2.4 MBP heat issue - is it really that bad?

I only experience heat when playing demanding games such as Stalker or Oblivion. But my question is:

Is the excessive heat really damaging to the laptop, and would it eventually damage (melt/die/short/whatever) if I play games or stress it for a long period of time (5-6-7-8-24 hours) ??

Mine gets hot to a point you can really feel it on your lap, and want to put it on the desk, but I'm wondering if there are really some serious consequences to this...

 

You must note that it is not important how the bottom of the notebook feels, but what the actual temperatures are.

I know several notebooks that you can have on your lap without any problems but inside things get real hot. And that last one is the most important. So I advice you to check the temperatures.

CPU above 75 degrees at full load is overheating
HD above 50 degrees is overheating (after 3 hours of gaming)
GPU above 90 degrees is overheating (full load)

Good luck.

 

it gets pretty hot. it probably isn't an issue, but if you really wanted to be safe about it, you could run SMC fan control, turn up the fans, reboot into xp, and your fan settings will remain from osx.

that will go a long way to keeping the heat down in xp, which seems to have some problems with engaging the fans in response to heavy load. (not a fault of xp, just a result of beta software-drivers for bootcamp)

 

Thanks guys, but chief, I'm using Vista. Does Vista control the fans okay when under stress? Or do I have to use the fan control in OS X and then reboot into Vista?

 

oh wow. i dont know. i know how you could find out though.

start up smc fan control, set the fans to blast at 6k rpms, and reboot the machine.

if you hear what sounds like a jet engine when you are in vista, it works.



and its "chef."

 

Thanks, I'll try that out...

And yeah, sorry about that chef.. my hands were faster than I could read it

 

I have a 2.4 mbp and my temperatures are roughly as follows:

Easy (web surfing, text documents)
CPU: ~50 C
GPU: ~51 C
HD: ~32 C

Moderate (Movies, lots of multitasking)
CPU: ~59 C
GPU: ~60 C
HD: ~35 C

I haven't done anything that would considered super intensive, but even my limited gaming hasn't taken the temperature too far up. I think the highest numbers I've seen using iStat Pro were
CPU: 70 or 71
GPU: 75? I'm not sure about this one
HD: never seen it go above 43

 

The Core 2 Duo won't panic about temps until it's up near 90-100 celsius, in which case it will probably shut down to prevent damage.

MBP runs a bit warm just because it is thin and light...bigger machines have more mass and volume to spread the heat through. I don't consider the machine uncomfortable for basic use on your lap. If you will be gaming or doing some big number crunching, set it on a desk.

 

I think that the heat is an issue here. You can go ahead and take a look at youtube, they have a lot of video on macbook pro.

 

I'm planning on buying a Macbook Pro (2.2 ghz one). I'm hoping the heat isn't an issue while gaming / watching movies, where the GPU would be working more than surfing the web.

1 Question:
Is it really hot on the bottom? Where exactly are the fans?

 

The fan is on the backside by the screen hinge. The entire case acts like a huge heat sink since it is metal.

Movies on lap = fine
Web surfing on lap = fine
Games on lap = will be uncomfortable in 20-30 mins