Weird behavior when gaming on imac

[redri]

Is it just me or is this normal?

I experienced this today:
When playing world of warcraft the fps just suddenly drops from around 60fps to 10fps and the cpu fan goes from around 1300 to 2800rpm and the optical drive fan goes from 1100 to 1800rpm.
This is just for about 20 sec, then its back to normal again for like 5 minutes until the whole thing starts over.

The computer is an iMac 21,5" mid 2010, 3,2ghz i3, ati5670, 4gb ram.

 

[mulo]

no of course its not normal, what are your temperatures? - if they are above the cpu/gpu limits they may be throtteling to cool back down.

 

[redri]

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Of what i could see the CPU temp went up to 57c when this happends and the gpu is around 80c. That seems absolutley normal to me.

 

[redri]

Now I can't play more than 20 minutes before the cpu fan starts blowing with 4000rpm and gets stuck there until i SHUT the computer down. Restart does not help, the fan just keeps on blowing at full speed.
I tried to reset the smc but the problem occurs as soon as i start playing again (after about 10-20 min). I even tried this thing that checks the hardware for any problems but it couldn't find anything.

Is there anybody out there that recognize this problem?

 

[iMaccore2]

Now I can't play more than 20 minutes before the cpu fan starts blowing with 4000rpm and gets stuck there until i SHUT the computer down. Restart does not help, the fan just keeps on blowing at full speed.
I tried to reset the smc but the problem occurs as soon as i start playing again (after about 10-20 min). I even tried this thing that checks the hardware for any problems but it couldn't find anything.

Is there anybody out there that recognize this problem?

Your iMac is using it's better judgement and trying to get you off the crack cocaine that is WoW. Listen to it.

 

[redri]

Your iMac is using it's better judgement and trying to get you off the crack cocaine that is WoW. Listen to it.

Sorry to let you down but i actually got a real life too that includes a work, wife and a band that i'm a guitarist in.
For normal people WoW is what you want it to be.

And for a reminder, the thread was not about world of warcraft.

 

[AndyMoore]

Have you looked through your console logs to see what's going on when this happens?
Is Time Machine starting when it all goes south?
Do you have many background apps running?
Anything syncing?

 

[redri]

Have you looked through your console logs to see what's going on when this happens?
Is Time Machine starting when it all goes south?
Do you have many background apps running?
Anything syncing?

Where do i find the console logs? (i'm new to mac)
I don't have time machine activated so i can't tell you.
Only Spotify and safari in the background most of the time.

Did another hardware control today (the big one this time) but there were no errors and after that i did a smc reset again.
I started WoW again and started to log the temps and fan speeds from time to time by looking at istat pro when playing. I played for 1 hour without problems.
This time it happend 10 minutes after I shut the game down.

This is what happened when i started:

Powersupply: 60C
Cpu: 50C
Gpu Diode: 60C
Gpu Heatsink: 54C

Cpu Fan: 1199
Optical Drive Fan: 999

After 15 and 20 min:

Powersupply: 80C
Cpu: 58C
Gpu Diode: 82C
Gpu Heatsink: 76C

Cpu fan: 1199
Optical Drive Fan: 999

A 20C difference and there is no difference when looking at the fan speed.

After 22 min:

Same temps as above

Cpu Fan: 1255
Optical Drive Fan: 1266

Now things starts to happen.

After 1 hour before i shut the game down:

Powersupply: 77C
Cpu: 56C
Gpu Diode: 79C
Gpu Heatsink: 72C

Cpu Fan: 1440
Optical Drive Fan: 1300

This seems like normal temps and the fans are blowing a little more to keep the temps down. This is also about the same temps i had yesterday when the fans started to blow 4000rpm and didn't stop until i turned the computer off.

The temps started to fall after the game shut down but after 10 min I started to hear the fans accelerate.

istat pro told me this:

Powersupply: 69C
Cpu: 47C
Gpu Diode: 69C
Gpu Heatsink: 63C

Cpu Fan: 2600-2800
Optical Drive Fan:2100-2300

This were only for about 30 sec then back to normal again, just like the first symptoms i had last week but the difference is: when gaming this behaviour comes back after like 3 minutes and the fps in the game goes from perfect to really bad while the fans are acting stupid.

 

[AndyMoore]

Where do i find the console logs? (i'm new to mac)
I don't have time machine activated so i can't tell you.
Only Spotify and safari in the background most of the time.

Applications -> Utilities -> Console

or

type Console in Spotlight