2

I just got a new MacBook Pro 2017 128GB no-touchbar, bought it in the refurb.

I'm doing a bit of Photoshop ( I know it's not the best MBP, but I really need it right now for work ) and I have Safari ( 6/7 tabs ) running with Spotify, and I feel like my MBP is too hot. Here are the temperatures according to iStats

enter image description here

I feel like it's really way too hot, but perhaps I'm mistaking. I heard the max temperature is 100°C, so I'm pretty far from that.

What do you think ?

Thanks !

Improve this question
5
  • I'm not sure about this, but it could be the environment. Because of the material used for your Macbook, it could feel warmer in the spring/summer. At an Apple premium reseller where I work, we get some customers asking the same question and we got some answer like this from our technical service
    – Jules
    May 6, 2018 at 18:28
  • Well it's 24°C right now, and I've been using it all day long ( mostly for web stuff and Spotify ). It still seems high IMO, fans are working, I could hear them over the music ( music was not loud, and fans were not as loud as they were yesterday when I was installing all of my programs )
    – Mael Landrin
    May 6, 2018 at 18:31
  • 1
    Just as comparison, my air flow is at 42C and batterij at 40C at this time, we this website open and a coding IDE
    – Jules
    May 6, 2018 at 18:39
  • 1
    Wow okay, and I thought my laptop was too hot lol, thanks for your feedback :)
    – Mael Landrin
    May 6, 2018 at 19:15
  • 1
    Too hot? Haha not at all! My MBP regularly peaks temperatures of 98-99C when I’m working in PS or running something heavy. You’re only at 83C and your fans haven’t hit max speed so you still have a ways to go before you need to be worried
    – NoahL
    May 7, 2018 at 6:11

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
6

Totally normal if on the low side. If your CPU is less than 15% idle, I expect you to get to 85 C internal for CPU proximity and higher for all the on die thermocouples. Running just unde 100 C is how the silicon is designed to operate at max thermal generation and high sustained load.

Also, if you use the command line tool to check temperatures or thermal load once every 15 minutes instead of having graphs checking every second you may find your CPU runs much cooler. After all, having those graphs update live in real time prevents the CPU from sleeping. 

 pmset -g thermlog

Lots of people are surprised or at least concerned by temps:

From an engineering standpoint, the MacBook Pro and the iMac in the Mac Pro and iMac Pro all have the same power envelope design and push their CPU to 100 C when the work is available. Once the CPU is at Max normal operating load then the kernel task begins to idle potential work so as not to exceed the final design for the processor.

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    When at 96% idling, it runs at 40°C give or take 3 degrees. So I should disable/uninstall iStats and run the command line you wrote once every few minutes to check on the temperatures ? Thanks for the links!
    – Mael Landrin
    May 6, 2018 at 18:42
  • 1
    I like to use energy use in activity monitor and the thermlog for normal routing monitoring. Turning off all the menu bar, all animation, turning off all graphing let’s my battery lowest consumption. 40 C for 30 W of power seems perfectly normal. Your skin and ambient airflow seem high. Is there air to circulate under the MacBook and are you less than 24C room temperature?
    – bmike ♦
    May 6, 2018 at 18:44
  • 1
    I just uninstalled iStat, hopefully it'll do good. How do you check your energy consumption ? Running the command you provided in the Terminal didn't output a temperature, just a list of 3 settings ( available CPUs, scheduler limit and speed limit ), is it normal or should I run this line in a different terminal ? Yep, I mean there's a keyboard an inch behind my MacBook ( I have this laptop and a Windows PC behind it ), but yeah the MBP is put on a flat desktop. My room must be 1 or 2 degrees above 24°C since there's my main computer running
    – Mael Landrin
    May 6, 2018 at 19:04
1

Another solution I have found for this in other forums, is to clean out the dust and accumulated crud from your PowerBook motherboard and internal fan. This improves the cooling efficiency. Over time the Mac gets full of dust and can't cool so well.

This should be done very carefully, there are a bunch of YouTube videos about this. You also need to buy a special screwdriver. This is called a 1.2 mm pentalobe, there are lots of these on eBay for a few bucks. You need one of these to remove the back because Apple use a special kind of screw that no-one else in the world uses, specifically to prevent you from doing anything to your PowerBook yourself.

Do not do this unless you are comfortable with this kind of hardware task.

From the searches I've done, apparently this will not void your warranty, but if you are worried about this, ask your iStore.

This is in addition to using the fix of using right hand ports as described above, which clearly solves the problem.

It doesn't apply to newer laptops unless they have been used in a very dusty environment.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .