Mac Book Pro - hot as a frying pan

Anna, have you tried the cool viewer or the kirsten viewer?

when I want the top of SL possibilities, I use kirsten's viewer in winxp under boot camp

believe, the MBP can be FAST

The temporary solution I implemented which has helped out me a lot is to put either four approximately the same thickness objects (novels, miniDV cases, plastic bottle caps) at each corner. It lets air get under the computer and cool it off, but I couldn't tell you how much except that it's noticeable to my fingers. Also, I have a plastic protection (incase brand) around it for travel, which seems, to be trapping in the heat, so removing the lower part often helps.

I also keep the iStat pro on my dashboard, which I'm not sure how reliable it is, but it gives me an idea when it seems to be pushing a little too hard.

Sort of thrown-together ideas, but they work well enough for me (I can't stand those fan/cooling pads you have to hold under a laptop).

I use smcFanControl on mine, stepping up the fans to about 5000rpm makes it work fine... the main issue is that, for reasons involving sound, the internal fans are set to turn on only under high-heat conditions; smcFanControl fixes that...

I used to use a macbook pro in SL a lot until i realized that a lot of what i do is CPU/graphic intensive so i now use a mac pro. A lot of heat is normal-- so normal that most computer companies no longer call them "laptops" for legal reasons (burning of the lap).

The macbook will shut down if it gets too hot. I learned this when one of the fans broke down early on. The normal temperature is hot to the touch. That's what happens when a dual-core CPU and a large GPU are stuffed into a tiny case. Apple had to move to Intel partially because they couldn't get a G5 chip to run cooler. I know someone who calls his G5 tower a "space heater".

Those cooling pads that have been mentioned do work, some claim they have gotten better performance. These claims were by people I used to work with who prototype network appliance hardware, so i believe them. if anything, they are essential if you do "laptop".

Apple laptops are actually made by other manufacturers. Apple is a design and software company. If my memory serves me correctly, Asus is the actual manufacturer of Apple laptops. That doesn't mean they share the same quality as an Asus computer (my EEE-Pc broke 3 days into it), Asus has to follow Apple's standards. What differentiates a computer when it comes to breakdowns is the support, and there's a much higher general quality in Apple support than Asus support.

Regarding quality, I've never seen an excess of one brand of laptop sitting in the junk pile at any IT admin's desk. it's pretty even (Including the coveted Thinkpads).

Reducing the amount of thermal grease is the method that generally works.

IIRC there were a batch of MBPs and MBs made with too much thermal grease (you should only use the thinnest smear - otherwise it acts as an insulator!) IIRC you could have this done by Apple under warranty (may be worth it if you got AppleCare )

Are you sure that was heat damage and not a faulty battery?

MBPs were certainly subjected to the Sony battery recalls.

Not 100%, but I've seen enough batteries damaged by heat to be familiar with the symptoms.

Understood, but IIRC the fault in the batteries caused internal shorting which would of course overheat them.

On the other hand, replacing the batteries hasn't reduced the overheating any. REMOVING the batteries drops the temperature 30 degrees, and keeps it down.

If it's possible to reduce the temperature that much, that easily, then it's not just a matter of "they have to make it run that hot". It's a design problem. Not enough internal space for proper cooling.

Well, it's somewhat CPU and very GPU intensive, all those tiny transistors in those integrated circuits flipping millions to billions of times a second generates a lot of heat, and it's gotta go somewhere...

That being said, if heat is a concern, I'm not sure the MacBook is for you. Apple's attitude is that it's Not A Laptop, but a Notebook, you shouldn't be putting it on your lap, so who cares how hot it runs? Reports of 200°F Macbooks burning laps have occurred. Presumably these users weren't pushing their macbooks anywhere near as hard as you are.

http://www.appledefects.com/?cat=8



Windows spins on the CPU when idle instead of halting the CPU, thermal and power efficiency in Windows leaves a lot to be desired. My Thinkpad runs pretty hot in Vista but isn't far off ambient in Linux (and in terms of battery life, Windows Vista at idle gives me the same battery life as Debian Linux running SL...go fig). I'm pretty sure it'll run just as hot (if not slightly hotter) in Windows.