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2011 iMac red hot

I

imationx

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2007
76
0
I have the new 27 inch iMac 3.4 GHZ i7.

Is it normal for the top back of the iMac to be VERY hot, almost where it could burn you? I understand the CPU and heatsink and hard drive are up there and the allumiumn back casing is used as a heatsink of sorts. Maybe this is why and it is no problem.

What ya think?

Thanks
 
well what are your temps?

I have seen my GPU get as high as 83c and the top right corner does get very hot. But that's when gaming.

Most of the time it's just warm.
 
Yes it will be warm to the touch, something iMacs are well known for. You can download and install iStatPro to get the actual temps. Once you have post what your temps are. Chances are excellent your machine is working fine, Macs have safeguards built into them that will shut them down (with a warning first) if they sense they're too hot.

Roger
 
temps seem normal...

CPU around 50c idle
hard drive: 50c
ambient: 23c

Mine is not really 'warm' although that is depending on what you think warm is. I would say mine is hot when web browsing..basic tasks.
 
rkaufmann87 said:
Yes it will be warm to the touch, something iMacs are well known for. You can download and install iStatPro to get the actual temps. Once you have post what your temps are. Chances are excellent your machine is working fine, Macs have safeguards built into them that will shut them down (with a warning first) if they sense they're too hot.

Roger
Click to expand...

Yeah, I use istat. It is good to know the sensors will alert and shutdown if anything goes above normal tempatures.
 
imationx said:
temps seem normal...

CPU around 50c idle
hard drive: 50c
ambient: 23c

Mine is not really 'warm' although that is depending on what you think warm is. I would say mine is hot when web browsing..basic tasks.
Click to expand...


Those temps do seem a bit high. My CPU idles around 30c, hard drive at 42c

My ambient is also lower at 16c which may account for some of that.
 
archer75 said:
Those temps do seem a bit high. My CPU idles around 30c, hard drive at 42c

My ambient is also lower at 16c which may account for some of that.
Click to expand...

Hmm that is strange.

I am in Florida - USA where it is hot. I keep indoor temp about 77F. I think this has to do with it. Also the back of the iMac is about 6inches away from window ( i keep blinds closed though)
 
FWIW my late 2010 I5 idles around 25c. Maybe see if you have some processes running in task manager?
 
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imationx said:
temps seem normal...

CPU around 50c idle
hard drive: 50c
ambient: 23c

Mine is not really 'warm' although that is depending on what you think warm is. I would say mine is hot when web browsing..basic tasks.
Click to expand...

A hdd running at 50 degrees is dangerous.
 
Do you think iMac with i7 tend to get much hotter than standard i5? Being more expensive, it would be ridiculous if the new i7 iMac more prone to overheating :rolleyes:
 
henrikrox said:
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A hdd running at 50 degrees is dangerous.
Click to expand...
Mine's running at 60c, although it isn't the 2011 model.

What's the highest the iMac can reach before it's getting to hot? 90c? 95c?
 
HDD: 37 C
CPU: 30
Ambient: 20
Memory Controller: 37
Optical Drive: 33

These numbers have fluctuated a little during my copying. It's important to note that I have SMC Fan Control blasting the fans harder than I'd like. After clicking this post I checked to see how warm the back was and noticed the airflow out of the top is quite fast.
 
I have no idea what is considered good or bad, but I actually came in here, because I noticed that it was running pretty hot as well. Mostly the upper right hand corner, which i'm assuming is where something important is.

Anyway, these are my stats:

HD: Macintosh HD 47c
CPU A 47c
GPU Diode 55c
GPU Heatsink 52c
Ambient 30c
Memory Controller 52c
Optical Drive 44c


If anyone could give me any insight on these numbers, that'd be nifty.

Oh, and this is just while doing basic stuff like chatting and browsing the internet.
 
You're about the 142,287th topic worrying about the back of their iMac getting hot. It is normal.
 
MythicFrost said:
Mine's running at 60c, although it isn't the 2011 model.

What's the highest the iMac can reach before it's getting to hot? 90c? 95c?
Click to expand...

The CPU can do about 100C, which is typical max temp for a CPU. The cooling system won't let it get that hot though. For a hard drive, it's usually either 50 or 60C for the max temp, so yours is pushing it. I would try and speed up the hard drive fan if you can to cool it off, as heat will kill HDDs.
 
I use SMC fan control which allows you to manually set the iMacs fans. You can configure it to particular apps. and it works a treat especially as I game on a Mac so mine used to get very hot. Before I discovered SMC's program I used to stick old processor heatsinks on the left-hand side (where the PSU is) of my old iMac, not pretty, but it worked.

You can download for free from here:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol
 
I was talking about hdd temps. You should not worry about cpu temps.

The back of the imac gets hot because the aluminium works like a heatsink.

Also i meant anything over 50 degress on the hdd will hurt its lifetime by alot. Mine is at 40 all the time. If you have a hdd at 60, it can die before you know it.
 
imationx said:
temps seem normal...

CPU around 50c idle
hard drive: 50c
ambient: 23c

Mine is not really 'warm' although that is depending on what you think warm is. I would say mine is hot when web browsing..basic tasks.
Click to expand...

Your temps are fine, 50c is pretty low. Keep it well ventilated so it can intake and exhaust air and it will probably run for years.
 
Weird as I've been using that program on all my Macs so duo-core 3.06 and more recently my old i7 2.93Ghz and it worked perfectly on all of them.

xper said:
Is there any other fan control app for the iMacs? That one doesnt seem to work on mine, the fans speed up for like 5 seconds before the revert back to normal speed.

I use this one for my MBP http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23137/fan-control works really good but i doubt it works in my iMac.

(1st generation 27" iMac i7)
Click to expand...
 
The chassis is hot because it's doing its job. It's conducting heat from the inside of the system to the outside.

Plastic machines stay cool because plastic is a poor heat conductor. It may *feel* cool but inside it'd be much hotter.

This isn't even an issue unless you pet your iMac regularly. I can understand laptop users being annoyed at having a hot laptop in their laps but with the iMac it doesn't matter.

Enjoy your machine!
 
For what it's worth, I bought an iMac right before the upgrade and it was burning hot. It was the low end 21 inch. I returned it when the new models came out and I got the higher end 21 inch. I'm doing the exact same stuff and it's not hot at all.

Maybe you should return it.
 
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