Cooling down an iMac

[Hugbees]

When I play games on my iMac, it generally gets hot to the touch in the back. I'm not sure if this is dangerous or not, but it stays pretty cool otherwise. Is there a safe way to avoid my iMac from getting hot, or just stay at a warm temperature? I would try increasing the speed of my fans but I hear that isn't the safest solution, and I'm hoping to find another

 

[aki]

faster fans is less heat its the only way

its not dangerous worst thing is if your fan wears out

i use smcfancontrol on imac it works v well when gaming for a long time in bootcamp

about "hot to touch" thats actually good its the imac loosing heat....but if u want to watch things install istat pro or another temp monitor app

some people are too paranoid about heat....it really depends on how paranoid you are and what you use your imac for eg bootcamp 3d gaming for 8 hours a day and how long you need your imac or hd to last

there are many many threads arguing about this

good luck!

 

[eXan]

Don't worry about it.

 

[Sambo110]

Mine gets extremely hot sometimes too, mainly while gaming. So it is normal I think.

 

[Hugbees]

and how long you need your imac or hd to last

To me this sounds like you're saying that iMacs are susceptible to easily breaking due to gaming.

My only reason for the concern is when I am gaming, after a while it starts to make a humming noise that sounds like its working hard. If I minimize or quit it stops making the noise and returns to normal.

If the warm touch means its losing heat, then thats okay, but I don't want the fans and processor or whatever to have to work so hard at running that it breaks down

So is this humming normal?

To be more specific, it hums a bit when running anything, which is pretty quiet and it just sounds like its running, but when playing games, Warhammer Online to be exact, it gets a bit more intense like it needs to work harder to run the game. If there is a way to quiet it and give me some relief, I'd like that

 

[Benguitar]

Turn a compressed air can for cleaning keyboards upside down and blow it at the back of the computer..

Don't worry about it, I think it is just a normal thing. Most if not all computers get hot when being heavily used.

 

[Hugbees]

I've had issues before with Warhammer months ago where I'd play and at random intervals it would freeze up and reboot my machine. After investigating the matter I found that it may have been caused by overheating, and thus I couldn't play Warhammer or most other MMO games.

It was a problem I could never fix because of how randomly it crashes and the selection of games it crashed on.

EX:

Warhammer
Everquest 2 - these 2 crashed a lot
Perfect World - once a month

and every other game, nothing... and this is only in Windows only. Any mac games like WoW never once crash or give me problems.

So thats the only reason why I'm concerned

 

[eXan]

Crashing is not normal, assuming its caused by heat. Download the iStat Pro widget and report us your idle and 100% load temps/fan speeds.

 

[Fonzijr1964]

heat is normal crashing is not

 

[aki]

To me this sounds like you're saying that iMacs are susceptible to easily breaking due to gaming.

well i use smcfancontrol because i game in windows under bootcamp and apple doesnt give the imac great fan control in windows so the heats there are sort of abnormal

the imac gets hot in osx gaming too of course but apples temp control system works normally in that case

i dont think the imac is a weak machine or anything.....its just it is a very small case and not much room so heat is more an issue than in a roomy tower or something

i really think if you plan to upgrade your imac say every 2-3 years then forget heat....however its just a fact that the hd lifespan is shorter under high temps so if you want your imac 4-5 years ooooooor possibly if you spend all your time in windows then its something you might want to just think about

i think tho 90% of people should just forget the whole heat issue....unless they are crashing or something obviously thats not good

about your humming i guess that is the fan sound??if it is then again thats good it means air is moving ignore it....if it was hot with no fan noise then you should worry