Core i7-equipped MacBook Pro hits 100 degrees Celsius, your lap cowers in fear

"Hydrocarbon fuel cell? 600 degrees Celsius. Large Hadron Collider? -271 degrees. Microwave drill? 2,000. Your run of the mill Core i7 MacBook Pro can't compete with these extreme temperatures, but that won't keep it from burning your lap. PC Authority recently put the latest edition of Apple's sleek silver classic through a series of torture tests, and found that running Cinebench could cause the CPU temperature to climb over 100 degrees Celsius. The metal shell proved ineffective at dissipating the heat as well as the similarly equipped Fujitsu Lifebook SH760, which finished the same test at 81 degrees, and actually required PC Authority to run the MacBook Pro on its side (see pic above) to complete certain tests. The site thinks that Apple's cooling solution may be inadequate for a Core i7, but these results could be a fluke -- in our experience with the machine, we actually noticed an improvement over the egg-cooking solutions of yesteryear."

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/core-i7-equipped-macbook-pro-hits-100-degrees-celsius-your-lap/

Who's up for some fried eggs?

 

Well 100°C is 212°F obviously. My 13" MBP with the old base 2.26GHz C2D regularly hits 199°F as reported by iStat when I transcode video. It has hummed along at that temp for 1.5-2 hrs straight many a times for me.

Yes, it's hot. No, I didn't have it on my lap. Better question for the i7 is what is its' rated thermal envelope?

 

my 4+year old original Macbook Pro hits sometimes in the mid to high 90s before spinning the fans up.... but it spins then up very quickly.

my late 2008 unibody, if I just all of a sudden knock it to full CPU usage, it can hit 100ºC before the fans spin up. The problem with the new ones like this is the fans spin up very slowly... so sometimes it can hit 103 or 105 before the fans get fast enough to start making a difference.

The only problem Apple has with cooling for quite awhile, is just being to easy on the fans, trying to not have them react fast enough... there would be no cooling issue if the fans reacted quickly to temperature changes. Maxing out my laptop with the fans at 6200 rpm it stays around 85º max ... which Apple shouldn't let it get over. They are afraid people will be annoyed by fan speed... well they will be more annoyed when their laptop dies in 2 years of too high sustained temperature usage.

 

It is not a bug it is a feature to keep you warm during winters.

 

The max junction temperature is 105ºC, the temperature is reported with 5ºC accuracy.
However, Intel recomends that the system establishes "full cooling capability within 10°C" of that. In short..... 100ºC = Yikes!!!

[ http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/322812.pdf pp.54/55]

 

Unacceptable.

considering I have uses for a laptop that most likely *will* stress its temperatures, this is simply an unacceptable scenario to me. I do a ton of video trans-coding, as I now keep most of my video library among the 6TB of HDD space I have on my computers. easier to stay organized. as such, I expect to do a fair amount on this machine as I did on my past Vaio. as I've said before in this forum, 90C is very high. 100C+ is simply unacceptable and should be to everyone here.

funny thing about this Engadget story is that a few of our forum members already confessed to seeing temperatures this high, so it's not like anyone here will be able to deny or damage control this matter, other than to say they've had MBP's in the past that got that hot and have had no issues or that the fans will eventually get a clue and spin up.

Will SMC Fan Control work on the new MBP's? And what do you all think is the liklihood that Apple's next OS updates will feature a fan speed update that will cause it to kick in faster as it approaches 90C?

I realize that there aren't a ton of reports of overheating MBP's, but they're out there. If SMC Fan Control will allow me to keep the temps below 90C manually, the MBP regains a good amount of status on my "potential next buy" list. if not, it'll take a hit in the race for my $2,700 between Apple and HP. lol.

 

Speaking of cooling and fans and iStat...iStat menus can now control the fans as well as reporting. I was delighted to find this out.

(And no, I don't work for them, I just love finding software that works well)

I have had my fans running at ~2500RPM instead of the base 2000RPM. It seems to make a difference for the temps without me even being able to hear them.

I saw 95C when I ran Handbrake the first time. I am on a 2.4GHz i5.

My old MBP used to get really warm on the top - particularly near the screen hinge. This new model doesn't seem to have the same issue to the same degree (pun intended). The bottom part of the computer does get warm, but I don't think I will be running Cinebench or Handbrake in my lap.

 

According to Apple support, thermal shutdown on the C2D was 110c. i can't see the i5/i7 handling any less than that. My real question is, were the GFX temps what caused the thing to start throwing errors in their benchmarks, or am I mistaken about what i would THINK the shutdown threshhold would be on the arrandale [which is roughly the same as the c2d, imo]

 

Tjmax for Arrandale is specified at 105C, in fact.

 

reassuring. I like having control of fans sometimes. I guess if I buy a MBP, I'll want control *all the time*.

still, that's worryingly high. especially considering Nvidia hasn't been very solid lately.

 

SMCfancontrol should work fine... works fine on the new 13"

I'd recommend anyone using a MBP and pushes it hard use it. If you getting ready to do something thats going to max it out, you just knock the fans up to 6000... and it shouldn't ever go over 90

My SMCfancontrol i have in the top bar always showing the RPM and temp... click on it to quickly switch to favorites.. I set favorites up at 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000... so with 2 clicks I can quickly make the fans spin any of those speeds. smcfancontrol only changes the minimum speed, so they will still spin up faster if you aren't paying attention.

 

i use SMCfancontrol only to control the max fan speed, or the old MPB will get too loud....

 

you can only do that if you manually edit the plist... and on newer models that wont even work...

its also a very bad idea to do, you can damage your machine, and completely fry the whole logic board.

 

Too bad apple refuses to do some kind of mesh grill on the bottom of their case. I think this would help with temperatures greatly.