Those models had the same issue in PC counterparts. It was primarly due to Nvidia for example. Having a slim and silent device for sure can’t help.
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M1 Pro and M1 Max CPU Temperature Forewarning
- Thread starter hopkins802
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Correct.
There have been cases where operating within design specs caused physical damage. The most notorious cases in the computer industry were that both Nvidia and AMD had some problems with early death in GPUs due to poor package design. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) was too different between silicon and package substrate materials. This meant that as the chip heated up and cooled down, they were accumulating stress cycles on the solder joints connecting silicon to package substrate. After enough cycles, the joints developed fatigue cracks. The silicon itself was typically fine - some people were able to revive chips in this state by baking them to temps high enough to reflow the solder, or putting enough mechanical pressure on them to force a good connection despite the cracks.
These were failures of package design, not a sign that it's impossible for any chip to safely operate at 100C. When both silicon and package design are done correctly, 100C isn't a problem.
We all know about the ticking time bomb but Apple was all about thin and light at all costs. Compared with PC counterparts with bulkier cases and noisier (aka more effective) fans, the failure rate of nVidia was much higher with Macs.
Apple spent a lot of time on the superficials but if you've ever had the displeasure of taking apart any of the Aluminium PowerBooks and MacBook Pros, to say nothing of the iBooks, you will know that Apple's history of absolutely atrocious internal design goes back a very long way before nVidia messed up.
Remember the first 12" PowerBook 867MHz? The first Intel MacBook Pro? Both overheated and malfunctioned because Apple's engineers hadn't the first idea about adequate thermal dissipation. Some of us have very long memories.
I’ve had old MacBooks that were running too hot for too long die in my arms because of logic board failure. And it most definitely was years of too much heat.
everyone here is jabbering about performance and throttling, when I think the OP’s biggest concern is longevity.
A CPU that is sitting at 100 C for years and years while doing tasks, is absolutely going to have some kind of hardware failure somewhere on the board earlier than a computer with lower thermals. If you buy $3,000 MacBook and are hoping to use it for 10 years, by all means, override the fans defaults to get a cooler system. Apple would love it if we all bought MacBooks every 3-5 years, because they die in our arms while sitting a 100 C—this is great business for them. But if you are someone who is hoping to use your $3,000 MacBook for 5-10 years, if you are someone who has an eye on longevity and using the device for as long as you possibly can, overriding the fans and creating a fan curve that keeps the system much cooler is probably one of the best things you can do for your device.
A little bit more noise, but a lot more years of use.
opposite of Apple’s money making mantra for these machines, which is more like “a quiet user experience, but please buy another in 3 years or so, and we are going to help you out with that by keeping the fans really low, so your computer sits for hours on end at 100 C and might die in your arms.”
My 2012 MBP died after 9 years of regular use at 100C.
Surprise twist -- after repairing the liquid damage that killed it, it's working great again.
Melting point of solders on logic boards is typically well over 200C.
Melting point of silicon is 1,410C.
I don't buy it, even if your favorite overclocker says otherwise.
Some quick thoughts on this:
Apple's engineers aren't new to the balance of heat, cooling, size, and performance in industrial design...
While Apple has had some major design failures related to high temps (generally GPUs,) Apple has also had many computers with high temps that held up incredibly well. Also, in cases where the temperature issues lead to widespread failures Apple usually (eventually) made it right with customers (even those who didn't have AppleCare.)
Case in point for Apple knowing wha they're doing. I bought the highest end CTO config of the original 5K Retina iMac (i7 4790K & M295X) on release in 2014... and was immediately concerned to see temps over 100C on the CPU/GPU under load. I purchased AppleCare and sold the machine before it expired because I was afraid the high temps would hurt the machines longevity... Funnily enough I never needed the AppleCare and as far as I know despite having such high temps those Macs are not known for thermal related failures.
On a more recent/relevant note. Apple's sells the M1 MacBook Air with no fan. The temps get high. But Apple is confident they won't fail and while we're only ~15 months or so out from release I haven't heard of any failing. I'm sure Apple's done a great deal of longevity testing (especially given they designed these chips themselves,) and have set the fan curve (or no fan in the case of the MBA) up in such a way that the machines shouldn't fail over time.
