Overheating: Mac Mini HDD replacement - Samsung 850 Pro

[mrGott]

Hey everyone!

I need your advice. 2 days ago I replaced my Mac Mini's (Late 2014) HDD with Samsung 850 Pro 250GB SSD.
First day was fine but today I noticed that it was terribly hot on the surface. During almost 3 years of usage it's never been this hot.

I just followed a guide on youtube replacing HDD, and put everything back together. Cleaned the fan from minor dust and that's it.

I just forgot to put rubber things on the SSD. Mini's HDD had 2 rubber things, but I'm not going to shake it during the work so I don't think it should be the issue.

The cooler seems to be working, when I get real close i can hear it.

Any ideas? I love my Mac Mini very much and don't won't to bake it.

 

[einbahnstrasse]

Can you feel hot air being pushed out of the vent? If not, it is somehow misaligned. If you can, you can verify its the ssd by trying with old drive. Not sure how much you should do, the parts inside are really small and fragile. I eventually busted my IR sensor being careless.

 

[notatechnician]

Hey everyone!

I need your advice. 2 days ago I replaced my Mac Mini's (Late 2014) HDD with Samsung 850 Pro 250GB SSD.
First day was fine but today I noticed that it was terribly hot on the surface. During almost 3 years of usage it's never been this hot.

I just followed a guide on youtube replacing HDD, and put everything back together. Cleaned the fan from minor dust and that's it.

I just forgot to put rubber things on the SSD. Mini's HDD had 2 rubber things, but I'm not going to shake it during the work so I don't think it should be the issue.

The cooler seems to be working, when I get real close i can hear it.

Any ideas? I love my Mac Mini very much and don't won't to bake it.

Mac Mini/ SSD units can get pretty warm during use, but I would recommend making sure that the Mac Mini components (including the rubber...standoffs?) are reassembled exactly the same way it was originally assembled (except for the drive), since the tolerances for Mac Minis are quite tight. Since it looks like you were attempting to replace your HDD with an SSD, I would suggest consulting iFixit for resources on DIY Mac repairs - they have a very extensive and thoroughly-tested set of procedures.

https://www.ifixit.com/

If you have time to test different configurations, I'd suggest using the iFixit manual to run the Mac Mini
- With the original HDD back inside
- With the new SSD inside
for comparison. If the heat issue persists, you may want to try swapping out the SSD for another one. Hope that helps!

 

[Celerondon]

...
First day was fine but today I noticed that it was terribly hot on the surface. During almost 3 years of usage it's never been this hot....

The cooler seems to be working, when I get real close i can hear it.

Any ideas? I love my Mac Mini very much and don't want to bake it.

We should find out how hot your Mac mini really is! If you download Temperature Gauge by Tunabelly Software you can also determine the cooling fan speed.

I agree with your wish to avoid baking that Mac mini.

Note: This screenshot shows the temperature profile of my 2012 mini. Because the Tunabelly utility displays historic high readings a user can compare current temperatures and fan speed with numbers from other times.

 

[Miscellaneous]

I have a Mac Mini i7 (Late 2012) which has started to get a lot hotter than usual recently.

I installed 2 x Crucial MX300 750GB SSD Drives in it many months ago and it has always been very cool to touch.

The only major changes I have made recently was to upgrade from OS X 10.10.5 to macOS 10.12.5 and then to 10.12.6 earlier this week.

It's getting really hot now under the same usage circumstances that I usually put it through. I'm also worried about my Mac Mini overheating.

 

[Celerondon]

I have a Mac Mini i7 (Late 2012) which has started to get a lot hotter than usual recently.
...It's getting really hot now under the same usage circumstances that I usually put it through. I'm also worried about my Mac Mini overheating.

I suggest that you also should try Temperature Gauge software or something similar. With that program and the Activity Monitor application that you already have you can find out exactly what is hot, how hot it is, what applications are using the most CPU%, and how efficiently your fan is working.

If you two can post readings from your computers we should be able to help you to diagnose those minis in no time.

 

[wol]

Generic recommendation is to keep at all times at least 15% free disk space, i.e. about 40GB in your case. MacOS keeps and updates temporary files and logs, and also uses disk space as "swap space" to free up RAM from programmes and routines, which are temporarilly inactive. Some SSDs tend to get quite hot when constantly writting new content.

To get a better overview of the internal temperatures, and have active control of the fan, you might want to install "Macs Fan control" - see https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control
You might also want to verify that "TRIM Support" is enabled - check "About this Mac" / "System Report ..." / "SATA /SATA Express".

 

[mrcat]

That is worrying, I am looking to do an ssd upgrade, I might upgrade ram first!
My 2012 mini runs ok just slow, compared to what i have seen using ssd. Temperature wise it does get warm.
Just for reference, my system info and info from fanny.

