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Is this temperature normal for an Intel iMac?

P

prominence

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
175
4
Hey everyone.

I have a 2.8 Core 2 Extreme Intel Aluminum iMac with 4Gigs RAM from Crucial.

I leave my iMac on 24/7 (with screen display turned off during nights).

The top of my iMac in the back and top, and especially the top right hand corner, is extremely hot -- very hot to the touch, not to the point of actually burning my hand, but very hot.

Can any of you technical people look at these temps provided by istats and tell me if they are normal?

The iStat reads as follows:

TEMPERATURES:
CPU A - 122 degrees
GPU - 142
GPU Diode - 144
GPU Heatsink - 140
Ambient - 79
Memory Control - 126
Airport Card - 126
HD Bay 1 - 133

FANS are running at:
CPU Fan - 1240 RPM
Hard Drive Fan - 1347 RPM
Optical Drive Fan - 853 RPM

Thank you all!
 
I have a 24" 2.4 and 4GB. I only turn off or restart my iMac after a software update. I do sleep the machine when I go to bed each night, as well as turn off the monitor when it's inactive more than 15 minutes.
Here are my iStat readings:
TEMPERATURES:
CPU A - 101 degrees
GPU - 121
GPU Diode - 122
GPU Heatsink - 117
Ambient - 76
Memory Control - 110
Airport Card - 104
HD Bay 1 - 108

FANS are running at:
CPU Fan - 1199 RPM
Hard Drive Fan - 1198 RPM
Optical Drive Fan - 698 RPM

ON EDIT: These temps were taken 1 hour after waking the iMac from sleep, so they are a tad on the cool side. I will repost later once the iMac has been on for some time.

Good luck with whatever you find is wrong.
Morod
 
HD Bay 1 is too hot (56 C). Check the manufacturer's spec -- betcha it's either
55C or 60C maximum ambient operating temperature (depending on model).

...heat kills hard drives,
Click to expand...

We've been here before. Everybody's hard drive gets to the high 50's under load. And as also been said, the manufacturer's website is not the be all and end all and it's pretty unlikely Apple have 'forgotten' to keep the hard drive within acceptable limits.

There's nothing to worry about.
 
Leon Kowalski said:
I've never seen mine get above the low-40C's. It idles in the mid-30C's.



Believe what you like; the drive cares not.



...I'm not worried -- it's not my drive,

LK
Click to expand...

Hey LK, I really apperciate your help. I am a complete newbie so I'll sort of need your guidance figuring this out. Is the Manufaturer and stuff about my HD under "About This Mac" ?

Also, what should I do to get the temp down -- turn up the fan? I've heard of people messing with this, but I also heard it's dangerous to mess with automatic settings.

What should my course of action be?

Thanks LK!
 
gorby said:
my HD bay 1 is 39 degrees right now, fwiw
Click to expand...

Mine is 42C at the moment but has been known to get into the upper 50s under load and above 50C idling in the summer months.

I am quite sure that Apple considered the HD temperature limits when they designed these machines.

Have you been reading about excessive drive failures in the aluminum iMacs anywhere?? All I read on the issue is a bunch of forum posts from those who worry that their drives might be running at excessive temps. It's been 6 months now with this revision so you'd have to figure we would have had SOME indication of a failure trend if it was indeed a design flaw.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I do recommend Applecare and of course the good common sense of backing up your data that applies to ANY computer. I've got 3 full years of free replacements should the HDD fail for any reason.

Don't worry, be happy. :)
 
prominence said:
Is the Manufaturer and stuff about my HD under "About This Mac" ?
Click to expand...

Yep. The internal drive model number can be found under:

About This Mac > More Info... > Serial-ATA

It'll be sumpin' like: "WDC WD5000AAJS" or "Seagate ST3500630AS"

Also, what should I do to get the temp down -- turn up the fan?
Click to expand...

Many folks on the Apple support forum (http://discussions.apple.com)
have reported success with smcFanControl. In most cases, just a few
hundred more rpm seems to bring internal temps down quite a bit.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049/smcfancontrol

If you search the Apple forum for "smcFanControl", you'll find many
internal temperature listings "before & after" adjusting fan speeds.

I've heard of people messing with this, but I also heard it's dangerous
to mess with automatic settings.
Click to expand...

I don't have any first-hand experience with it (because my iMac has
never had the slightest temperature problem) -- but as I understand
it, smcFanControl simply raises the fans' minimum "idle speed", but
does not interfere at all when/if the standard iMac firmware decides
to increase fan speed(s) above the "idle" setting.

