Temperatures of Mac Mini

[iPhil]

I just checked my temperatures of my Mac mini CD (early '06)


Temperatures:

cpu #A: 122 F
cpu #A: 135 F

Ambient: 117 F

Northbridge #1: 122 F
Northbridge #2: 126 F

Internal HD: 113 F


I'm booting off of an external drive..


Uptime is 16Hrs ... Are those Temperatures normal ?

 

[PCMacUser]

I just checked my temperatures of my Mac mini CD (early '06)


Temperatures:

cpu #A: 122 F
cpu #A: 135 F

Ambient: 117 F

Northbridge #1: 122 F
Northbridge #2: 126 F

Internal HD: 113 F


I'm booting off of an external drive..


Uptime is 16Hrs ... Are those Temperatures normal ?

Um, that means your CPU temp is about 57 degrees Celsius (135F). Your ambient temperature is very high - 47 degrees Celsius (117F), which is why it is not surprising the CPU temps are also very high. Are you living in a desert? I'd suggest you get some air conditioning for your house.

I don't understand why your hard drive is cooler than the ambient temperature though.

 

[iPhil]

Um, that means your CPU temp is about 57 degrees Celsius (135F). Your ambient temperature is very high - 47 degrees Celsius (117F), which is why it is not surprising the CPU temps are also very high. Are you living in a desert? I'd suggest you get some air conditioning for your house.

I don't understand why your hard drive is cooler than the ambient temperature though.

The home i'm living in now doesn't have A/C since i'm like 10 mins away from the beach ..


What should be the normal temperature range be ?

 

[nikiski]

Hm... my Mac Mini's Ambient sensor temperature equals my CPU temperature. Both are at 51 degrees Celsius. Should I take it in for repair?

BTW it's my web, media and storage server where I encode videos too.

Anyways, if your processor doesn't get to like 90 degrees Celsius I'd say you're fine.

 

[iPhil]

Hm... my Mac Mini's Ambient sensor temperature equals my CPU temperature. Both are at 51 degrees Celsius. Should I take it in for repair?

BTW it's my web, media and storage server where I encode videos too.

Anyways, if your processor doesn't get to like 90 degrees Celsius I'd say you're fine.

90 C total for CPU .. or combined temperature of both core temperatures?


Most of the time: i got Safari (8 tabs+ open) and EyeTv hybrid, since my mini is part of tv setup .. ..

on onccasion i'll have MTR or handbrake open too...

 

[nikiski]

90 C total for CPU .. or combined temperature of both core temperatures?


Most of the time: i got Safari (8 tabs+ open) and EyeTv hybrid, since my mini is part of tv setup .. ..

on onccasion i'll have MTR or handbrake open too...

I'd say the maximum for all temperatures you see.

I see a lot of people using the Mini as their media hub. I think its size and noiseless operation are the most important factor in such a configuration.

 

[SkyBell]

My mini right now is at 138/154 degrees, (depending on which application you choose ) which is normal for me.

However, It also stays on 24/7 locked in a 4x4 closet with no ventilation.

 

[iPhil]

90 C total for CPU .. or combined temperature of both core temperatures?


Most of the time: i got Safari (8 tabs+ open) and EyeTv hybrid, since my mini is part of tv setup .. ..

on onccasion i'll have MTR or handbrake open too...

I'd say the maximum for all temperatures you see.

I see a lot of people using the Mini as their media hub. I think its size and noiseless operation are the most important factor in such a configuration.

yes the eyetv setup is neat but it's depressing for all the cable web that it's created..

My mini right now is at 138/154 degrees, (depending on which application you choose ) which is normal for me.

However, It also stays on 24/7 locked in a 4x4 closet with no ventilation.

My mini setup on top of my bookcase is on its side.. then i got speakers/Digital cable box/Laser printer on the end ..

But i got a fan blowing towards the mini, still CPU temperatures are 113 /126 F (45 / 52 C)

 

[SkyBell]

My mini setup on top of my bookcase is on its side.. then i got speakers/Digital cable box/Laser printer on the end ..

But i got a fan blowing towards the mini, still CPU temperatures are 113 /126 F (45 / 52 C)

Those are normal temperatures from what I can tell. I used to hover between 112 and 120 in a ventilated room.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Anything less than 60c is fine for a processor to be at for extended periods of time. I would expect the mini to idle around 50c since it doesnt have the worlds greatest ventilation or cooling system. If the fan is on fullblast 24/7 then you may want to take it back since something is wrong, but it should be very quiet while idling.

 

[Maxime]

My Mini is usually around 50C with the fan spinning at 1500rpm.

 

[NightSailor]

Mac Mini Temperatures

My Mac Mini has a 2.33GHZ CPU and A WD 320GB Hard Drive.

I use SMC fan control set at 2550 rpm and my temperatures were around 59 and 63 deg C for CPU 1 and 2. Yesterday I noticed that I lost the temperature sensor on CPU one and was a bit alarmed by that so I dialed up the fan speed yesterday. CPU temperatures were above 85 deg C at some point according to the warning received.

I "XBench" tested the unit prior to increasing the speed because I thought I might have lost CPU 1. Xbench tests gave me a rating of 145, so I figure it was working, but the temperature sensor failed. I noticed something similar on my Mac Pro during intensive Video processing--one core lost it's temp sensor--increasing the fan speed fixed that also.

My hunch is the temperature sensor fails before the CPU. On my Mac Mini with the 2.33GHz CPU it seems to fail around 65 deg C or above. But it recovers when fan speed is increased. I have no evidence that either Core of my CPU failed at any time even at the much higher temperatures I saw. There were no lock ups or any system errors.

In any event, I use my Mac Mini very lightly. I use it to play music with my iTouch as a remote control. I sometimes use it for web browsing and word processing. I once tried using it for Folding@Home and quickly removed that software because of huge increase in heating and power consumption.

Clearly the faster 2.33GHz dual core CPU does raise the heat some over the original 1.83GHz CPU. I felt it prudent to dial up the fan speed to avoid losing a $400 (eBay) CPU chip.

This unit is located underneath a SONY HD TV used as it's monitor, so it has access to decent air circulation. I don't hear the CPU fan at all at these rpms. Ambient temperature at present is about 23 deg C.

Present readings:
CPU A heatsink 45 deg C
CPU A temperature diode 54 deg C
NOrthbridge Position 1 47 deg C
Northbridge Position 2 48 deg C
SMART Disk WD 300 Drive 44 deg C
CPU 1 56 deg C
CPU 2 56 deg C

My recommendation is to keep the temperatures below 65 deg C unless you have proven it can sustain higher temperatures without failing. If you are unsure, 65 deg C seems like a good number. I welcome any comments to my post.

 

[hotshotharry]

I use i cyclone and at idle basically light browsing about 42 - 50 C under full load 1+ hours prolly around 68 - 72C room temp 20 - 23C

they run a bit warmer than you would expect. I even put arctic silver thermal compound on my cpu/heat sink

 

[saneman1]

Temp. of Mac Mini

I use SMC fan control, set to 2900 rpm's, and here is my temp. while running Windows 7 and Linux Mint in Coherence:

CPU A Proximity: *32C
CPU Temp. Diode: 33C
HD Bay 1: 32C
Northbridge Chip: 39C
Northbridge Position 1: 37C
Smart Disk (Hitachi): 30C
Wireless Module: 36C
CPU Core 1: 32C
CPU Core 2: 36C

 

[brangates]

i was actually worried my mid 2011 2.3 was running hot because it felt warm to the touch , but i installed istat and my CPU temps are at 37. and 35 and ambient is at 31. So, mine seems to run pretty cool the fan is running at 1800rpms right now, its just set on the default fan settings

 

[misfit356tsw]

I just checked my temperatures of my Mac mini CD (early '06)


Temperatures:

cpu #A: 122 F
cpu #A: 135 F

Ambient: 117 F

Northbridge #1: 122 F
Northbridge #2: 126 F

Internal HD: 113 F


I'm booting off of an external drive..


Uptime is 16Hrs ... Are those Temperatures normal ?

That is hovering between 50 and 60 celsius. Well within spec, especially considering the uptime.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Fan Control Issues on Mac Mini (2012)

I ran Handbrake for the first time on my brand new Mac Mini 2012 Quad i7 and it's rather disturbing what Apple's idea of what temperature to finally start cranking up the fan at (i.e. around 90 Celsius). From what I've read anything beyond the 70's range for long periods of time is really bad news. Sadly, this thing has to be at maximum fan setting to get 75 degrees Celsius on average when encoding at full speed (2.3GHz Quad i7). Oddly, the case isn't even remotely hot and I can't feel ANY hot air blowing out of the thing (everything else in the case is much lower by comparison).

In any case, I installed SMCFanControl and it's OK...in the sense you can at least manually raise the fan speed, but I find the basic setup to be completely flawed (i.e. you can raise the minimum fan speed for idling, but there are NO controls what-so-ever to set the maximum temperature rating before it cranks up the fan more and THAT is what is REALLY needed quite badly. As it is, I have to manually turn the fan setting to a maximum preset when encoding and then manually turn it back down to something lower (might as well be the stock setting at that point since the idle temperatures are safe).

You'd think that there would be some other good fan control programs out there, but so far all I could really find was the Derman Fan Control program which does EXACTLY what I'm talking about (set minimum AND maximum ranges with a nice graphical curve to boot), BUT it hasn't been updated since 2007 and so it's a bit out of date for newer computers and it's not 64-bit. I'v seen at least one unofficial update to it to make it 64-bit but it seems to be based around the iMac, not the Mac Mini or Macbook Pro.

Is there anything else out there that I'm unaware of that can do what I'm talking about AND is up-to-date and stable and 64-bit?