Recent Switcher - MBP too hot?

For some background, I ordered an HP Envy 17 a couple weeks ago, which arrived Thursday. I hurried to get it out of the box and hooked up to power, and it wouldn't turn on. I tried about 5 different outlets and still no signs of life. I was very frustrated, and since I had already told myself if I experienced any problems with the Envy I was going to order a mac, so I did.

My Mac, a MBP 15 2.2ghz, arrived Saturday and I'm loving it so far. However, I have a question about the heat and whether what I'm experiencing is normal or a sign of a problem.

Right now I'm just running safari, temperature monitor, and text editor. Temperature monitor shows my cores are all around 80C/175F. The back of the macbook is uncomfortably hot. I don't game often, but I'm terrified of what temperatures this thing may reach if I load Starcraft II or SWTOR.

Are these temperatures relatively normal?

Meanwhile, for some reason after two days the Envy decided to work. I'm very way of the Envy though, since who knows when it would once again decide to not power up. However, no matter how many things I throw at the envy, not a single item on CPUID monitor manages to exceed 75C/167F. I have a couple weeks with both before I have to return one, but I'm leaning towards the MBP and wanted to check out the temperature issue.

 

MBP's run warmer than most laptops due to the thin form factor.
If you are worried, get the free app, SMC Fan Control. It will report your temperature and allow you to speed up the fan if you so choose.

Another thing, if you are running Flash based Web content, it will really heat things up, so beware (try using ClickToFlash Safari extension, which will block flash and use HTML5 where possible).

 

EPIC FAIL!
It will make your browsing more uncomfortable

Use Firefox+AdBlock Plus instead




About the overheat, try these methods

SMC Fan Control, free, can set different fan speeds depending on power source

Clean fan and heatsink (requires to open laptop internals)

Repaste your heatsink using Coolaboratory Liquid Pro, or AS5 or IC Diamond 24

Check background for CPU consuming apps (mostly due to a bug)

 

Yes, those temps are unfortunately normal, and they will get worse if you game. As mentioned before Apple made sacrifices to make the laptop so thin.

The only cure is to control your fan more directly and with higher air movement using the fan utility above, or to set the fan to max (it's quite loud and annoying though) or to purchase an external cooler for the macbook.

If you are going to game on a macbook on an extended basis, the external cooler is the best plan.

 

other things are going on behind the scenes. After you've been using it a few weeks check the temps again. When its brand new or just restored, mdsworker will be taking up a log of CPU and creating a lot of heat indexing the drive... there are other things that are working it hard as well you don't see, but it will eventually get better. I have MS Word going, Safari, Chrome, (both including flash), with my AMD GPU locked on, and I'm currently at 47 C with 2000 rpm fans.

If your is still running super hot, you have probably installed something on it thats causing it, since there is much more running on your machine than what apps you click to open.

 

just sit it on a surface. the temps are normal.

don't sit the thing directly on your lap when gaming. get something like this:

Amazon.com: Logitech Portable Lapdesk N315: Electronics

or

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-4530...ectronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1331573169&sr=1-2-fkmr0

I have one like this:

http://www.amazon.com/XB-1004-Xbran...4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1331573275&sr=1-4

and it's perfect. Don't worry about the temps at all. It will get hotter than your Envy. It will not fail.

 

Clothing and blankets are insulators and if you set your laptop on either, it'll heat up more than it should. Hard surfaces tend to help dissipate heat.

 

I second the give it a little bit to see what happens. It is possible spotlight might be indexing everything.

 

Thanks for the advice all. I'm not bothered by the temperatures to touch, but I wanted to make sure it was 'normal' and not a function of a faulty machine, or that I could be hurting it by letting it get too hot

I've already downloaded SMC Fan Control, I just haven't tried actually changing any of the fan speeds yet. I'll wait a little while to see if it naturally decreases on its own before changing the fans.

Until then I'll consistently use a laptop cooler when it's on my lap. My old HP HDX 16 would overheat and shut itself down when doing anything remotely taxing so I'm pretty accustomed to having a cooler on my lap.

 

Those temperatures could be a consequence of Spotlight building an index of the contents on your hard drive. Put the laptop on a flat table and see if these temps go back to normal after an hour or so, because 80C is not normal unless it is under significant load.

 

At what point should a temp worry you? I have seen high 80s running a game.

 

100 would be in the danger zone. While I've not measured temps of my current MBP, my old Core2 Duo 2007 system would routinely go into the high 80s while gaming and never had a problem.