Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

heating/video = getting rid of an older 15" MBPro?

Aug 8, 2011 8:00PM PDT

h'lo all,
my apologies in advance, I'm *SURE* this has been covered - probably in
detail - but search revealed too many results, so here goes...

I've got a refurbded early '06, 15" 2.16Ghz Core Duo MBPro, 2GB RAM.
It's given a couple of years great service, but lately it's started to
"auto-shutdown". Seems all heat/video related. I'm using MenuMeters to
monitor cpu's and SMC to monitor/regulate fans. Normally, it'll run
between 40C-60C with both fans running about 1500 rpm. Life's good.
But when I run, say, a YouTube video, or today Adobe Bridge photo
browser - anything that will cause the CPU's to run up to 100%, it'll
start moving up in temp quickly to 85-95 and it usually gets too high
before fans kick up to 6000+ and when it hits about 105C, it shuts down
the MBPro. Sometimes i can catch it in the mid-80's and manually kick up
the fans, but usually it runs up and shuts down too quickly for me to
catch it. Come to think of it, it's not just video, but anything that
CPU intensive. Last week I was trying to install 10.6.8 upgrade and it
shutdown before finishing the install. Took 3 tries.
So, I guess where I am is that; am I just asking too much of this
2.16Ghz Core Duo and time for a new MBPro? Would sure like to wring a
few more months out of it before going Lion, any suggestions?
many thanks

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Your MBP is a little long in the tooth,
Aug 8, 2011 9:39PM PDT

but may be good for a while longer.
Perhaps you might consider a blast of air into the fan vents to blow out any potential dust bunnies in there that may be restricting the flow of air.
Worth a try.

- Collapse -
Answer
When I saw
Aug 8, 2011 11:27PM PDT

When I saw the bit about "regulating" fans, I cringed. These programs tend to do more harm than good. The SMC is programmed to handle these things pretty effectively, and if you start messing with it using some software, it upsets the rather delicate balance.

The main problem is probably that the thermal grease on the CPU an GPUs needs to be replaced. It's probably very old, dry, and crusty by now. So that's where I'd start, though getting apart an older MBP isn't exactly an easy task. You will almost certainly bend the bottom case up pretty badly if you don't know what you're doing. It could also just be that the logic board is starting to fail too, or that the fans are caked with crap and can't get rid of heat very efficiently.

Considering this particular system, with a Core Duo instead of Core 2 Duo, is not capable of running Lion, I'll assume that comment about Lion referred to getting a new system, which would probably be a far more efficient use of your money if you were planning on replacing your current one in the not too distant future anyway. Even if you took this somewhere for a diagnostics and to have someone reapply thermal grease, you'd probably be looking at $100US or so, maybe more. If you were planning on keeping this thing for over 6 months, then it MIGHT be worth the money. Anything under 6 months, and I'd say just move up your plans for a new one. And on the new one, do NOT install any program like MenuMeters or smcFanControl. While officially Apple's policy is that they do not tell people what they can or cannot install on their computers, unofficially those of us in the business of supporting Apple systems (and no, I don't work for Apple, I just fix their stuff professionally) frown very heavily upon those programs. I've had more than one system come in where the person complains of issues much like yours, I run a diagnostic on it, all the thermal sensors check out, so I do a quick check of installed programs and find something like smcFanControl installed. At that point, I just send it back, suggesting that the customer remove that program.