MacBook Air Overheating

Greetings from Colorado guys,

Sorry to hear about continued frustrations.

I am a super novice with the laptop world and with the delirium of actually having my MBA (this is my first few days of ownership) I am getting these discussions kind of mixed up in my mind so please forgive me if you all already went over this but:

For sure, for sure, you have checked that there is not some program like "Google Desktop" or some such running obscurely in the back ground like the discussion person called knarfy had?

This is unbearable. It's 74 degrees in my room, and I have my Air elevated on a tissue box so it's not resting on my shorts and all ventilation ports are unblocked. When watching internet video (dailyshow.com) the CPU temperature gets to 196 F (91 C), and I need to put it to sleep to let it 'cool off' every 5 minutes to keep the video running.

Hi barkingmad,

yes I have checked it all. I have iStat and the activity monitor always on to see what is going on. And it really doesn't take any hidden task to bring my MacBook Airs to start boiling. All it takes are apps like ichat, skype, iphoto or any other program that demands a little more processor power then typing a text in TextEdit. I hope that the latest Macbook airs dont have this issue. I got mine from a store that doesn't sell Apple hardware that quick so their stock is usually not that new. This Macbook air here is from the 10th production week and the other 1,6Ghz one is from the 8th week.

**
Daniel

Dear czaffa,

Have in mind, as posted here, and also, the "word" from Apple, is that the AIR is not a "lap"top, i.e. you need to use AIR on a flat surface, otherwise the AIR will heat. On the other side, 91C for the CPU is really high. Try to use on a flat table, if same behaviour, I suggest try to contact Apple. My max heat , was around 70C.

I was up to 80°C at max, usually around 76°C but that didn't stop the Macbook Air from freezing early either. The 1,6Ghz model froze/shut down cores here at the low temp of 56°C and my 1,8Ghz model at around 76°C.

Any way I got my two Macbooks Air on the way to the Apple repair center. I spent 45 minutes on the phone this morning discussin this issue with the hotline from Apple. I explained what I did in every details then the support guy was like "it's not normal that the same error happens with two Macbook Airs from the same owner, I'll have to check with my supervisor". 5 minutes later he was told to take both Macbook Airs and I got numbers to send them both in. Hmm maybe they know something about the first generation of the Macbook Airs...
It's going to take between a week to two or three weeks until I have them back. Maybe one of them earlier, I'll have to see. I will report back if my new Airs (or repaired ones) will perform different/better. I keep my fingers crossed. Kudos to Apple that they didn't give me any trouble and that they are going to fix my problem without any big discussion like it wouldn't be a laptop or something.

**
Daniel

Dear Daniel,

That is great news. I will wait your outcome, and maybe do the same on mine. I am using today my MBA with external monitor, bluetoooth mouse and keyboard, plus Wireless , and the max temperature , so far, on the CPUID Hardware Monitor, *is 80C*. Boot Camp with XP (SP3).

Hi Mario,

it's amazing what you can do with this little Macbook Air. I really love the option to be able to connect an external monitor. How does it run for you? Does the second core shut down with this setup?

Hi Daniel,

The external monitor works great. I have at home one DVI, and at my work with VGA. Both options works great, on 10.5.4 and Windows XP. One thing I noticed (also a lot of posts here), with external monitor the dual core shutdown happens quicker. I need to try some "second core shutdown" on my office using my VGA monitor, but I noticed that on some situations, at home, if I unplug the external monitor when the second core is down, the 2nd core went back to normal. This situation happened playing video (Flash), and not with SL.

Is really trick, sometimes the issue seens to be only software, and sometimes a mixture of both, software and hardware. And the trick, is that the 2nd core shut down, even when the temperature is around 60C, i.e., normal.

I hope Apple was able to repair you MBA, and with that, we will know that they have a solution. With the number of posts, etc, maybe a recall if the issue turned out to be also hardware. I do not want to deal with a "laptop" that goes dead in the middle of a presentation.

Hi Mario,

And the trick, is that the 2nd core shut down, even when the temperature is around 60C, i.e., normal.

Yes that behavior is really strange. I don't understand this random looking core shutdown either.

I hope Apple was able to repair you MBA, and with that, we will know that they have a
solution. With the number of posts, etc, maybe a recall if the issue turned out to be also
hardware. I do not want to deal with a "laptop" that goes dead in the middle of a presentation.

Thank you, I hope so too. It is sad that not many people reported back here yet after they called the Apple hotline. I really don't want to believe right now that our beloved Apple company designed a computer that can't cool itself efficiently enough. Apple always made great hardware. I've been an Apple user since the LC II and always been one ever since.
I hope that only some chinese factory messed up. Of course I doubt any company would ever confess that they made a mistake but by taking the computers back and replacing them with working ones it all shall be ok in the end. At least that's my hope. We shall see what happens.

Right now I am back on my 17" G4 Powerbook missing my beloved MacBook Air. I hope time will pass bye quickly 😉

Dear Daniel,

Please, take a look at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1589023&tstart=0

Hey Mario,

thank you for the link. That is really interesting. I wonder if that will also help the total melt down of the Macbook Airs that make them freeze the whole system. None the less I'm still glad I have my MacBook airs at the Repair center. With my 1,8Ghz one I'm still in the 15 days period where they exchange your mac instead of repairing them. New Macbook Air, hopefully soon a new firmware, things look bright for the future 🙂

Yes marco, as I clearly specified, I elevated the Air above my lap so that the vents were open and able to circulate.

Since that one day it got up it 91C, I've had nothing but trouble. Its hard frozen on me twice (to the point where the screen grays out and it tells me I need to restart), and now it doesn't recognize the internal speaker as an audio output (??)

Don't get me wrong, I am a huuuge Apple fan and really would never consider purchasing any other kind of computer for personal use, but I've never had a quality issue as grave as this and honestly, I feel pretty let down.

I'll probably bring my Air into an Apple store soon to see what they can figure out, but my PowerMac G5 just died and was shipped off to them too (just a power supply issue I think). I don't want to be completely computer-less...

Update on my case:

My 1,8Ghz air will be replaced but the store waits for Apple to refund them till they are willing to give me a new one. Also they are waiting on a new delivery of Airs.

For the 1,6Ghz, this one went to an Apple retailer store that is fixing the computer for Apple. With this case the technician could recreate my problem of overheating and ordered a new piece from Apple. He didn't tell me what piece it is but I guess it's the motherboard.
Also the technician told me he has another Macbook (not air) in that has overheating problems and it's been in repairs for the second time...

So long, it's gonna take more time until I'll find out how my new and fixed airs will perform but I hope for the best.

Daniel,

Thanks for keeping us abreast of how it is going. I realize you were responding to czaffa but I (we) have fingers crossed for a good out come for you. I have not used youtube at all on my Air and have had no problems other wise. Perhaps when we find out what the culprit(s) were I might feel safer exploring youtube. I still have my iMac for that any way.

If it is not awkward it would be great to hear details of what he replaced on the 1.6GHz.

Good luck AirMan!

Here's to hoping that it gets fixed, and that Apple comes up with a fix in general.

I'm posting this on mine, and though I don't have a means to measure my CPU temperature, I DO have Activity Monitor open and can watch one core switch off and on.

This is with just Entourage, MS Messenger, and Firefox running (and no flash going on in Firefox), but with occasional spikes of usage from Entourage as the Database Daemon runs, and that is enough.

The software is all up-to-date, and the fan kicks on after about a minute of this usage.

My Macbook Pro (First Generation) with the same tasks runs much cooler- the fan coming on only at the very peaks of load (and I do load it up more as a result) but (and here's the difference in behavior) shutting off when the load drops.

I sure hope there's a fix!