guildfor01: Best way to cool your iMac

Friday 17 June 2011

Best way to cool your iMac

My iMac killed its hard drive the second year of use and then the entire screen/graphics card and logic board had to be replaced at the three year mark. It unfortunately began to misbehave again shortly thereafter.

I use mine to run a 54" Bravia HDTV as the extended desktop and use EyeTV and noticed numerous graphics errors lines, and failures to refresh the screen during overheating bouts. I observed that the upper left hand corner of the iMac has some sort of an air pocket that traps extreme heat from the graphics card there. (The rear-viewed 'right' of the top air exhaust slot).

This top left hot air pocket-trap seems to be due to negative cabinet air pressure interfering with natural heat convection on the left side; heat collects there but just can't get out! The fans are part of the problem and just don't help at all.

To verify this, I installed a small temperature probe in the back top left hand (from the front) side of the back air exhaust slot (r ...