That said, if you're concerned you can always just set your own custom fan rules.
Apple's engineers aren't new to the balance of heat, cooling, size, and performance in industrial design...
While Apple has had some major design failures related to high temps (generally GPUs,) Apple has also had many computers with high temps that held up incredibly well. Also, in cases where the temperature issues lead to widespread failures Apple usually (eventually) made it right with customers (even those who didn't have AppleCare.)
Case in point for Apple knowing wha they're doing. I bought the highest end CTO config of the original 5K Retina iMac (i7 4790K & M295X) on release in 2014... and was immediately concerned to see temps over 100C on the CPU/GPU under load. I purchased AppleCare and sold the machine before it expired because I was afraid the high temps would hurt the machines longevity... Funnily enough I never needed the AppleCare and as far as I know despite having such high temps those Macs are not known for thermal related failures.
On a more recent/relevant note. Apple's sells the M1 MacBook Air with no fan. The temps get high. But Apple is confident they won't fail and while we're only ~15 months or so out from release I haven't heard of any failing. I'm sure Apple's done a great deal of longevity testing (especially given they designed these chips themselves,) and have set the fan curve (or no fan in the case of the MBA) up in such a way that the machines shouldn't fail over time.
That said, if you're concerned you can always just set your own custom fan rules.
Good to know that customers of the most recent computers don’t need to worry, that‘s worth what to me?
There are enough believable reports from multiple sources stating that the engineering around the heat sink could have easily been better and that the thermal paste used is garbage and often enough not applied correctly.
Also, as a reminder:
Butterfly keyboard, display flex cables, popping and blown out speakers, screens that run against the keyboards too easily…
All things that the engineers should have ironed out before they but a $xk price tag on their work, all flaws Apple didn’t want to and some still won’t recognise.
Heat sink architecture, thermal paste, not really talking about differences in port speeds, not disclosing which devices are refurbished and which are not (for international sales, like in Brazil)
Don’t get me wrong, I trust Apple any day of the week. With my data. But my experience can’t let me trust in their software and hardware quality control, maybe it’s because Germany receives devices from lower quality manufacturers, but I haven’t received any hardware from Apple that hasn’t had a hardware flaw since my iPod touch 4th gen.
The fact that Apple is pushed to acknowledge flaws with their designs doesn’t make it any better, these design should never have shipped in the first place.
Butterfly keyboard users are still at risk of „losing“ their super expensive laptops to a simple, very simple design flaw, and the program won’t cover for them after 4 years anymore. The program itself was flawed, „Your keyboard has a faulty mechanism? We’ll replace it with the same one.“
Generation „upgrades“ from one or two to three were maybe done if it was the third replacement. I haven’t received a third gen bfk, although it was my third or fourth.
In general, that, if just one key breaks you’d have to replace the entire top case is idiotic.
Battery replacement? (because batteries are consumable components as Apple itself states)
Top case.
Faulty trackpad?
Top case.
Obviously these are and have been flaws since Apple admitted to them with the most recent iterations of MBP‘s, but that doesn’t make the millions of older machines in peoples hands not faulty.
Either shipping a design you know is flawed or haven’t tested enough to know it’s flawed is cheating the customer.
Where do you guys see condescending attitude? There are only two posts above yours, both are polite and point out that this operation is safe and expected.
Excellent info, as always100C isn't insane in the PC world either. Common knowledge like this is often generated by internet echo chambers, and isn't necessarily real.
As an example, Intel's own Alder Lake i9 processors are rated to run at 100C. Look at the "Tjunction" spec:
Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK Processor (24M Cache, up to 5.00 GHz) Product Specifications
Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK Processor (24M Cache, up to 5.00 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.ark.intel.com
Most of the noise about 100C being awful comes from PC overclocking enthusiasts. Few of them know as much about chips as they think they do, but they do observe things. One is that if you want to overclock a chip nominally rated to run at 100C, you might have to cool it to 80C or lower to make it work reliably. By the time the echo chamber is done with it, this observable true fact gets transmogrified into "OMG 100C is SUPER DANGEROUS!!!!".
