My question is about chassis temperature and overheating issues. I have a recently bought a Macbook pro 13" – 2017 with two thunderbolt 3 ports. The notebook is performing fine, but when it is connected to the external Dell monitor (2560×1440 resolution), it gets uncomfortably hot. The same monitor was previously connected to a 2013 Macbook Air (i7) and there were no heating issue whatsoever (it would get hot only when doing extremely intesive CPU work).
The temperature on the left speaker is 40C (104F) and the temperature of the USB-C adapter's steel case is 45C (113F). The chassis around touchpad has 37C (99F). Measured with an IR thermometer. The room temperature is 26C (79F). The CPU usage is low (91% idle). The fan is near silent (iStats report that it is at 1950 RPMs.
The monitor is connected via USB-C – HDMI konverter.
When monitor is connected, the current draw is apx 50% higher than what it is when monitor is not connected (regular browsing). This was not measured scientifically, but through iStat Menus current draw information.
The adapter gets uncomfortably hot very quick and so does the chassis of the Macbook pro. It is even worse if the Macbook is charging at the same time (using the other available USB-C port). I previously owned Macbooks and a Macbook Air and none of them exhibited such heating issues.
I saw possible solutions on how to adjust the Energy Saver not to use the external graphics card, but it seems that this is not the case for this type of Macbooks — at least, the settings are not present in the Energy Saver.
This is certainly unexpected from my side. Are such heating issues normal? Is there a way to limit GPU power usage or 'something'?
Best Answer
With reference to Apple discussion:
I noticed that I can tolerate ~40C just fine, but 42C is not good for prolonged (more than 30 min) use. It gets annoying fast over 41C.
I replaced the mentioned USB-C to HDMI converter with a HooToo converter and that one is not getting as warm as the previous one. Also, the USB-C connector has much lower temperature than the previous one (so I guess heat transfer is not that much).
This didn't quite solve the heating issue, though.
I used iStat Menus to change the speed of the fan, so it is cooling more. With the fan speed set at ~5000 RPM, the skin temperature is around 39-40C with light use of computer (MS Word, browser -- 90% idle). I was even able to charge the computer, have it connected to the external display and use it with skin temp under 40C with the fan at its maximum speed.
IMHO, the cooling system of the MacBook Pro is not suited for "Pro" use -- at least not in a comfortable way. I believe this could easily be adjusted with an OS/firmware upgrade, so that he OS would turn the fan speed up when reaching skin temperature of 40C.
I will also give MacFanControl a try, to see if can automatically adjust the fan speed .