MacBook Air Overheating

I've been looking at all these posts because I did consider getting an air. My MBP even while running photoshop and a Divx movie in the background still hasn't broke 108 degrees. Actually thats a lie, I do believe I did hit 109. The more I'm reading the more I feel like I have to wait until they get these machines figured out.

F or C?

I have to say that I am bit disappointed with my new MacBook Air. The MBA is the first Mac I have ever owned and i travel a lot and read a review about how light and thin it was and how it didnt get too hot but I have to say that I am disappointed. I cant sit and watch TV with shorts on and have this thing in my lap, it is just way too hot. I really like this thing and I am still getting used to it but this thing is HOT to the touch. My left palm is really hot after just typing this post!

Which laptop can you use with shorts that's cooler than the MBA? I don't think there is any Mac laptop cooler unless you go back to a G4 iBook.

Stating the obvious, but I have just discovered printer applications which were running in the background which were causing the temp of the machine to rise and the fans to be at 6500. I only discovered they were running in the background because istat was showing cpu user % as 50% but I only had Safari open! So on a hunch I opened System prefs Printers to find 2 of the printer icons running at idle. Turns out they had remained on in the background trying to discover my printer which is connected to an airport extreme - without success, but that is a whole new thread!!
Temp and fans are now back to normal.
So if you are experiencing this issue it could be worth checking that you haven't inadvertently left an app on.

I've owned several Powerbooks and the 1st gen MacBook Pro, and now I'm trying out the MacBook Air SSD.

The MacBook Pro was painful -- it got very hot, even with pants on 🙂. The solution was to install SMCFanControl and crank the fans to 6000 rpm; then it was fine, just noisy.

So far the MacBook Air (for me) has gotten warm, but not really hot. istat says the bottom is 34 degrees C, and that's with around 40-50% CPU usage. I could see it getting hotter if I started encoding video or playing WoW. But it's markedly better than the MBP, and it's fine with pants on. I suppose if/when smcFanControl is updated to support this model it may make your life easier -- just crank the fans up a bit if you're wearing shorts.

I have to agree. I'm just amazed people are complaining about it being too hot. I can't recall using an Apple laptop in the past four years that had a cooler case than this one. And the performance is really similar to the first MacBook Pro which felt like an inferno all the time. That was one machine I was glad to get rid of.

Hello,
I'm a bit concerned to the heat issues for the MBA too.
I had to replace my first one because the fan never started and it was mostly unusable.
With this new one the fan works, but... It get hot pretty soon and one it shut down one cpu it becomes sluggish, almost unusable again....
I'm using a notebook cooler so intensively as I have never done in the past 3 years.
As anyone notice this behavior?
Currently I'm working in SPSS (statistical analysis) and word (office 2008), no video...no music...
CPU core1: 120.2 F
CPU core2: 120.2 F
CPU clock frequency:--
Exhaust Fan: 2670 RPM

Hi, all!

I plan to buy a MBA, so I frequently walk around here. The situation of MBA is very similar to the time 1st generation MBP released. However, I'm very luck that the logic board of my machine is replaced due to some other issue. As a result, it never get hot or warm as before. So, from my experience, I just wanna tell that Apple definitely adjusts their design even after their product released. Last summer, I bought a new MBP, which is even better, fast, cool and quiet, which is the best machine I've got.

To the guys owning a MBA, if you have a headache about this kind of annoying issue, try to contact with AppleCare. If you've got a chance to make a machine or logic board replaced, please don't hesitate. Sometimes, the hardware issue can't be healed by software update.

I'll keep waiting, maybe until the next generation of MBA.

Good Luck, All!

Michael,

I think there are less problems with the MacBook Air then with most other releases since the Intel switch. I know a couple of people off-list owning a MBA w/o having any problems, like I do. Most of the users coming here either have a misunderstanding of how and what for the MBA is designed or, got a not properly QA'ed MBA. Even so it seems like there are "only" complaints, I guess that we see less than 3% of users coming here. In my company we expect 5% failure with new devices, and I doubt Apple has much different numbers.

So, even the MBA 2 will be better, I doubt that the MBA 1 is bad.

just my 2cents
Volker

Maybe you guys should take a look on this post:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1415343

And YES, MBA does overheat and the above topic define what overheating means for MBA.

Best,

I have to disagree with your post. Mine has reached temperatures you state in your post and I do not see any core shutting down (I have activity monitor always open and the dock icon showing CPU history). I don't doubt that it's possible to run so much that you overheat, but mine does not overheat or shut down a core at the temperatures you state.

Hi, Brian.

As I just said on a later post, I don't think just as you it's a general failure ou that MBAs are defective by design. What I think is that is really possible that a small numbers of MBAs out there can suffer of overheating problems. I can reproduce it on mine anytime. It seems that others can do the same too. But the majority of users can't. So, if we remeber that about 5% of a production line has some kind of bad behaviour or malfunctioning, that's absolutely normal.

What can't happen is the manufacturer leave those small 5% portion without any kind of solution. Right? 🙂

Best,

Yes, I agree that it's 100% possible to have some percentage of defective units.

In other thread I think you mentioned using it in different places and getting different results. It's certainly possible that in a high ambient temperature, a certain CPU temperature can cause a core to shut down while the same CPU temperature in a lower ambient temperature might not. It's hard to know without knowing how this is measured and handled in the hardware.

The main purpose of my reply was to state that those CPU temperatures alone won't cause a problem. There could be other factors like ambient temperature or a defective unit that could be causing the problem. I'm sure it's a bit cooler when I am (Oregon, US) than were you are.

My MBAir runs hot with an external monitor, whether its running videos or just a few routine programs. When it gets close to 70* (fan running at about 6200) one core shuts down and the machine operates sluggishly. Is this "normal"? Would it be appropriate to replace it? Is that a software problem with the settings of the CPU?