Macmini running at 1.83GHz all the time...

Question

My Mac mini CD 1.83 arrived yesterday. I am surprised that it runs on 1.83GHz all the time even I only open Adium and Safari (but doing nothing). Does it sound alright? cause the temperture stay on 55-63'c all the time, will it be too hot? Any feedback is great....Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You raise some interesting points, to which I would like to respond - as much from curiosity as to your conclusions and observations as anything.
"smcFanControl" is a small app that will allow you to
set the minimum fan speed to a higher value than the
default 1500rpm. I have now set mine to 1750rpm and
the temps are now46/39C (core1 and core2). HD is
44C.
I can't entirely understand in what way users of this software feel the standard fan control based in MacOS is deficient - and that if it is in a specific system, why it would not be considered better to have that fault resolved rather than circumvented. That someone has written software to control the fan does not, in itself, suggest users would be wise to avail themselves of it.
I can not exclude the possibility that this may
decrease the life expectancy of the fan, but it
should definitely INCREASE the life of the
logicboard's components and harddrive.
'Should definitely' is a good disguise for lack of certainty! There is, for example, no indication that the design of the Mac mini's logic board would benefit in any way in common use from running cooler, and to take one of your later points regarding not wanting to cause vibration by use of the internal optical drive in order to avoid damage to the logic board, no reason to believe that the increased fan speed you have selected will not cause greater vibration impact over time anyway. That said, there is nothing to indicate that the logic board suffers from vibration damage anyway, but if it does as you suppose, then surely fan speed is just as much a potential culprit.
Someone else has reported that removing the top case
lowers the temps 12C,so it seems the Mini IS
suffering from it's diminutive size, not
unexpectedly..
It is self-evident that removing the casing would cause the system to run cooler, as would be expected in any conventional design where a box encloses a heat-generating source. The issue isn't whether it runs cooler that way, but whether the heat levels when running in more conventional 'assembled' mode are in any way damaging to the system.
There is always the possibility that your supposition is right, but if the history of laptops, for example, is anything to go by it would seem likely not. I have both Mac and PC laptops that have been in service for many years combined service and suffered no ill effects of temperature, vibration, even minor impacts and general handling abuse - things which the manufacturers (including Apple) have clearly designed the product to cope with. It is certainly true that both my iBook and TiBook run much hotter than my mini, that their optical drives create far more vibration and their cooling systems are far more challenged by cramped internal design, yet they both function flawlessly, despite continual heavy use. My experience is not, as far as I know, untypical. It leads me to believe that Apple have some competence in their design of products, and that they actually do know what they are doing.
Ultimately, given that the mini is heavily based on laptop technologies, it seems to me there is no reason to believe it will fare any worse in reliability and capacity to cope with heat and vibration than laptops do - and it certainly has more internal 'space' to allow air circulation.
However, removing the top case will expose it to
RFI/EMI, so the chance of it crashing due to nearby
radio transmissions will be somewhat higher..
Not really. The sides and base of the mini are metallic, though the clips that hold the sides to the base are plastic and there's no indication of a solid electrical contact which would help screen spurious RFI. The top panel is, however, a form of plastic, which has no RFI screening characteristics, so any stray radio frequency energy in the area is capable of leaking in there. Radio frequencies are not particularly directional (except when approaching microwave levels), and the worst common RFI generators are typically VDUs, which are normally above the mini anyway.
Much more of a problem than RFI getting INTO a mini is RFI getting OUT! The top panel is transparent to radio because both Bluetooth and Airport antennas are inside the unit under the top and they have to be able to 'see' out, and computers typically generate far more RFI than they are likely to receive in a normal home. Try putting a mini next to an end-fed wire antenna connected to a shortwave (HF) transceiver or receiver. The lack of screen on the wire allows a lot of stray RFI to get into the signal received! People generally don't notice RFI at that level anyway, and of course most modern domestic appliances, such as TVs etc, are designed to screen it out.
My personal choices are intended to make the mini
live as long as possible, and this includes not using
the internal optical drive AT ALL, since any
vibration from this will be transferred directly down
to the logicboard. This is not really my idea of
healthy design..
I can't disagree with the notion of using an external optical, though in my view not because of vibrational concerns, but simply performance and usability. I think all the indicators are that Apple's designers know far better than I do about what the system itself can cope with and how to design it to be robust enough to withstand time, but the optical drives used are frankly not that wonderful in terms of performance, and can be problematic to extract a stuck disk. An external allows the user to select a unit which specifically meets their need, and is more likely to allow easier retrieval of disks in the event of a failure.
Seems to me as if Apple's priorities were to make it
small, good looking and quiet, and they succeeded in
that. I wonder if life expectancy were ever part of
this equation..?
You imply it wasn't, but there is no evidence of that being so, and plenty of evidence it was. One has to accept that no modern product is designed to last an eternity, and the mini is certainly no exception, but as far as it is possible to tell from a model life that is still a little under 2 years, there's no indication that the mini will not last as well as any other system. certainly in my experience, one of mine has been running 24/7 since the end of January 2005, and it shows no indication of getting tired or suffering any problems - and I can tell you without any doubt that in that time it has suffered a far harder working life and higher consistent load than the average home system would get in twice that time or more.
A number of Apple's designs in the past have shown
that thermal management is not really their biggest
strength, so a little self-help here can go a long
way..
I can't help but wonder what you mean by this. I own three Macs which specifically are famed for high temperatures; an iBook, a TiBook and a G5 dual processor powermac. The laptops run hot, as laptops do, but are clearly designed to cope, and the G5 has incredibly efficient cooling which means that for the most part the fans barely do more than idle - indeed, the cooling of the G5 is really a masterpiece in its own right. Given that the switch to Intel results in lower overall heat generation than the PPC counterparts, it allows Apple to design systems of far greater power than was possible before without increasing heat generation beyond (or in many cases such as the Mac Pros, even as high) as those systems that went before.
For example, to get similar performance from a PPC mini that an Intel model is capable of producing, would have required a G5 (or indeed, dual G5s) which would have been impossible to accomplish in this sort of design. The Intel chips now being used allow substantially better performance without markedly increasing heat levels - indeed that was the argument used when justifying the switch. Intel minis do run hotter than the G4 models did, but at substantial gains in performance.
I'd say that makes for good thermal design - understanding the limitations of the physical space and ensuring the product is engineered with those factors in mind.
Overall, I think you raise some great issues for discussion, and no small number of common concerns. But, for example, the simple issue of heat levels, often argued as critical to component reliability because of heat stressing, ignores the fact that component and board tolerances and manufacturing standards have improved radically, and that in reality it's not, within operationally tolerable margins the temperature at which the system runs that is the actual problem, but the width of variation of temperatures as the system is in use. Variations around the steady-state operating temperature are what causes the worst effects of heat stressing, most likely to cause component failure, not the steady-state temperature level itself.
Anyway, I didn't set out with the intention of trying to demolish your arguments, and I hope it doesn't come across as such - indeed, quite the contrary, I wanted to explore the thoughts and issues because they are interesting and of no small value to the community of owners overall.