MacBook – Retina Macbook Pro 15” overheating

hardwaremacbook protemperature

I got this RMBP mid 2012. I am now noticing overheating problems when I browse the internet + about 15 tabs of youtube open, mainly music.

I also notice that my battery quickly depletes during this overheating problem, and it's only at 200 cycles. I removed Deep Sleep Mode and Hibernation Mode, not sure if these are related.

I never had such a problem before, but now I can't even keep it on my lap for so long. What is causing this and how can I fix it ?

Specs :

  • 2.6 Ghz Intel Core i7
  • 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3
  • 500GB storage
  • OSX 10.8.5
  • GForce 650M

EDIT

I am not just browsing in Safari with 8 tabs only, VLC in the BG but nothing running, iTunes open but nothing playing. I can already feel the heat on my lap. My temps :

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Activity Monitor :

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Best Answer

In my experience, if you're on a dual-GPU MacBook Pro and running 15 Flash sites, quick battery drainage is almost expected. Even if you installed something like ClickToPlugin, which replaces YouTube's Flash app with QuickTime and is more efficient, the computer should still be fairly warm or borderline hot.

You should use something like gfxCardStatus to verify whether any of the open apps are forcing a switching to the Nvidia GPU. If there is one issue that is often associated with high temperatures and fast battery drainage, this would be it. Try closing the affected app and see if things improve, and then try figuring out a way to avoid the GPU switch (which may entail replacing the app by another one which is better behaved with respect to GPU switching).

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