27" iMac running hot!

[mtnDewFTW]

Hey guys, so I got my 27" iMac this Christmas, and so far it's been perfect.
No yellow tinge, no noisy HDD, no flickr, nothing. Just WORKS haha.
Anyway, I Wouldn't really call this a "issue" but the top of my iMac, including the glass part are HOT HOT HOT. ( I wouldn't say that it could burn you, but when you put your hand down, you definitely feel the heat)
but it gets cooler as you slide your hand down, it gets cooler and more room temp.

Does anyone know if this is suppose to be this way?
Or should I call Apple ASAP?

 

[spcdust]

Hey guys, so I got my 27" iMac this Christmas, and so far it's been perfect.
No yellow tinge, no noisy HDD, no flickr, nothing. Just WORKS haha.
Anyway, I Wouldn't really call this a "issue" but the top of my iMac, including the glass part are HOT HOT HOT. ( I wouldn't say that it could burn you, but when you put your hand down, you definitely feel the heat)
but it gets cooler as you slide your hand down, it gets cooler and more room temp.

Does anyone know if this is suppose to be this way?
Or should I call Apple ASAP?

Download iStat (I use the iStat Pro flavour of the program). This will give you a better idea of your temperatures and fan speeds. Also, as the back is aluminum I suspect this is being used as a secondary heat sink to dissipate heat away from the iMacs components.

 

[NYY FaN]

that should be normal as all the heat is venting out through the top/back side of the imac.. but yeah try out istat and check the temps, my CPU runs at ~25-35 with normal use

 

[Pachang]

Hey guys, so I got my 27" iMac this Christmas, and so far it's been perfect.
No yellow tinge, no noisy HDD, no flickr, nothing. Just WORKS haha.
Anyway, I Wouldn't really call this a "issue" but the top of my iMac, including the glass part are HOT HOT HOT. ( I wouldn't say that it could burn you, but when you put your hand down, you definitely feel the heat)
but it gets cooler as you slide your hand down, it gets cooler and more room temp.

Does anyone know if this is suppose to be this way?
Or should I call Apple ASAP?

what CPU do you have?

 

[mtnDewFTW]

I installed iStat and it showing that right now, after my iMac has been on pretty much all day, it's at 100 or (40 celsius).

Is that normal?
And I have a base 27".

 

[Sir Cecil]

They do get hot along the top. Surprisingly so. Like touching the outside of a warm oven! And so did the previous generation iMac that a colleague used for a long while. It sounds normal from my experience.

 

[gospel9]

I installed iStat and it showing that right now, after my iMac has been on pretty much all day, it's at 100 or (40 celsius).

Is that normal?
And I have a base 27".

That's normal assuming you are running some basic apps. I think the i5 and i7s run a little cooler, under 35 when idle.

How hot does it get when you play a quicktime trailer? Check if the fans are catching up with the heat rise (there will be some lag because the fans don't run during short spikes). I have read that 2009 Mac Pros (not iMacs) have an issue when decoding audio (eg playing a song on iTunes, watching youtube, etc) that causes the cpu to heat up gradually. Check if yours have this problem... it should not raise the temperature levels when playing songs in iTunes.

 

[mtnDewFTW]

That's normal assuming you are running some basic apps. I think the i5 and i7s run a little cooler, under 35 when idle.

How hot does it get when you play a quicktime trailer? Check if the fans are catching up with the heat rise (there will be some lag because the fans don't run during short spikes). I have read that 2009 Mac Pros (not iMacs) have an issue when decoding audio (eg playing a song on iTunes, watching youtube, etc) that causes the cpu to heat up gradually. Check if yours have this problem... it should not raise the temperature levels when playing songs in iTunes.

Yeah, I mostly run stuff like Safari, iChat, iTunes, mail, and a Twitter app also.
So, those things are pretty much always running from wakeup to shutdown.

So I'm assuming this is normal?

 

[partyBoy]

so whats the normal temp a imac(intel) should have nobody answered that question yet?..mine is at 58 celcius rightnow...is that good?

 

[gospel9]

Yeah, I mostly run stuff like Safari, iChat, iTunes, mail, and a Twitter app also.
So, those things are pretty much always running from wakeup to shutdown.

So I'm assuming this is normal?

Well you didn't answer the second part of my question. How fast do your fans go (rpm)? If the CPU temperature is always sitting around 40-50 you are perfectly fine. Even upwards to 60 when doing intensive work. If you are staying along 65-70+ then I would be worried.

