Continuing iMac overheating

I posted about this previously.
My iMac has been running very hot for the last few weeks. I have had the machine for 2 years and it is a definite change. By hot I mean that after an hour of use or so the power supply is up to 84+ celsius (180+ F) and the GPU diode is in the 70+ celsius range. The other temps are also elevated in the 50-60 range but those are the worst. Fans are running 700/1200/1200. It gets so hot that performance is seriously affected; the machine starts lagging quite a bit. Ambient temp of 18-19 C.
Things I have tried that do not work:
1. Opening the window directly behind the machine and letting the cold November air blast it;
2. Vacuuming all the air intakes;
3. Running AHT (hardware tester) in extended mode--this returns no errors/problems;
4. Resetting the system (unplug power for 15 minutes, re-start with power button held down).
I'm resigned to having to take it in at this point. I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what the problem might be (and possible cost to fix) or if there's something else I can try at home. Or is this really just normal?

Assuming there is no mechanical problem do a SMC and PRAM reset, these may help. You may need to do each reset at least 2x for them to take effect.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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Imac overheating while watching videos

Recently i purchased a late 2011 IMac with a 21.5inch screen, 4gb of ram, 2.7ghz intel i5 proccessor. I use my imac really often for browsing webs,videos,etc.
I realized it often overheated at the top edge of the screen(above the camera) when i was watching videos. I thought if i continued watching videos it would get too overheated so i would put it to sleep and let it cool down b4 using it again and it get quite annoying. If any1 has any suggestions or tips with this please answer this question it will be gladly appreciated. Is their anyway to stop the imac from getting overheated so easily?

The fan is speeding up to cool the GPU. The GPU (graphic's chip) heats up because video's and game's work the GPU much harder than normal desktop activities.
When was the last time you checked and cleaned the air intake grill on the bottom of your iMac?
I shutdown (stopping the fans), disconnect the power and vigorously vacuum out the bottom grill work on my Mac's a couple of times a year to keep them running cool.

24" Imac Overheating HD (?)

Hello (specs of machine in question will follow below). I saw someone with a similar problem's post in the archives, but there was no resolution listed so I'm hoping for some direction/help from the community.
A few weeks ago I was playing a video game when my Imac froze. The sound continued to play, but I could not force-quit the application and there was no response from the machine or software for 15 minutes. At that time I powered down the Imac (using the power button) and the machine came up with the ? folder flashing. I attempted many times to reboot and the ? folder kept appearing. I loaded up the install disk to try to reinstall the OS, but the system manager showed that there was "an error scanning SATA devices". (I don't remember the exact name, but the machine didn't recognize a hard drive being present!).
At that point, I made an appointment with the local Apple store, packed up the 35 pound machine and made the trek to the mall. When my turn came, (I explained all the above in detail) the Genius booted up the machine and....it came right up. No problems. They ran a diag disk and found no problems and sent me home.
Got home, everything worked fine for a week or two, then the day after Thanksgiving the exact same problem resurfaced. The local Apple Store was open late on that Friday so I drove the Imac back to the store to see if they could replace the drive or figure out what was wrong. You can guess what happened next: Got to the Store, booted the machine. . . and it worked just fine. Diag disk was run, no problems found.
The machine was working fine. . .until last night when the exact same problem manifested again! This time, I decided to test a theory. I turned the computer off, unplugged it and went out to eat. Came back an hour later and tried the computer again. . . tahdah! Fully functional, boots up fine. I continued using the machine for about an hour and. . .the problem came back!! I did the same thing again, turned it off, left it alone for a while and it came back up, no problems.
Is this some kind of heat issue? I'm guessing it is (the box does seem very hot when it isn't working). . .but my home isn't overly hot (it is winter now and I don't typically turn the heat above 60) so I doubt it is environmental.
I really don't want to take the machine back to the Store again and just have them say "looks ok here!" If there is any experience or advice someone could share with me to get this fixed quickly and properly that would be great! The machine was bought in July of '08 and I have the 3 year Apple Care plan.
Thank you! (machine specs below)
PROCESSOR 065-7739 2.8GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO
MEMORY 065-7651 4GB 800MHZ DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB
GRAPHICS 065-7738 NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 GS W/512MB
HARD DRIVE 065-7655 1TB SERIAL ATA DRIVE
MODEM 065-6633 NONE
APPLE SOFTWARE - IWORK 08 065-7672 NONE
APPLE SOFTWARE - LOGIC EXPR 8065-7675NONE
APPLE SOFTWARE - FINAL CUT EXP 065-7674NONE
APPLE SOFTWARE - APERTURE 2 065-7673NONE
MOUSE (FOR AOS) 065-7659 APPLE MIGHTY MOUSE
APPLE KEYBOARD & USER'S GUIDE065-7664WIRED KYBD & USER'S GUIDE
COUNTRY KIT 065-7670 COUNTRY KIT,IMAC 24

