I have a late 2020 iMac 27" with the following specs:
Processor 3.8 GHz 8-Core Intel Core. Graphics AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT 8 GB. Memory 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4.
After years of working perfectly, during the last two months I get a consistent message on Photos “Syncing Paused - Mac Needs to Cool Down”. They do sync eventually but I usually have to leave the iMac running overnight, even with an external fan blowing on it.
iStat menu tells me CPU temperature is 78 deg C. All other temperatures well below that and CPU load 8%.
This is getting really frustrating as photo, video and music manipulation are three of my main reasons for owning a Mac. This is utterly frustrating and unacceptable on what was an expensive computer.
Can anyone offer a solution??? I also had a random error that I reported on this forum when I could not play some music tracks but had an error message that they “could not be downloaded”. That fixed itself without intervention the next day.
I am starting to lose the faith, but I cannot imagine reverting to Microsoft.
In addition to yearly software updates Apple has patched over 3000 vulnerabilities (total on all devices) in the past 6 years. Have you considered doing a clean install?
I used to do this every time I reassigned a Mac to a new user. The difference in performance was sometimes significant, especially when it was a Mac used by our graphics department.
I don’t know what expected temps should be for that chip at effectively idle (8% is pretty low), but 78 degrees feels quite high to me. I would check to see if there’s other evidence of thermal throttling happening. There could also be something else that’s operating above their thermal limits such as the SSD which, if memory serves, has much lower temperature thresholds.
The thermal compound between the chip and the cooler does degrade over time, as well, and it’s not totally unusual for there to be a need to replace. If this were on a custom built computer, I’d say it’s not terribly complicated to do if you know what you’re doing, but on an iMac, I feel like that’s a different story since I think the display needs to be removed first.
I was having that same issue with my 2019 Intel iMac 27” last Fall. Someone suggested clearing out the dust inside, so I got a small, handheld vacuum and ran it along the vents below the monitor and the small grill in the back and pulled out a ton of dust and cat hair. Then I got some canned air and blew it through the vents and vacuumed again until nothing came out. It has been smooth sailing ever since.