 

[7031]

No idea if it helps but currently my iMac (specs in sig) is at 33ºC, though for gaming I use SMCFanControl to up the fan speeds to keep it running cool, since GTA IV managed to push it to about 70ºC. Just boot into Mac OS, set the fanspeeds then reboot into Windows. However, if you shut it down, the fan speeds are forgotten.

 

[tomacintosh]

40C is nothing for a CPU, people are worrying too much about these iMacs I think. Every little thing is getting blown out of proportion. It's bound to run hot at the top, especially now the whole back is aluminium, just be glad the heat is getting out and your CPU temps are running fine. I remember back in my PC overclocking days I'd have given my right arm for temps that low!

 

[7031]

40C is nothing for a CPU, people are worrying too much about these iMacs I think. Every little thing is getting blown out of proportion. It's bound to run hot at the top, especially now the whole back is aluminium, just be glad the heat is getting out and your CPU temps are running fine. I remember back in my PC overclocking days I'd have given my right arm for temps that low!

My AMD PC is running at 28ºC right now.

 

[Averren]

It'll run hot if you are working your imac.
Just remember that the imac case is A LOT smaller than your stand PC case and therefore, a lot closer to the hot components. This makes the casing quite warm but if your istat temps are ok under load there is nothing to worry about. Heat disappation, thermo dynamics all that jazz.
Now, if your marveling at your screen w/ nothing running and it's hot there might be an issue

 

[mtnDewFTW]

40C is nothing for a CPU, people are worrying too much about these iMacs I think. Every little thing is getting blown out of proportion. It's bound to run hot at the top, especially now the whole back is aluminium, just be glad the heat is getting out and your CPU temps are running fine. I remember back in my PC overclocking days I'd have given my right arm for temps that low!

haha Yeah, you're right. I was just concerned because I didn't want this thing to blow up in my face.

 

[Nostromo]

Download iStat (I use the iStat Pro flavour of the program). This will give you a better idea of your temperatures and fan speeds. Also, as the back is aluminum I suspect this is being used as a secondary heat sink to dissipate heat away from the iMacs components.

I have a white 24" iMac. Do I at all have temperature sensors this application read data from in my Mac?

 

[Ibanez75]

27"iMac running hot, check this it might help.

Hi I came across this forum yesterday as I was having the same problem.
I've had my 27" since first week in December with no issues, fan sound as quiet as a mouse, then yesterday they started coming on, cpu temp 60 degrees C, hmmmmm, turned the computer off left it, turned it on again and apparently doing nothing it started again, now I'm concerned.
So what had I done differently? In the day I needed to scan a photo and downloaded HP's latest scanner software apparently for 10.6. the problem only started after that.
This morning when the fans kicked in looking at the isatpro I saw in the activity part, HPstartup cpu usage 99% 99!!!!!!! what!!!!!! it's not even meant to be on! HP obviously think its a good idea to launch itself at start up, so I phoned apple they talked me through removing it, heat problem has gone, fans back to being quiet.
So my advice is check your activity monitor in utilities as you may have some horrid program running in the background that you don't even know about.
Thanks HP for writing awful software and drivers!

 

[Focks]

Hi I came across this forum yesterday as I was having the same problem.
I've had my 27" since first week in December with no issues, fan sound as quiet as a mouse, then yesterday they started coming on, cpu temp 60 degrees C, hmmmmm, turned the computer off left it, turned it on again and apparently doing nothing it started again, now I'm concerned.
So what had I done differently? In the day I needed to scan a photo and downloaded HP's latest scanner software apparently for 10.6. the problem only started after that.
This morning when the fans kicked in looking at the isatpro I saw in the activity part, HPstartup cpu usage 99% 99!!!!!!! what!!!!!! it's not even meant to be on! HP obviously think its a good idea to launch itself at start up, so I phoned apple they talked me through removing it, heat problem has gone, fans back to being quiet.
So my advice is check your activity monitor in utilities as you may have some horrid program running in the background that you don't even know about.
Thanks HP for writing awful software and drivers!

Can't you simply disable it for not running at startup?

 

[Isarius]

I found that creating a Powerpoint presentation (MS Office for Mac 2008) makes my 27" iMac (i7) run exceedingly hot to the touch (CPU temp sensors at about 58°C, Graphic unit similar or a little higher). For other software, the iMac stays really quite cool. Is MS trying to wreck my iMac (in the vain hope I 'll buy a PC next)?

 

[hakr]

My I7, lightly loaded: