Hot hot hot..

[One Love 1867]

Anyone else having any heat issues with their Mac Mini's? I'm a little worried about mine, which seems to generate a fair bit of heat. It's been on constantly pretty much for the last couple of days, as i've often left it converting movies etc on Handbrake while i've been asleep and at work. It does seem to be generating a fair bit of heat, and both Handbrake and Mac The Ripper appear to be running alot slower today than they were when i first bought the machine last week..

Is this is a genuine problem, or am i just being paranoid? Would it be worth leaving the Mini off for a night or two to give it time to "rest" or should it be able to be left on for long periods without issues?

 

[Chris Rogers]

How is it stored? Shelf? Cabinet?

 

[One Love 1867]

It's on a glass TV stand, along with a Sky+ HD box, an Xbox 360 and a Samsung DVD player. There's plenty of space between the kit on the shelves though and all the unites are dusted etc regularly..

 

[Chris Rogers]

I never noticed my mini's temp. I'll check when I get home since I'm at work.

Though I'd assume it would seem warmer since all of the components are much closer together than a normal sized desktop.

 

[One Love 1867]

Yep, absolutely. I think the only reason i'm worried about it now is that i'm currently going through the DVD conversion process, so working my way through stacks of discs is meaning the Mini hasn't really had a break from converting DVD's since i bought it.

Can anyone who has done this themeslves put my mind at ease that it is OK to leave a Mini on for long periods during sleep and while i go to work?

 

[statik13]

Mine heats up a bit, but nothing too worrying. I leave it scheduled to shut off for 4-5 hours a night otherwise it is on non-stop.

Make sure the air flow is good. You need space behind the mini. If you're still having trouble, those little rubber feet / furniture pads work wonders for raising the mini and giving it a bit more air.

 

[One Love 1867]

That's a cracking idea actually about giving it "feat", i'll look into that.

I've actually turned the Mini around while it's qued up to encode a load of DVD's, so that the back end faces out, and hopefully that'll help the circulation while it does it's business. I think it's also helping that it's drawing to nighttime here now and the temperature has eased up abit. It was very hot earlier when i started encoding which i don't think helped, although living in England hot weather isn't exactly a long term concern for my Mac!

Handbrake hasn't speeded up at all though, although i'm quite happy for Handbrake to take as long as it wants as long as the Mini is cool enough to do what it's got to do without exploding!

 

[One Love 1867]

For what it's worth, and according to the "Temperature Monitor" program i've just downloaded, my current temperature readings are:

CPU A Temperature Diode: 95.0 c
Hard Drive Bay 1: 55.0 c
Northbridge Position 1: 64.0 c
Smart Disk: 58.0 c
Wireless Module: 62.0 c

The "CPU A:" dropdown menu which sits on the top menu bar on the desktop simply reads "CPU A: 83.0 c"

Are these suitable temperatures?

 

[Theclamshell]

For what it's worth, and according to the "Temperature Monitor" program i've just downloaded, my current temperature readings are:

CPU A Temperature Diode: 95.0 c
Hard Drive Bay 1: 55.0 c
Northbridge Position 1: 64.0 c
Smart Disk: 58.0 c
Wireless Module: 62.0 c

The "CPU A:" dropdown menu which sits on the top menu bar on the desktop simply reads "CPU A: 83.0 c"

Are these suitable temperatures?

Its ok for heavy work, my whitebook was once at 91C 196F while doing imovie stuff and watching hulu hd. The intel chips will shut down at around 100c so you are ok

 

[01jamcon]

That's a cracking idea actually about giving it "feat", i'll look into that.

I've actually turned the Mini around while it's qued up to encode a load of DVD's, so that the back end faces out, and hopefully that'll help the circulation while it does it's business. I think it's also helping that it's drawing to nighttime here now and the temperature has eased up abit. It was very hot earlier when i started encoding which i don't think helped, although living in England hot weather isn't exactly a long term concern for my Mac!

Handbrake hasn't speeded up at all though, although i'm quite happy for Handbrake to take as long as it wants as long as the Mini is cool enough to do what it's got to do without exploding!

Sometimes I prop up my Macbook on dvd cases and point a fan at it to help cool it, which does work and takes it down at least 5 degrees usually. Silly, but you may want to try it.

 

[One Love 1867]

It's got alot colder temperature wise here, and although the stats on the mac itself say little has changed, i can physically feel things are a little cooler around the back of the unit now. Despite stating otherwise earlier, Handbrake has also speeded back up again too. Whereas the first movie i qued up today took 5 hours (which is what got me concerned about the heat), as soon as that finished the second one started with an ETA of a little over 2 hours, which is what i was used to before today. All clear so far then.

Cheers for the help though guys.

 

[Wotan31]

For what it's worth, and according to the "Temperature Monitor" program i've just downloaded, my current temperature readings are:

CPU A Temperature Diode: 95.0 c
Hard Drive Bay 1: 55.0 c
Northbridge Position 1: 64.0 c
Smart Disk: 58.0 c
Wireless Module: 62.0 c

The "CPU A:" dropdown menu which sits on the top menu bar on the desktop simply reads "CPU A: 83.0 c"

Are these suitable temperatures?

That's warm, sure, but if you're transcoding video, it's to be expected. You aren't going to damage anything. Modern CPU's (I.e. from the past few years) will throttle their speed to reduce temps when needed, or will shut down altogether if critically high temps are detected. So no worries.

I run Folding@home on my mini, and was seeing around 91c temps. I downloaded smcFanControl and forced the fan to 3700 rpm. The fan noise is (obviously) more than before spinning at a faster speed, but now my cpu temp is 75c.

It's really just personal preference. Quite fan / hotter cpu? Or louder fan / less hotter cpu?

Another thing to try, depending on how dusty your environment is, you might want to take the vacuum cleaner to the exhaust area on the back of the mini, and then to the intakes on the bottom, and suck out any dust and lint that would hamper cooling.