Hello!
The Flashing Question Mark in Folder error on power-up was the first hint something was wrong.....
The computer is situated in a box room about 8" from the wall with no obstructions above it. The room is warm (I like it that way!).
I am sharing the same symptoms described above. My machine was starting up ("BONG!") and not detecting the Hard Drive. ("BONG!") I reset the PRAM ("BONG!") ("BONG!") Still not detected...
("BONG!") I tried booting from the install disk 1. This was successful and I attempted to check the status of my disk using the disk utility however it was not listed, just the DVD-RW drive. The AHT declared everything was working fineg but then again, it didn't see the HDD either. It wasn't listed in the HW profile. Agggh! I left the machine powered off and went to have a cup of tea to cool my nerves... and suspected it could be heat. I came back and powered up again ("BONG!"). It worked! The machine booted... after which I installed iStat & AMBIE. I was suspect of the temperature. The top of the iMac was hotter than it usual hot self :-/ I quickly noticed a very HOT reading from "power supply position 1". It's showing 81oC and fluctuating +/- by 1oC. I moved the Computer from the Box Room into a spare room where the ambient temperature is considerably cooler. I wanted to cool the machine down and test the theory.
Sure enough, after just 5 minutes I rebooted with success again. I've tested this again and again and it boots every time in this colder room.
Is this a case of...
Power Supply Failure?
Insufficient Cooling (Perhaps increasing Fan RPM is a solution?)
.. I'm not 100% but I suspect it's related to one of these. An issue with the power supply could be the reason the disk isn't being detected. Is there any tools out there where I can test the HW?

24" imac overheating problem

This 24" Apple imac computer is fantastic in all ways that I've used it, yet my 24" imac has been recently overheating and shutting down without notice. As a mechanical engineer looking over the design of this flat screen PC at the back I note the cooling fins are the wrong way round for maximum cooling, so assume this is a manufacturing defect because heat rises upwards not downwards.
So do Apple management accept the flaw in the design of the imac 24" with the direction of the cooling ducts and rectify the problem as soon as possible, or do they ignore this problem in the cooling system of many imacs distributed around the world?
The imac 24" is a fantastic machine to use, and by Apple tech turning around the cooling vents by 180 degrees the venting problem will probably disappear.
Sometimes the simplest of solutions are blindingly obvious!!!
Message was edited by: richvid

i get what u mean about the vent, i was thinking the same thing BUT;
i was reading something on wiki a while ago about the OLD apples, i mean real old like the SE (i think)...
- they initially didn't have fans and they used to overheat (more so when people rested papers on top blocking the vents) - but their design was to allow the heated components situated towards the top to actually draw cold air through the bottom of the machine and up inside - past other components and out the top and hence cool it effectively, then apple started using fans...
- i think apple still use a combination of fans and the radiated heat to cool the imacs of today, the components that get hot are situated at the top of the aluminum macs and the aluminum itself heats up allot which makes it radiate the heat outwards like a heatsink and then fan kicks up to help it along when needed, maybe the design of the vent helps this process? i.e. the vent causes the aluminum to heat up more and radiate more heat than if it were the opposite way - perhaps if it were the other way, the fans would have to run a tiny bit higher and possibly over time suck more dust in and create more problems?
couldn't find the article on the apple computers to what im trying to communicate here - dont remember the right terminology to explain it all properly but try researching heatsinks on wiki - heatsinks work on the same sort of process

Imac Overheating

I have a major overheating problem in my 24" imac.
When the problem began I suspected the hard disk, but I have ruled it out. The behavior of my machine had become sluggish and sporadic over the last month. This week it became nearly useless. It would "pinwheel" for no reason. A right-click would result in a five-minute "pinwheel" before the menu would pop up. It would be completely unresponsive. It would freeze during burning or just copying files and then start again. Open a folder and view the items inside and have no ability to scroll. Oddly, while doing that, it would slowly report the sizes in the file size column. (one about every second)
I've run a handful of utilities on the Hard Disk like Disk Utility and OnyX. All things say "OK." I did repair the disk a week ago and many corrections were made then but not now.
I ran AHT and get the following errors at different times:
4MOT/1/40000003: HDD-1333
4MOT/2/40000004: HDD-1350
4HDD/11/40000002: SATA (0,0)
Most of what I have read in various forums suggested the fans and temperatures. So, I ran "temp monitor" and noticed some alarming temperatures. The HDD in particular was reading 176F^. So I concluded that I lost a fan. Thus I ran smcFanControl and ramped up the fans one at a time. They all sound good and I can detect wind around the machine.
Now it was "crunchy" and very frustrating to get the apps to start even after shutting the machine down to let it cool. However, once the fans started to run, temp monitor reported significant cooling and the machines behavior straightened up IMMEDIATELY.
Something has been degrading over a longer period of time. Actions by the machine were more crisp and more responsive than they had been in a much longer period. I ran photoshop and tried to force a crash. Nope. Like new.
OK, so what is the issue? If I drop out fan control, the machine gets sick and dies? What is the apple failing to do on its own to regulate temperature?

jamesholden wrote:
If you search through previous posts you'll find it's quite normal. The aluminium chassis forms part of the heat sink of the iMac, if it gets too warm it'll increase the fan speed, and as a safety measure would eventually turn off, but it's safe and normal for temperatures to reach 85+ degrees Celsius.
I think you have a hardware failure not induced by heat, as you say the fans are working and the temp's are not really that excessive that your getting.
If he's getting error messages running AHT, it probably is a temperature sensor or fan failure of some type. It's difficult to know, because we're relying on the accuracy of a 3rd party utility to tell us if all of the fans inside the machine are working, and often these change via model.

IMac overheating problem? This may help in some cases!

My daughters iMac frequently suffered of a kernel panic after about 2 hours of use. Symptoms lead to suspect overheating of some component. How I fixed the economical way:
http://www.tervis.fidisk.fi/saveimac.html

496/2942
Hi Topias,
Tervetuloa!
Thank you for this excellent page and the useful links.
Glad to know such good contributors like you are around...
A very good work indeed.
Axl
P.S.
The air is meant to be sucked from bottom, through the computer, to the top.
But have you by chance tested the reverse: blowing air from top, through computer, to the bottom?
I mean, with such an external, noisy installation, you can allow yourself pure efficiency (and a more powerful fan), since you don't care anymore about design and noise?

24in, 2.8ghz imac overheating?

Hi,
Since installing Snow Leopard, I've started noticing that my imac is running noticeably hotter. Using iStatpro I recorded 63 degrees C on the HD the other day, and the fan noise was pretty noticeable (normally they're very quiet). Tonight, for example, I powered the mac on and shortly thereafter the HD temp was 30 degrees. Then, half an hour later following minor Safari usage, the temp was 53 degrees!
I tried resetting the SMC and PRAM, but the 'issue' persists.
Any ideas?
CHeers,
Kev.

I am having a problem that seems like overheating as well. have always noticed that the back of my imac runs very hot. Then a few days ago I got the spinning beach ball after the computer was on for a couple of hours. When I restarted I got the flashing folder with a question mark in it. So I used the install disk, got to disk utility and it was unable to see my hard drive. In lieu of freaking out immediately I decided to chill out a while and freak out later. A few hours later the computer started up normally. So I ran disk utility again off the startup disk, it saw the drive and found nothing to repair. Hmmm, I says. Ok. So I am happily computering away for a couple of hours then comes the freeze-up and beach ball again. Then the flashing question mark folder on attempted startup. Rinse and repeat. So now I get a couple of hours before freeze-up. I'm trying to backup my important stuff in chunks while I have access to the hard drive. A couple of more sessions and I should have all essential personnel evacuated. Then I guess I wait for the ship to go down..
I don't see a third-party application that overdrives the fan as being an acceptable long-term solution. Any other ideas would be much appreciated.
Thanks much.

Suspected imac overheating- help!

Im wondering if my imac is overheating. My sims 3 game keeps shutting down and when i leave it for half hour it will play again for a couple of hours then shuts down. Its summer here so temps up to 100 deg (35 celcius). The imac affter sims shuts is so hot at the back i cant put my hand on it. It was purchased last may 2012. Whole computer has been slow and a bit non-responsive all day. I have apple care but i cant figure out how to actually contact them!
Specs-
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63b)

Also, see about installing smcFan Control. This will allow you to manually set the fan speeds higher.
http://www.eidac.de/
When needed I also run a small fan at the back of the computer. This will help remove heat from the case.
Some threads where you can see my posts about using smcFan Control.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3219643?start=0&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3617828?start=0&tstart=0
EDIT: you won't find iStat Pro at BDAqua's link any longer. (No longer supported by the developer, and not completely compatible with Mountain Lion, but most of its features should still be working.) It's here
https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html
Message was edited by: WZZZ

HT4543 iMac overheating

My iMac seems to be hot on the top left corner, seems to be overheating . Any advice?

The istatpro link is dead. I have the same problem as Keef66 though. Anyone know of any utilities that would give me the internal temps of my iMac? Every few weeks, while in Safari, the whole 'puter shuts down (locks up), and I have to reboot (by holding down the power button). Then it seems fine again. My son, a PV aficionado, thinks it's the video card. He thinks I just need to clean the dust out of the case of the iMac, and it will be fine again. Anyone know if the video card is in the upper left hand corner of the iMac?
Ken Taggart

Apple iMac overheating or busted?

I have a 2.8GHZ C2D iMac from Mid 2008. I have been running Windows 7 via bootcamp fairly extensively. This morning I was on my bootcamp partition and the screen suddenly turned completely white. The computer was completely unresponsive, so I turned it off. A minute or two later, I turned it back on. It powered on fine, the start up chime sounded, but then it immediately and repeatedly sounded until I turned the computer off. I was worried, so I powered it down and unplugged it. At this point, I had to leave for work.
At first, I thought I had fried the graphics card. Now I think it just overheated. I used the computer a ton yesterday (almost all day), but it was off overnight and only on for an hour or so before it did this.
Any thoughts?

Pax, have you find out how to fix it yet? I have the EXACT same problem. I run windows 7 extensively and the computer get very hot. The first sign would be the IMAC starts to lag. I tried to restart but when the white screen comes back on it's stay there for about 5 mins+, then there's a folder with ? mark starting to flash.
Anyone knows how to fix this?
Message was edited by: asiantrick

IMac overheating and unusually loud

For about a week, my iMac has been strangely overheating and loud. The only reason for this I can think of is that I recently moved my iMac to a different location, but still there is really no reason for this to be happening. My mac has adequate space where it is right now, and I'm not doing anything on the computer to make this happen. Before I moved my mac, this never happened. It was always silent (except maybe when I was downloading something or watching videos) and really cool even when the computer was running. Now, even when my mac is sleeping, it is warm and when it's running, it is extremely hot. What is causing this? I was thinking that where the iMac was plugged in may have an effect, but that's just a what-if. Help!

Try resetting the SMU, if that doesn't work you probably have some swollen or leaking capacitors. If you can, take the back off and check for swelling or leaking caps, their tops should be absolutely flat.

IMac overheating and shutting down when running XP?

I'm using my iMac to play games in Windows, which stresses the processor a lot-- it heats up like crazy. If it gets too hot, it either locks up or the graphics cut out altogether and I'm left with things still running and responding (I can tell from the sound) and a black screen.
I don't have these problems when running equally graphics-intensive games OSX-side.
Anything I can do for my iMac to cool it down a bit, short of playing in a meat locker? (I have a fan blowing directly at the vent on the back, and it mitigates it somewhat.)

Hi Melissa,
use either SpeedFan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php or InputRemapper http://www.olofsson.info/index.html?inputremapper.html for fan control when running Windows.
Regards
Stefan

24" imac overheating??

We returned from 3 weeks vacation when I had the computer turned off. Since, my computer seems to be getting very hot and twice when turned on has shown the white screen. By unplugging for a while and rebooting my computer works again. Is there some way to tell if the fan is burned out or do I have to take it in the a repair place. My imac is three years old and I have never had a problem before. Thanks.

try resetting the System Management Controller (SMC).

Is my 27" i7 iMac overheating?

Hi,
I got my iMac 27" in October and more and more lately I've been noticing that along the top it has been very hot to touch (sometimes almost too hot to touch).
According to a widget it is running at about 49-59 Celsius.
Is this normal or is there a problem?

Please download and run EtreCheck. Post back with results.
http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Why is iMac Overheating?

I have a little over three year old iMac Intel 24 inch. Lately, I have noticed it overheats. I don't do any rigours activities on the Mac just home stuff such as internet browsing, iPhoto and iMovie. Any idea what might be worng?

How are you judging that it is running hot? I use ONYX (free download) to monitor temps and fan speeds on my 24" rather than depend upon touch as the top of the display will get quite warm. Lostmyshoe has a good suggestion re vacuuming. I've also seen a suggestion to remove the RAM cover when vacuuming to be sure dust accumulation is removed from that area. Be careful when vacuuming the bottom of the case as you don't want to apply so much suction that you risk damaging the speakers. Hope this is helpful.

Continuing iMac overheating

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