But the real truth here is something far less scary: there are well known semiconductor physics phenomena which reduce the speed of transistors as they get hotter. Chip designers try to assure adequate timing safety margin in worst-case conditions, so whatever the top end of the temperature range is, that's where timing margins are worst. Now an overclocker comes along and wants to run the chip faster; they're blowing through whatever timing (note: not damage) margin was built into the chip and must do something about it or the OC won't be stable. The two easiest knobs for an overclocker to turn are reducing operating temperature below the manufacturer's spec, and increasing voltage above spec.
None of that applies to a M1 MacBook. Apple doesn't publish M1 chip specs, so technically we don't know if 100C is out of spec, but it's really common for chips like M1 to have a max operating temp spec somewhere in the 95C to 105C region. Combine that with the fact that Apple clearly designed the cooling system to allow the chips to get that hot, and it seems likely that it's in spec.
I'd like to add that, if anything, the cooling system on some Apple Silicon Macs is oversized for the actual power usage of the SoC. It wouldn't make sense to place such (comparatively) massive cooling systems and then allowing the SoC to reach dangerously high temps without spinning up the fans. It's just that 100ºC it's not that high.The (faulty) assumption you're making here is that the CPU is the first component that will fail, and therefore extending its life will extend the life of the machine. It just isn't.
I'm kinda tired of car analogies in tech, so I won't go there. I'll try to make my point with onions instead. See, when I left the house for a month in Christmas, I left half an onion in the fridge. When I came back, the half-onion had sprouted. So I though it was only fair to plant it. At the time, I was worried about the coming of winter —I doubted it could survive the cold months— so I did everything I could to protect it from the cold. A week after I had planted it, a fungal infection had obliterated the onion. Much, much sooner than winter could have.
Same thing goes for MacBooks. Worried about electromigration on the CPU eventually making it fail? Well, the SSD cells lifetime is likely much shorter, and it's on the same board. Fans also have an expiration date. The faster you spin them, the faster they'll break up. Batteries also inevitably fail with time. They'll have near-zero capacity by the time a CPU enters the 'danger-zone' of its lifetime. Capacitors leak. Speakers membranes get worn out. Accidents happen, too. Spilled coffee, dropped laptops, brownouts, voltage spikes...
Don't 'tune' the fan curves. They're already tuned.
The faulty point that you are making here is you didn’t read what I wrote and have mischaracterized what I wrote. WTF?!??
I didn’t write the CPU would fail, I wrote “some kind of hardware failure somewhere on the board earlier than a computer with lower thermals”…
A CPU that is constantly sitting for years at 100 C will make your whole system , many components very hot. This very hot system will more likely have a failure somewhere on the board with a certain component more quickly than a System with lower thermals. It’s fine if your opinion is different, but I have experienced the result of the point that I am making several times with apple devices over several decades, so empirical data is on my side. The entire internal system wears out faster over time when the CPU is sitting at 100 C for long stretches over many years!
Exactly, not to mention significantly lower boost clocks (in the intel era, not so much now with arm chips) with the cpu already sitting at 100C. But its wasted energy explaining this to the apple fanboi customers, in their eyes Apple can do no wrong.
Sure, cheer Apple when they make good products (like the m1 based laptops) but its ok to call them out when they screw stuff up (which has happened several times).
I am actually an apple fan boi customer, but it is just a basic understanding of computers that hot and dusty internals will wear out faster than clean and cool ones. Sheez!
My experience was different, while Apple fixed many of these Macs for free, Sony and other manufactures often refused to replace the motherboards. I was working in support and reseller at time. Apple didn't do that on purpose, machines can fail, sometimes you can expect it sometimes don't. I had tons of non working PC with problematic GPUs, so the bigger size didn't help that much.
I don't think OP's concern is unwarranted. Lower temps are pretty much ALWAYS better for the longetivity of components. We are allowed to be skeptical of Apple's engineers considering the 2006-2008 Macbook Pro GPU failures, 2010 macbook pro GPU capacitor failures, the absolutely horrible 2011 Radeon GPUs, 2016-2019 butterfly keyboards, flexgate, now there is an issue with dust causing similar issues to flexgate on the 2019s lol. Plenty of issues that can cause a $3-4k laptop to fail prematurely. If I spend that much, I want it to last 10 years without needing anything but a battery replacement and occasional fan cleaning.
