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Question about iMac heat.

W

Whimseh

macrumors member
Original poster
May 24, 2010
98
171
Hello everybody, I have a question about my 21.5" iMac's heat.

It's been getting really hot, even when just browsing the web. So I found iStat Menus.

Here's what it came out with;
(Fahrenheit, Celcius)

Ambient - 86F, 30C.
CPU - 122F, 50C.
Mem Controller - 126F, 52C.
Northbridge - 138F, 58C.
Optical Drive - 120F, 48C.
Power Supply 2 - 158F, 70C.

Now, are any of these out of the ordinary? Oh yeah, and one last thing, is it okay to even mess with the fan speeds?
 
My CPU is 133 in Fahrenheit

Might want to change it to Celsius though because Intel I think reports top temps in that... and most people use iStat that way. It will be easier for people who have iMacs to tell you if it's OK.
 
Same as mine

That is about the same temps my iMac runs. The aluminum case is used as a heat-sink and will get warmer than other cases. Fan controll software basically trades wear on the fan for wear on the other components, you can use, or not, I don't really think it matters.
 
Seems really normal to me. Might want to worry if the processor gets over 90c (the fans shouldn't let it go over that for a long period of time like say five minute...) and I say that not because it could damage the CPU but because it could probably damage the HD if the whole computer heats up.

It looks normal and I guess it's ok to mess with fan speeds. I never do... never saw the point. It's built and programed to run at different speeds at different times when the computer knows it's hot enough or cool enough. To me... speeding up the fans to run full blast even when you have 60c or even 70c CPU or even 50c spells wear out your fans faster than they normally would. But that's just my opinion.

Hope I helped. I don't own a new iMac though. The iMac I have doesn't have a fan... that I know. I use a MBP.
 
My temps run a little higher with light use on my 21.5" iMac... My question is will this shorten the life of my iMac?
 
Those are perfectly normal temps. My white MacBook runs at 62 Celsius when its just idle! Web browsing takes me up to 65, and Flash content... Just don't put it on your lap!
 
Those temperatures dont look weird to me , mine are about the same. Just the power supply is colder than yours.
 
Here's mine. We seem to be pretty close heat wise.
 

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Those temps are just fine-- ice cold compared to apple's other products, both past and present.

However I'm not digging that ambient temp, 30c seems like a blazin environment to live in.
 
The temps are fine You should be a little concerned if CPU temps were 180F or higher. My brothers Early 2008 15" MBP CPU heats up to 218F under full load with fans at 6200RPM, so 113F is nothing.
 
How warm does the case get?

My sister bought her first Mac the other day - a 27" i5 iMac. She said the case did not get hot. However, the sound was bad and the computer was replaced.

The next one had a case that did get hot and it failed the first day.

When I was helping her decide on whether to get a C2D or i5 I was wondering if the quad core generated a lot more heat.
 
Well, the alluminium case does get hot, but only at the top of the iMac where the air vent is . It doesnt really get hot at the bottom of the machine.
 
as has been posted in other threads, the real problem with heat is the HDD.

Anything consistently north of 50 C is asking for (and will receive!) trouble.
 
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