 

[Boyd01]

I upgraded my daughter's 2012 base Mini with a 500gb Samsung T3 external SSD boot drive last year, works great and no need to open anything up. Then last week I setup my 2012 quad 2.6ghz mini to dual boot with Sierra on an external 1TB Samsung T3 while leaving Mountain Lion on the original Apple 256gb internal SSD. It also runs really well, I am using it with Final Cut Pro X, Compressor and Logic Pro X.

I have been tinkering with things ever since the 1950's when my Dad helped me build my first Heathkit. But I'm not interested in opening up the Mini, and this thread (plus many others) is a good example of why. Apple clearly did not design it with the idea of users opening it. There is a little performance hit with an external drive, but it's not that great on the 2012 model (I guess it would be a bit more on a 2014). I think the risk offsets any gains of an internal SSD, and there are lots of advantages to having an external drive (can be used with other machines, easily replaced if there's a problem, etc)

Here's my external 1TB Samsung T3

and this is the original Apple SM256e internal SSD for comparison

 

[Miscellaneous]

mrGott have you had any luck tracking down the cause for the overheating?

I've reverted back to OS X 10.10.5 and my Mac Mini is slightly cooler but definitely hotter than it used to be under the same workload. I also noticed that the macOS Sierra upgrade has updated the firmware which still remains when going back to a previous version of the OS.

Thanks Celerondon for your advice, I haven't tried installing any temperature reading software yet. However, I did have a look at the activity monitor while I was doing some music production and the application I had running (Ableton Live 9 Intro) was using the most CPU (65-70%).

When I checked activity monitor while I had macOS Sierra installed it was around 100% CPU.

In both cases all other processes were very low (2-3%).

My Mac Mini is a US model and came with a US power lead however I use an UK power lead instead. I've read that this is fine as the Mac Mini has a built in transformer, can anyone please confirm this?

Thanks for your help guys, hope we can figure this out!

 

[Celerondon]

...When I checked activity monitor while I had macOS Sierra installed it was around 100% CPU.

In both cases all other processes were very low (2-3%)...

Okay, that is something. Sierra is a functional operating system. It does not automatically use 100% CPU for an extended period of time. It is possible that something like an indexing task could cause high CPU usage for a finite period. When you saw that 100% CPU usage in Activity Monitor did you happen to notice which specific tasks in Sierra were eating up all of those clock cycles? Also, how long had Sierra been up and running before you decided to roll things back?

 

[Miscellaneous]

Hey Celerondon!

Thanks for your reply, I had Sierra up and running for at least a couple of weeks.

My previous post may not have been very clear. What I meant was that while I was producing music with Sierra installed, Ableton Live 9 Intro was showing as using around 100% CPU in activity monitor. However doing the same tasks with Yosemite installed it was showing as around 70%.

I've been in touch with Apple Support who recommended a few things to try including creating a test user account to see if the overheating persisted which unfortunately was the case. They concluded by recommending me to have my Mac Mini assessed at an Apple Store.

I've updated the Firmware for both SSD drives using the Crucial Storage Executive application. I had to do this through the second SSD in my Mac Mini which is dedicated to Windows 8.1 Pro. When doing this I noticed that the Crucial application provided temperature readings for both SSD drives and were reported as being 35-40°C.

I guess if I take the Mac Mini to an Apple Store I would have to take it apart first and replace the original Apple HDD.

I've had a quick look inside the Mac Mini and it's still very clean and the fan is not obstructed. Still haven't tried any temperature reading software which will most likely be my next step.

If there's anything else I can try please do let me know...

Thanks!

 

[Miscellaneous]

Quick Update!

I've tried a few more troubleshooting steps starting with removing the 2 Crucial MX300 SSD drives from my Mac Mini and replacing the original Apple HDD. I then did a clean install of macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on a bootable external USB 3.0 SSD, installed my music production apps and ran things externally from there for a while. The heat problem was still there and there was no difference.

I'm guessing that the heat problem I am having is not related to the SSD upgrade that I had done so I may need to investigate further and start a new thread if necessary.

Thanks ;-)

 

[Trusteft]

Quick Update!

I've tried a few more troubleshooting steps starting with removing the 2 Crucial MX300 SSD drives from my Mac Mini and replacing the original Apple HDD. I then did a clean install of macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on a bootable external USB 3.0 SSD, installed my music production apps and ran things externally from there for a while. The heat problem was still there and there was no difference.

I'm guessing that the heat problem I am having is not related to the SSD upgrade that I had done so I may need to investigate further and start a new thread if necessary.

Thanks ;-)

Eh, is there a heat problem when you are not using the specific application that was showing 100% CPU usage? Any other application or just that?