However, I have seen CPUs that run 100C...sometimes over and do this for a long time without issue. So maybe they will be fine? That was on intel chips...not sure how Apple Silicon will be affected by running at high temps constantly.
I'd be curious to know if this is common or not. OP could have a defective machine. I haven't heard of many M1 Pro/Max machines hitting 100C
However, I have seen CPUs that run 100C...sometimes over and do this for a long time without issue. So maybe they will be fine? That was on intel chips...not sure how Apple Silicon will be affected by running at high temps constantly.
I'd be curious to know if this is common or not. OP could have a defective machine. I haven't heard of many M1 Pro/Max machines hitting 100C
I think it is more because Apple machines sell a lot more than any one product line of any PC brand. Dell will have like 10 different models at a time on the market and they constantly change. There is never going to be as much outrage. The closest PC outrage was probably the HP DV6000 machines with the nVidia GPU failures, but even that doesn't come close to the amount of bad press of a single Macbook/Macbook Pro model common issue gets. It's usually in Apple's best interest to have these replacement programs. Sony, Dell, whoever can usually get away with not fixing stuff outside of the warranty, and people will just forget. They won't with Apple.
How do you know those are C and not F? I have Macs Fan Control, it reports in F (You can choose C, I presume), and my fans kick on at 150 F and ramp up, temps never get above 165 F
correction, that was the Soc sensor, the performance core stays at 200 F
correction, that was the Soc sensor, the performance core stays at 200 F
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Where do you see electrolytic cap on the motherboard? Even a hobbyist knows the difference between an electrolytic and ceramic/tantalum.
Here's a pic of electrolytic cap to help you.
Wow some of these posts are really amusing! My God why even buy a Mac ever with such poor thermals!! Buy a Mac and wait for it to explode!!
Seriously though many of the people going on and on about how their concerns about the temps are valid is really amazing. It is like PC's never have thermal issues only Mac's, Lol!!
Most of the gaming laptops I have had run at 100c under load with the fans blasting!! 100c is a standard operating temp for cpu's for some time. Anything above 100c is not great but cpu can run hotter and not fail for a while!!
Also your ssd is not going to be fried because your cpu is running at 100c!!
Don't get me wrong, Apple has done some shady **** in the past trying to weasel out of warranty claims but I think in general they are as good if not better than any other PC OEM.
In regards to the newest MBP 14" and 16" they have the best thermal cooling system in a Mac in a long time!! On top of the fact the cooling solution actually works the cpu itself does not use that much wattage and runs pretty cool most of the time. I am not a cpu engineer but I have read on this forum from one whims who says that 100c temp on a cpu is not an issue so I think all of this concern is really overblown.
Has Apple made design flaws-absolutely! Have they tried to cover their ass so they don't have to fix stuff-absolutely and so has every other OEM out there. It is just because Apple makes everything they can't pass off component failure like an OEM can. Lenovo for example does not make all of the components in their machines and can say the ssd manufacturer is to blame for a bad batch of ssd's while if you have a bad component on a Mac the only company to blame is Apple. I understand that Lenovo will cover the components in their machines under warranty but what I am saying is if there is a failure they can blame some other component manufacturer and Apple can't.
Anyway I think we should all return our MBP 14" and 16" because the cpu runs at 100c under load. Lol
Seriously though many of the people going on and on about how their concerns about the temps are valid is really amazing. It is like PC's never have thermal issues only Mac's, Lol!!
Most of the gaming laptops I have had run at 100c under load with the fans blasting!! 100c is a standard operating temp for cpu's for some time. Anything above 100c is not great but cpu can run hotter and not fail for a while!!
Also your ssd is not going to be fried because your cpu is running at 100c!!
Don't get me wrong, Apple has done some shady **** in the past trying to weasel out of warranty claims but I think in general they are as good if not better than any other PC OEM.
