Hi all,
I have an early 2006 MBP Core Duo 17 inch "lapto.." I mean an early 2006 MBP Core Duo 17 inch "only use on different hard surfaces obtained though machine portability" Anywho, according to CoreDuoTemp utility this idles ok (40c) (OS X 10.4.9 with all firmware updates)
When running Boinc on the Rosetta project at night(on a flat glass surface) with both cores running at 100 percent, the stock fan controls run at about 4200 rpm and the temp fluctuates between 90c to 100c averaging about 96. That is nearly hot enough to boil water. According to Intel's site specifications, 100c is the thermal protection's throttle back trigger. Mine does not throttle back, but the temp does not stay at 100c very long so that could be either a slight error in the utilitys accuracy or the short 100c degree duration. I installed SMC and dialed up the RPM to the 6000 max speed. Rerunning Boinc like that dropped the temp down to about an average of 86. Now in some ways this scenario is a bit like:
Dr, "Does it hurt when you do that?"
Patient, "Yes!"
Dr. "Well, then, don't do that."
On the other hand, I can run all 4 of my processors at one hundred percent on my Quad 2.5 PPC (also a known high heat producer) but only have the temps rise into the mid 60's. So I get a 54.761904761904766% percent rise at 100 percent on my Quad but a 159.45945945945945% rise on the MBP. That kind of increase puts me constantly near the absolute max for the chip. Even forcing the fans with SMC to run at 6000 rpm still yields a 132 percent increase. While an engineer might note that I could run 10 years at nearly maximum temperature before the cpu prematurely fails, it seems clear to me that a cooling system that cannot keep the cpu below its max when working at 100 percent without gaining heat well over half again 100 percent of its idle represents a systemic design flaw. Obviously, I am going to try to get Boinc to let me set preferences for each machine so that I can run the PPC 2.5 quad full on at night, but maybe only at 60 percent on the MBP( or whatever it takes to bring the temperatures into the low 70s). Boinc right now does recognize both computers on the same account but the preference editing right now only seems to function for the first computer entered on the account. I have a forum question in on that issue in the Boinc forums.
So what do you all think, do I have a valid Apple Care concern? Their is no doubt that I will be crunching the cpu's with heavy multimedia use for myself and I have Parallels installed which will reduce OS X to one cpu for less intensive applications. Should I bark up Apple Care's tree? The only fact I can't give you right now is the board revision because my wife took it to work today.
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