Is your Macbook frying itself ? In normal operating conditions macbook it will heat itself up to 40º to 45ºC. According to Apple, the ideal operating temperature of a macbook is between 10º to 35ºC. This is your room temperature to operate. But heavy usages will end upto 50ºC sometimes. If you mostly use your Mac on your laps, its more likely to get heat radiations on your thies.

Prevent macbook from overheating

Overheating Macbook will seriously damage its internal components like chips on the motherboard, melting integrated circuits, hard disk failures, reducing battery life, etc. There will be many reasons if your macbook pro is getting really hot while working on it. The resource usage, exhaust fan issues, faulty hardwares, dusts on exhaust vents, operating enviroments, etc. Lets discuss on each to prevent macbook from overheating.

Monitor Macbook resource usage

Monitor macbook’s hardware resources like CPU, GPU, Memory, HDD, etc. Some applications use more CPU portions and RAM while running it. Some heavy games, some graphics editing softwares, sometimes the web browser(even safari with flash) ate most of your Memory and CPU cycles which definitely end up your macbook like a frypan. Monitor it regularly with the help of built in Activity Monitor application.

I have seen Safari browser and its associated processes taking so much memory and CPU resources. Especially browsing websites with flash content like watching full HD videos in YouTube. When not required, turn off the flash plugins to save battery and cool down your Mac.

The usage Environment

It also depends on your room temperature. Use your mac within a temperature range of 10º to 35ºC. Do not use mac in outdoors in sunny days with a temperature higher than 40º to 45ºC. Many or us use laptop from home on the top of our bed. Macbook’s main exhaust fan push the hot air through that small grill gap on the bottom side. Using it on bed definitely block/close that grill and exhaust fan cannot circulate the air. Always use on any flat surface like table.

If you are using any keyboard skin for protecting from dust and to make spill proof, monitor the temperature by removing it and experience the difference. All those keyboard skins stop air circulations through the keyboard and imbalance the internal temperature.

Faulty/Slow exhaust Fan

A faulty exhaust fan cause your macbook extremely heating. The heat produced by the CPU, RAM, HDD, etc will make your macbook extremely hot without air circulation. Check for dusts in the cooling fans by puting your hand over the fan vents. The exhaust fan in normal conditions runs at 2000 rpm speed and will automatically adjust/increase the rpm when required according to the temperature inside.

Adjust/Monitor Macbook fan speed

SMC fan control is a FREE tool to monitor and control the macbook exhaust fan speed and status. It also monitors the inside CPU temperature, and we get an idea about the real heat range inside. Its an awesome tool, i tried it and works well on my Macbook Pro 13″ (MD101) mid 2012 model. Try setting the fan speed to something between 2500 to 3500 rpm and see the difference. Click to download the “SMC Fan control” app, after installing check for update.

Use a Lap desk

Use  a stand like for iPad or a lap desk to cool down any laptops is highly recommended. All the lap desks come with a simple fan that sin quickly with the USB power from your laptop.

Still no luck? contact the Apple authorised service centres as soon as possible to save your macbook from early death. Hope you found this article helpful.. Leave your macbook story below…