The nice thing about SMC was that I still had control over how fast they went -- if I wanted them to spin faster to cool things down faster, I could do it.

That being said... my fans never went above 2000 RPM, so maybe I don't need SMC after all. (I do like the look of it the menu bar better than the looks of iStat, however...)

Alexis · Apr 7, 2008

The EFI (the Mac's version of the BIOS) controls the fans. Should things really heat up, they'll get turned up very high for as short period and you'll notice. The rest of the time they are just running fairly slowly and quietly - enough to keep things warm, but not problematically hot.

Tigerotor77w · Apr 7, 2008

Right. The thing is, SMC doesn't do anything different from the EFI (thanks for the term) -- I kept SMC sitting at 2000 RPM, which is what the EFI is keeping the fans at now (without SMC). My conclusion is that SMC, whether it's installed or not, isn't doing much at all, since the fans are kept at 2,000 RPM with or without the program.