In regards to the newest MBP 14" and 16" they have the best thermal cooling system in a Mac in a long time!! On top of the fact the cooling solution actually works the cpu itself does not use that much wattage and runs pretty cool most of the time. I am not a cpu engineer but I have read on this forum from one whims who says that 100c temp on a cpu is not an issue so I think all of this concern is really overblown.
Has Apple made design flaws-absolutely! Have they tried to cover their ass so they don't have to fix stuff-absolutely and so has every other OEM out there. It is just because Apple makes everything they can't pass off component failure like an OEM can. Lenovo for example does not make all of the components in their machines and can say the ssd manufacturer is to blame for a bad batch of ssd's while if you have a bad component on a Mac the only company to blame is Apple. I understand that Lenovo will cover the components in their machines under warranty but what I am saying is if there is a failure they can blame some other component manufacturer and Apple can't.
Anyway I think we should all return our MBP 14" and 16" because the cpu runs at 100c under load. Lol
I first installed fan control software, not because I was worried my company issued laptop was going to die, but because I found the entire case got uncomfortably warm. At my desk I could use an external keyboard and mouse, but in meetings or on the road there was no escape. By having the fans slowly ramp up in speed in response to load I was able to balance noise, battery life and temperature. I know it's anecdotal, but in the 9 years I worked in a Mac-only development company none of the users of fan control software ever had a problem with their computer that required a hardware repair. Plenty of others did.
According to the service manager I know at an Apple Authorized Reseller, failure rates went up dramatically when Apple first switched to "thin and light" designs. Was that because of poorer thermals or was there something else going wrong at that time? I can't say for sure, but I don't like to take chances with my own hardware.
Basic physics says that small gradual heat-cool cycles are more gentle on everything than large fast heat-cool cycles. Maybe within the usable lifetime of a computer it doesn't make enough difference, but I'm going to stick with fan control software.
According to the service manager I know at an Apple Authorized Reseller, failure rates went up dramatically when Apple first switched to "thin and light" designs. Was that because of poorer thermals or was there something else going wrong at that time? I can't say for sure, but I don't like to take chances with my own hardware.
Basic physics says that small gradual heat-cool cycles are more gentle on everything than large fast heat-cool cycles. Maybe within the usable lifetime of a computer it doesn't make enough difference, but I'm going to stick with fan control software.
Oh mi7chy, you never fail at delivering cringeworthy attempted owns.Where do you see electrolytic cap on the motherboard? Even a hobbyist knows the difference between an electrolytic and ceramic/tantalum.
Here's a pic of electrolytic cap to help you.
Cylindrical aluminum electrolytic capacitors are not the only type of electrolytic capacitor. Please go educate yourself on the basics of what "electrolytic" means:
Electrolytic capacitor - Wikipedia
There are several low-profile (probably tantalum) electrolytic capacitors in clear view in the MBP motherboard picture you posted.
Stop with the BS. Through-hole electrolytic hasn't been used on Apple computer motherboards for quite a while since like the Apple II days.
Here's a faulty assumption you've made: that the CPU being at a high die junction temperature necessarily means the rest of the system's components must also become as hot. Thanks to heatpipes and other modern cooling technologies, heat can be removed from high power silicon and transferred far away without putting too much thermal energy into other nearby components.
How do you know the data's actually on your side? Did you do component level failure analysis to figure out what actually failed in your devices, and why, or did you just assume it was temperature because you're predisposed to think it's always temperature? Did you collect a much larger data sample since one person's devices aren't enough to be considered valid statistical data?
What?! I said nothing about through-hole. You, on the other hand, are in a deep hole that you have dug for yourself, and you should probably stop digging...
Polymer Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors | Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Murata Manufacturing's polymer aluminum electrolytic capacitors have the features of low ESR, low impedance, and large capacitance.
www.murata.com
Came here to say this. My 2011 15” MBP will not be easily forgotten. Regardless of the GPU design defects, that laptop ran way too hot, when the fan curves could have been far more aggressive and the whole cooling solution could have been more robust. Maybe Apple has improved since then, but customer trust is not something easily regained.