13 March, 2015

Keeping Your Mac Book Pro From Overheating
By: Matthew Jackson

 

There are some simple solutions to keeping your Mac book Pro cool.

I take NO RESPONSIBILITY, changing your system with software or hardware can damage it. Please do anything at your own risk. We are not professional laptop specialists.

When it comes to Mac OS X there are some simple solutions:

  1. Go to System Preferences->Energy Saver->Higer Performance (for older Models)
    • Newer Models: System Preferences->Energy Saver-> Uncheck Automatic Graphics Switching
  2. Use Safari, it seems to take less resources than Firefox/Chrome.
    • Chrome supports Flash, which is bad on Mac OS X.
    • Safari handles YouTube without relying on Flash, use Safari with YouTube.
  3. If you use Chrome, set the flags properly.
    1. chrome://flags/ into your Chrome Browser
    2. Enable: Override Software Rendering
  4. Get Fan Monitoring Applications: SMC Fan Control (compiled Version). This helps see your heat and fan speeds helping you narrow down which applciations/activities are causing over heating.
  5. Lower your screen brightness, this will add to heat of your system.
  6. Turn off bluetooth/wifi when possible.
  7. You can try gfxCardStatus, and keep it on 'd', not the integrated graphics card. Changing the graphics card to the integrated version can increase my latop 10 degrees (C) in a matter of seconds some times. Step 1 should take care of this, but you can get the program for finer control.
  8. Finally, take your laptop to a certified individual so that they can clean the fans. Most important are not the fans themselves; rather they blow air out the computer through some metal grates. These metal grates can become jam packed with dust, so a simple cleaning can help airflow quite a bit.
    • ?You can try replacing the fan (check SMCFanControl they might be working).
    • You can try cleaning the grates with Compressed Air minimizing the risk of damaging anything.
  9. You can try updating the thermal paste on your laptop to cool it down. Google one of many tutorials for your model.
  10. Newer models come with heat sinks that can be replaced if yours is damaged. Ifixit has a tutorial on heatsink replacement.
  11. Similarly removing the CD drive can also help with airflow if you don't use it. Mine broke and the right side of my laptop seems to be colder already.

Good luck and let us know what tips helped or didn't help you!