BTW, here's an interesting article, posted on another thread as "proof"
that high HD temps are "no cause for concern." Sounds reassuring --
until you look at what the expert authors considered "the high end" of
the operating range. They apparently thought it a huge waste of time
to conduct tests at insanely high HD temperatures -- above 50C.

http://209.85.163.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

...good luck,

LK
 
Leon Kowalski said:
Yep. The internal drive model number can be found under:

About This Mac > More Info... > Serial-ATA

It'll be sumpin' like: "WDC WD5000AAJS" or "Seagate ST3500630AS"



Many folks on the Apple support forum (http://discussions.apple.com)
have reported success with smcFanControl. In most cases, just a few
hundred more rpm seems to bring internal temps down quite a bit.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049/smcfancontrol

If you search the Apple forum for "smcFanControl", you'll find many
internal temperature listings "before & after" adjusting fan speeds.



I don't have any first-hand experience with it (because my iMac has
never had the slightest temperature problem) -- but as I understand
it, smcFanControl simply raises the fans' minimum "idle speed", but
does not interfere at all when/if the standard iMac firmware decides
to increase fan speed(s) above the "idle" setting.

BTW, here's an interesting article, posted on another thread as "proof"
that high HD temps are "no cause for concern." Sounds reassuring --
until you look at what the expert authors considered "the high end" of
the operating range. They apparently thought it a huge waste of time
to conduct tests at insanely high HD temperatures -- above 50C.

http://209.85.163.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

...good luck,

LK
Click to expand...

LK, Thank you.

I think mine may run hotter since it is the 2.8 extreme model.

I turned up all my fans moderately, but the HDD fan had to go up to 2100rpm to get the Hard Drive under 50, it's resting around 47-48 now.

I feel better now. And it's not as hot to the touch any more! Thank you for your assistance. :)
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexisV
Everybody's hard drive gets to the high 50's under load.
I've never seen mine get above the low-40C's. It idles in the mid-30C's.
Click to expand...

We had a pretty much identical thread about 3 weeks ago with many people reporting temps of 50+

Quote:
...the manufacturer's website is not the be all and end all ...
Believe what you like; the drive cares not.
Click to expand...

I'd love to see the look on the guys face if I took my Mac back to the store with your concerns and asked for a refund.

Quote:
There's nothing to worry about.
...I'm not worried -- it's not my drive,
Click to expand...
Well I'm not worried, so that makes everybody happy.

With the possible exception of everybody else on the board who you seem to be on a mission to scare with tales of how their Mac's hard drive will fail prematurely.
 
prominence said:
LK, Thank you.

I think mine may run hotter since it is the 2.8 extreme model.

I turned up all my fans moderately, but the HDD fan had to go up to 2100rpm to get the Hard Drive under 50, it's resting around 47-48 now.

I feel better now. And it's not as hot to the touch any more! Thank you for your assistance. :)
Click to expand...

Personally I would worry much more about prematurely ending the lives of the fans not to mention my machine running louder (or in my case making any noticeable sound at all) but to each their own. :p
 
SaSaSushi said:
Personally I would worry much more about prematurely ending the lives of the fans not to mention my machine running louder (or in my case making any noticeable sound at all) but to each their own. :p
Click to expand...

I'd rather a fan have to be replaced than a hard drive crash. But I understand that concern as well, lol!
 
prominence said:
I'd rather a fan have to be replaced than a hard drive crash. But I understand that concern as well, lol!
Click to expand...

Touche. I'd rather have neither fail. My personal opinion is you're much more likely to see a fan running above default speeds fail on your iMac than a hard disk. That's ignoring completely the issue of the added noise if it matters to you.

Plus, if one properly backs up their data they needn't fear HD crashes.

I'm glad you found a solution that suits you. Best of luck with it.
 
SaSaSushi said:
My personal opinion is you're much more likely to see a fan running above default speeds fail on your iMac than a hard disk.
Click to expand...

I also agree with this point of view. I trust Apple's engineers here.

If the default fan speed needs tinkering with, I suspect we'll see it in a patch from Cupertino.
 
HD bay 1: 112

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz


I usually am coloring comics in on photoshop while listening to music via iTunes. That reading was done when Safari was open as well (LOL!!!!11).

I need a new external cause I have 500 gigs now versus my dead mbps amount. But I'm working on that I guess.

Should I just keep my room nice and cold?:eek:

EDIT: After running Photoshop cs2, the HD bay is running at 135. Should I be scared?
 
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