Keeping mac mini cool

[UncleMonty]

I'm concerned how hot my mac mini seems to be getting, am I right to be concerned? How can they be kept cool?

 

[IWT]

Thank you for your post.

Hot to you and hot to others may mean different things.

Do you mean that putting your hand on the device is painful? Or are you saying that, compared with last week/month, it is much hotter? And what's the outside temp like? I mean, if you are experiencing the unusually hot weather that I am, then cooling the device is difficult.

I think it would be helpful if you told us which Mac mini you have - date/age, the current Operating System (OS) it is running and the operative conditions that cause the Mini to become hot - eg in idle, during minor operations or when you challenge the Mini to do complex work.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

I think it would be helpful if you told us which Mac mini you have - date/age, the current Operating System (OS) it is running and the operative conditions that cause the Mini to become hot

+1. That should be about a minimum to get started with a possible reply answer...

Maybe the use of Macs Fan Control.app could be of some help.

Macs Fan Control Download for macOS & Windows (Boot Camp)

crystalidea.com

Macs Fan Control

Download the latest version of Macs Fan Control for free. Read 3542 user reviews and compare with similar apps on MacUpdate.

www.macupdate.com

- Patrick
=======

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I'm concerned how hot my mac mini seems to be getting, am I right to be concerned? How can they be kept cool?

Heat is the enemy of electronics and magnetic memory storage devices. So, it's best to keep your computer cool.

How old is your mini? Can you hear the fan come on anymore? What sort of environment does your mini live in? (Dusty? Cigarette smoke? Human or animal hair?)

Often when a client tells me that their Mac is running hot, I pop it open and find that it is full of (insulating) dust bunnies. Once they are cleaned out, the Mac runs at a normal temperature again.

Or...sometimes I pop open their Mac and their fan is strangled by hair. A very sharp pointy penknife is necessary to cut away the hair and free up the fan.

Of course, it's not unheard of for one's cooling fan to just give up the ghost. It's usually not hard to replace it.

IFixIt,
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac
has free tutorials on how to open the different years and models of mini.

 

[krs]

My first question would be how hot is hot?
My 2012 Mini runs at 55C CPU temperature - that's perfectly acceptable

 

[ferrarr]

Here's my Mini items right now, with my room temp around 75 F.



I have two displays, with one streaming Disney+ on Safari, and the second using Safari (Mac-Forums), and other apps.

 

[hughvane]

I have a 2018 Mini which gets warm>hot when high-demand gaming videos are in operation. Worst in summer months of course.

I placed a USB external fan some 15 cm (6" in old currency) from the front edge, so it uses the principle of flowing air 'extracting' the warmer air emerging from the Mini. I'm almost sure that principle has a title, Bernoulli or Venturi or similar, and it sure works, the Mini cools much more quickly than when left to its own devices.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I placed a USB external fan some 15 cm (6" in old currency) from the front edge, ... the Mini cools much more quickly than when left to its own devices.

That will work, but it shouldn't be necessary.

I had been noticing that several Mac models (especially their laptops) were running really hot, and I wondered what that was all about. So I asked a friend who works for Apple.

He said that Apple was very sensitive to users' complaints that their computers' internal fans were a distraction or annoying. So Apple made a conscious decision to set the point at which the fans came on in certain models rather high, and not at all aggressively (i.e. at low speeds).

You can easily fix this yourself, by using a software utility to make the fans come on at a much lower temperature, and more aggressively. Patrick already suggested a really great utility to use, and it's free!

MacFanControl (free)
https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control
(Real-time monitoring of fan speeds and temperatures. Allows you to adjust fan speed and when it comes on. Solves overheating problems like those typically found on older MacBook Pros.)

 

[hughvane]

Thank you Randy, will download that Utility.

I might add that the Mini can get quite noisy with its own fan at full speed, but it doesn't bother me much because the USB fan is noisier.

I'm more concerned with the temperature of the top face of the Mini on hot days. Being coloured black, it has a high heat transfer potential, but there are occasions when the generated heat cannot escape readily, and I think the internal Mini fan is being overworked. Hence the external fan.

 

[krs]

I have a 2018 Mini which gets warm>hot when high-demand gaming videos are in operation. Worst in summer months of course.

I wonder if newer Minis run hotter.
I have a 2012 Mini and the CPU seems to always read 55C, don't hear the fan and the case is just barely warm.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

... I think the internal Mini fan is being overworked. Hence the external fan.

It may be that your model is just simply under-engineered for cooling. That wouldn't surprise me. At times in the past Apple has even flirted with leaving out cooling fans altogether. For instance, not long ago there was a MBA with the same processor as the then-current MBP, but the MBP benchmarked as faster because the MBA had no fan, and so the processor was often engaging in thermal-throttling.

What you want, ideally, is for your computer to maintain not just a reasonable maximum temperature, but for it not to undergo a lot of extreme thermal cycling. Having the insides of your computer get really hot, and then cool down quite a bit, over and over, will have all of the solder joints for it's components expand and contract constantly. Eventually one of those solder joints will crack from the cycling. (It will become a "cold joint".) That will result in a nasty computer failure as the component being held in by that solder joint will have a discontinuity, and the problem may be hard to track down. (You find it by looking for a solder joint that is grey, or rough, or which has a noticeable ridge when you run your fingernail over it.)

Cold solder joints were common in the old Mac Pluses. The Mac Plus had no cooling fan, and they could get really hot. Especially when they filled up with dust bunnies. I used to fix cold solder joints in Mac Pluses for friends and clients all the time.

