Macbook Heating...What to do?? Help

I own a macbook and its not that old and I just recently noticed how hot it gets when its plugged in and when I'm just surfing the web and nothing much else. Is there anything I can do to prevent it from really heating up, or is it just a normal thing? Any help or suggestions is great. Thanks.

 

They do get warm, but if it's overly so...

First make sure you have installed all software and firmware updates (just run Software Update and install everything - if you see several firmware upgrades or so, just do one at a time though. run it again after installing everything in case there's another update that depended on the previous ones).

If that doesn't help, I'd say take it to an authorized service provider or Apple Store for evaluation - they will be able to tell you if it's normal compared to other units of the same model or not.

 

I did the software update and there was no update needed, so I'll just see if it keeps getting really hot then take it somewhere if so.

 

Is the battery charging? Any battery that gets charged gets hot.

Also, run smcFanControl. Otherwise, it shouldn't be running hot. At all. Friends of mine who have MB's have theirs running cool.

 

open activity monitor and see how much CPU you are using, and which program is using most of it. Macbooks do get hot with high CPU usage. Even if you are just browsing the web, some flash/Java heavy sites will use up a lot of CPU as well.

 

Yup Wooky beat me to it. That's what I was going to suggest. If after checking all the obvious everything looks normal, which btw Macbooks are known to run on the rather warm side, you can buy a notebook cooler at CompUSA.

What is the ambient temp of your surroundings? I live in SW Florida so for me notebooks, PC's and gaming consoles get a little on the warm side.

 

I ran smcFancontrol, whats the normal temp for macbook with basic computing, and I live in northeast ohio so I dont have to worry about a warm climate

 

I noticed that my MBP gets rather hot a lot for no real reason too. So I downloaded a program called temperature monitor ( http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12381 ) to keep an eye on things. Right now, with just normal things going on (Firefox, messenger, songbird) I have these temperatures:

Enclosure bottomside: 33
GPU chip: 43
GPU heatsink: 46
Main heatsink 1: 44
Main heatsink 2: 40
Memory controller: 38
Memory sensor: 46
HDD: 36
CPU core 1: 46
CPU core 2: 45
CPU A: 54


A lot of times if it's really really hot and I check the temps, it'll show the bottom of the enclosure as 70+ but the internals are all a lot cooler. You have to remember that Apple designed macbooks to act kind of like a giant heatsink, and it works quite well given their aversion to fans. I'm sure the macbooks insides get hotter than the MBP's though, seeing as how they're plastic, and don't transfer heat as well as metal.

 

I downloaded that program and will have it running, but what is the average temperature for the bottom enclosure.

 

The bottom enclosure varies greatly. A lot of it depends on where it is. If you have it on a smooth hard surface then it's going to be lower than if it's on your legs or sitting on a blanket.
I've seen the bottom of the enclosure range from 25 to 90 degrees. The 25 degrees what it just sitting on my laptop cooler with no fans and me not really doing anything. The 90 degrees was right in the middle of some CoD 2, on a table that had a table cloth. I quickly removed the notebook from that situation and held it in the air until it cooled down. For standard on the desk browsing look for anywhere from 30 to 45 degrees.