MacBook Pro Fans

Howdy MBP users. First off, I'd like to know where I can get information about safe temperature ranges on my dad's MBP. Second, I'm currently using a program called smcFanControl to monitor said temperature and to manually change my fan speeds, 'cause the fans don't automatically kick in by themselves and can let the temp go to over 90C. I'm just wondering if that's dangerous and if there's any programs I can get that will automatically change the fan speeds to match the temperature.

 

after switching between video cards and using sleep a lot.. the SMC controller gets messed up sometimes on some MBP unibodies.... I found if it starts happening where it gets to 90-100 without spinning up yet, that reseting the SMC usually fixes it, at least for awhile. To reset you have to turn off the machine, hold down the Ctrl, Shift, and Alt keys on the LEFT side of the keyboard, then push the power button for a second... let everything up, then turn on the machine like normal. It works good for awhile after this for me... but i just closely monitor it with SMCfancontrol... and have made presets for 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000, and manually switch mine more often... but I'm kinda the type of person that likes to do things manually.

oh and for temps.. the Core 2 Duos based off 45nm... like the 2.53ghz one in my MBP are rated by intel to have a max operating temp of 105ºC... I'm not sure what the rating are on any of the other components.

 

Alright, I'll try this. Thanks.

 

if if doesn't automaticallty kick in, it's surely a defect. It is not within its normal operating range. I advise you to go to an apple store and ask for a replacement.

 

except there is a long history even on Apples forums of this same problem, and people getting whole replacement machines and the problem still coming back... easiest to live with it and work around the issue by resetting the SMC when it does come up (or every time you shut down just for good measure), or manually controlling it.

 

Hmm... I modified SMC fan control to automatically change the fan speed. Was best for my purposes because I want it to change, just be a bit more aggressive about cooling than the standard settings.

There are no settings, they just run with what I thought was best, and only take into account the temp sensor on the CPU (the one that smcFanControl shows on the menu bar). OS X uses something like 10 different temp sensors in the machines to come up with a fan speed, but it's extremely conservative. My machine would just get too hot with the default settings.

If there's interest I'll see if I can package it up and make it a bit nicer, right now it's basically SMCFancontrol with a hacked main file.

 

Mine doesn't do it. It increases fan speed when needed. Both on windows through bootcamp and on mac.