 

[hughvane]

It may be that your model is just simply under-engineered for cooling.

For most if not all daily computer functions, including high-demand gaming for perhaps as much as an hour, the Mini behaves impressively. The heating factor is the one-and-only concern I have, and I may be over-thinking the issue, but there are times, mostly on hot summer days, that the casing gets significantly hot until cooled by the external fan. Not burning hot, but uncomfortable to leave one's hand on for long.

 

[BobHas]

Here's my Mini items right now, with my room temp around 75 F.

View attachment 36729

I have two displays, with one streaming Disney+ on Safari, and the second using Safari (Mac-Forums), and other apps.

I like that temp display. Is it in some newer OS version, or an app, or ...?

 

[ferrarr]

I like that temp display. Is it in some newer OS version, or an app, or ...?

That is an app called iStat Menus.

iStat Menus

An advanced Mac system monitor for your menu bar, with CPU, GPU, memory, network, disk usage, disk activity, temperatures, fans, battery info and more.

bjango.com

 

[ValterV]

I had been noticing that several Mac models (especially their laptops) were running really hot, and I wondered what that was all about. So I asked a friend who works for Apple.

He said that Apple was very sensitive to users' complaints that their computers' internal fans were a distraction or annoying. So Apple made a conscious decision to set the point at which the fans came on in certain models rather high, and not at all aggressively (i.e. at low speeds).

I second that.
When I bought my 2009 24" iMac (still going strong ), I noticed that some components got really hot (the Northbridge chip could reach almost 70° C!). Since my iMac has several fans, I deduced Apple decided to make them go slow to avoid excessive noise. You're confirming I was right.
After all, if your Mac dies from overheating after 3 or 4 years, Apple is more than happy to sell you a new one... >:-(

My solution was to install smcFanControl (donationware), and to create different fan speed profiles depending on ambient temperatures and usage. This way it's ME who controls how hot my Mac can become.

TL;DR: Do not trust Apple on temperatures. Check them with some tools and, if hot, adopt a fan speed app to set them right.
NB: Max recommended temps are different depending on the part (e.g. HDD, CPU, GPU...).

 

[pm-r]

I second that.

+1, and you can add me to the list.

I was often admonished by several of the local VMUG user group's strong Apple fanboy executives of suggesting a third party fan control application that one could use to change the speed and lower the temperatures of many very hot running Macs at the time, quite a few years ago. It wasn't long before a lot of hot-running Macs died many started to believe there was truth in what I had been preaching and disregarded the advice of the so-called "guru" Apple fanboys to just leave things as they were as Apple knew best. Yeah right...

I keep our iMacs running on the cool side, preferably under the mid-40 degrees Celcius range (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and fan noise is not even noticed or audible.



- Patrick
=======

 

[hughvane]

Back to this heating topic - after running a few YouTube videos on a warm evening, my 2018 Mac Mini was very hot, more than I can recall it ever being before. It was too hot to leave one's hand on the top surface for more than a few seconds.

What bothered me was that I could not hear the internal fan, something that's been a regular feature. I started up the external USB fan to assist cooling, but it seemed to make little difference.

I was interrupted for some hours, so I shut the Mini down, and returned to it this morning to run iStat. See attachment (those readings are ºC should anyone be wondering). That to me appears normal, but the temperatures last evening were way higher, but not measured (iStat trial period had expired, renewed this morning).

How can I determine - other than noise - if the Mini's internal fan is operating; and might it help to elevate the front edge of the machine? At time of typing, the fan was not operating, the top surface of the Mini felt 'normal', ie. slightly warm.


Update: the second and third screenshots are the more telling, #2 taken mid-morning, warm in the room @ 26ºC; then #3 after gaming mid-afternoon, during which time the internal fan decided to join in, clearly audible.

Note Exhaust reading in #2, nothing. Following vacuuming of the air intake gap, a YouTube video running, no sound of the internal fan.

Resorted to using the external USB fan, with front edge of Mini elevated by ~5 mm. Top surface of Mini warm, but not alarmingly so.

 

[pm-r]

How can I determine - other than noise - if the Mini's internal fan is operating;

Most third party Mac fan controllers if they are anything like Macs Fan Control.app have a manual maximum speed setting you could use and set and see if each fan runs at the much faster speed which would tell you it is running properly or not.

I believe the third party commercial software TechTool Pro.app still has a separate Fan Test built in. I don't know if they have a free trial you could try or not, maybe check their website:

Techtool Pro 18

Techtool Pro is Mac utility software for maintaining and troubleshooting your Mac, including drive repair, RAM testing, and more.

www.micromat.com

- Patrick
=======

 

[krs]

Back to this heating topic - after running a few YouTube videos on a warm evening, my 2018 Mac Mini was very hot, more than I can recall it ever being before. It was too hot to leave one's hand on the top surface for more than a few seconds.

I don't think that is normal at alljust watching YouTube videos;
I sometimes watch two full length movies on YouTube, 1 1/2 hours each. an my Mini, 2012 mind you, hardly gets warm. I don't remember the fan on mine ever coming on - not even sure it has a fan.
Was that heat issue there from day One?
I would try to find the root cause first.

 

[hughvane]

I believe the third party commercial software TechTool Pro.app still has a separate Fan Test built in.

Thanks, but unfortunately, TTP does not have a trial version, and it's way too costly for me to buy it just to check the fan.

I have booked the Mini into a repair centre on Wed for experts to investigate and repair if necessary.