Imac (mid 2010) thermal problems

[coolc]

My iMac 27" (2010) with an i7 870, on windows 10, keeps exceeding safe operating temperature (72 degrees) and sometimes going up to 90 degrees. The CPU is operating at 70 degrees, which is already almost past safe operating temperature. I've replaced the thermal paste already, but it didn't do much. Is this fixable? If it is, how?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

My iMac 27" (2010) with an i7 870, on windows 10, keeps exceeding safe operating temperature (72 degrees) and sometimes going up to 90 degrees. The CPU is operating at 70 degrees, which is already almost past safe operating temperature. I've replaced the thermal paste already, but it didn't do much. Is this fixable? If it is, how?

There must be something wrong with the hardware (CPU temperature, CPU fan, etc.)
If you are sure that your hardware is fine, you then can use Mac Fan Control to increase the rotation speed of the CPU fan. It may helps a little bit (~5 degrees perhaps)
Another check is to open Task Manager to see which programs are consuming your CPU power. Kill those programs to see if it improves your CPU temps.

If your CPU has not got thermal throttle, then probably it still can serve your basic computing needs.

 

[mortlocli]

Seeing you're using Windows 10, you could try another OS from a usb stick to see if the same prob occurs.
I 'cooked' my 2009 21" iMac using MXlinux as it lacked fan control but since added mbpfan to set fan speeds, also with Psensor to put a display on screen of every temp reading
Psensor is easy to set up..mbpfan a bit tricky

However I read recently Endeavour Linux comes with mbpfan already set up (for Mac users ?), but I've not yet tried it.

 

[Alexthetechie]

My iMac 27" (2010) with an i7 870, on windows 10, keeps exceeding safe operating temperature (72 degrees) and sometimes going up to 90 degrees. The CPU is operating at 70 degrees, which is already almost past safe operating temperature. I've replaced the thermal paste already, but it didn't do much. Is this fixable? If it is, how?

I have the same iMac but the 21.5" formfactor with an i3-550 i got it for $40 at a flea market and the top of the unit gets hot to the touch to the point it lags the system (still has a 1TB 7200 rpm HDD installed) yes i need to upgrade to a better GPU, CPU.... I'm aware lmao (i did upgrade the 4GB DDR3 to 10GB DDR3)

but it gets to like 100-125-ish degrees Fahrenheit (37-51C) and mine was dusty

 

[pshufd]

I bought one of these a couple of years ago and the fans came on full-blast after about 10 minutes of running. I vacuumed out the bottom vents and that did nothing. I installed Macs Fan Control and determined that it was a bad sensor and just set the fan speed manually to minimum and that fixed the problem. The iMac has an i7, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD. It runs High Sierra without problems and can be used for office stuff without heating up but anything demanding will raise the temperature. I mainly use it as a TV set and it doesn't get hot just playing videos with VLC.

 

[mortlocli]

I bought one of these a couple of years ago and the fans came on full-blast after about 10 minutes of running. I vacuumed out the bottom vents and that did nothing. I installed Macs Fan Control and determined that it was a bad sensor and just set the fan speed manually to minimum and that fixed the problem. The iMac has an i7, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD. It runs High Sierra without problems and can be used for office stuff without heating up but anything demanding will raise the temperature. I mainly use it as a TV set and it doesn't get hot just playing videos with VLC.

I've a usb tv dongle and running eyetv on both my iMacs (10,1 and 5,1) to display Freeview here in NZ.

It's great to skip thru all the ads..and recording the rare good movie then editing out the ads.