MacBook Air Overheating

I know what the fix is...the NEW MacBook Air which will have a bigger hard drive, better processor, better cooling system and bigger vents. We will just need to sell our current MBA's at a big loss and buy the next one. Nothing else is gonna fix this. It is hardware as designed unfortunately.

a means to measure my CPU temperature,

I can recommend the Widget from the Apple Downloads called iStat. It is quick to get and easy to set up. It is no charge but send them a few bucks for all their hard work.

I find the Air runs cooler /fan runs less when not on the battery charging tether; does this make any difference for you?
Charging may up the voltage enough to cause problems. This is in reference to how the Cool book ap keeps the voltage down to prevent the heating/core shut down.

The MacBook Pro, at least the last two models, have two big fans so not surprising there is less problem but in the same breath I have read that in general the Air is cooler to the touch than the Pros.

Speaking of fans my iMac seems to run a bit hotter (judging by how hot the back feels at the upper left as one sits facing the screen) now that I am running on WiFi.

I was looking at the TakeApart pictures to see what is in that area component wise and I got to looking at the fans in the iMac and they look like large versions of the ones in the Air. This is surprising because I expected more robust fans with long fins like the MBP rather than rings with little short fins. From the iStat in the iMac his CPU is running happily in the high forties. There is another component that is putting out the heat (~66 C).

Just curious about whether the charging tether makes a difference to your core problem.

the fix

I looked around here and couldn't locate the thread with these comments so I copied them out of my notes. Takes some doing but something to be aware of:

aditya_agarwal wrote:
Forget coolbook. I used it for sometime but the MBA no longer felt that fast doing heavy work. So I tried other other thing. I removed the extra Thermal Grease on the sides. (Believe me there was a lot overflowing)

Viola!!! The temperature has not gone above 68 since then. It runs super.

Marcus S. Zarra wrote:
While I was very skeptical and hesitant about this, it turns out that it is a manufacturing defect after all!

I have been using Coolbook for a long time now to great success. However I decided this morning to finally crack open the case and took a look for myself based on this comment and a few others I have seen here and other places.

After I opened up my MBA and lifted the heat plate, sure enough, there was a ton of extra thermal grease around the processor and I am guessing the video chip. After scraping off the extra and putting everything back together my MBA now runs perfectly without Coolbook and without the second core shutting down.

http://skitch.com/mzarra/maab/wow-on-repaired-mba

I am not big on video right now and have zero problems other wise so it will be a while before I pull mine apart to see what the thermal grease situation is like in mine.

Anyway this is some good info and deserves to be bumped:

My MBA overheats, large amount (18 GB) of PDF files possibly to blame, as mdworker takes between 25 and 50 % of CPU cycles even when laptop is "idle". I wish Apple would do something about it.

I am now on my 3rd MacBook Air and I have finally isolated the problem. I travel quite a bit and really have no overheating problems on the road. It is only when I am at my home. I just realized the majority of my overheating comes from when the time capsule is backing up my air. If I am not on my time capsule it harly heats up even doing video and webinars. I hope this helps. How can I report this issue to apple?

brooke1lyn wrote:
I just realized the majority of my overheating comes from when the time capsule is backing up my air. If I am not on my time capsule it harly heats up even doing video and webinars. I hope this helps. How can I report this issue to apple?

I don't think it's a software issue. It simply depends on how much CPU load you have, possibly other heat generating devices (such as the airport card), and the surrounding temperature. I also have core shut down when time machine backs up at home, but watching video has so far never caused the core to shut down. In fact, during video the cpu load is relatively low. In my super air-conditioned office I never had core shutdown.

While I agree it is not a software issue I am sure they can make a software change to lower the amount of processor allocated to the backup service or allow us to only back up every 4 hours instead of every hour. I now have alarms set on my air so I remember to turn off time machine in the morning when I start working and turn it back on at the end of the day.

Ok I got one of my MacBook Airs back today, the 1,6Ghz one.
The technician replaced the whole logic board and installed a brand new fan, both ordered replacements directly from Apple under warranty.
The result is that the Air runs even quieter and so far doesn't heat up as fast as it did before.
Now I can browse through iPhoto without the fans going crazy or any CPU cores turning themselves off.

It really is a hardware fault and nobody should settle with software solutions like coolbook. If you have issues hand it back to the store where you bought it and asked them to fix it. They DO know more then they want to tell us. Like in my case, the technician wouldn't just randomly order a brand new logic board and a new fan if he wouldn't already know that the "old" components are faulty.
And also the Apple hotline guy I talked to on the phone before I handed my Air in knew too what I was talking about and didn't give me trouble or excuses that this would be normal for the Air.

Go figure. I'll have to do more tests with my Macbook Air to see if I can get it to turn off cores or totally freeze again but so far it looks good and I can already tell that it does run cooler.

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for teh update. Let see what happens in your tests. The answers from Apple are confliting, since , my last talk with Apple, the answer was, the issue does not have anything to do with logic board.

Regards,

Hi Mario,

it's weird, either they don't want to tell us what's wrong or they don't really know themselves. I still think the thermal grease theory is close to the truth. I am sure Apple designed everything correctly just that the factory in China did something wrong. But who knows for sure...
My Air now has a new logic board and a new fan which kind of makes it a new computer. I'll put it to the test soon and report back.

Daniel,

Thank you for your updates! This is important info. As Mr. Spock says . . .

"fascinating".

Thanks for the update. You're the first one who has reported a successful repair on this board, as far as I have been able to see. Other people have reported to have had their logic board replaced, with no improvement. Maybe it was the exchange of the fan as well? Let us know if it has totally solved the problem. If so, maybe I will also ask to have my MBA fixed.

Dear Daniel,

I just spoke with Apple technical support, and one more time, the answer was "The issue is not hardware related, and will be fixed with a software release". How long?, "We are working on that, and I do not have the answer at this time".

Please, can you , update, if you stressed the MBA, and your problem was solved with the hardware fix?

Regards,

Hi Mario,

alright I put my fixed MacBook Air 1,6 Ghz to the test.
I did the same test that did before I sent my Air in for repairs.
I started iChat and let it run with video chat and a Photo booth effect switched on (fishes).
I watched the temperature and the fan speed using the latest istat pro widget.

The temperate went up to 80°C while the fan was at 2300 rpm then the fan speeded up to the maximum speed of 6200rpm and the temp went down as low as 67°C.
Noticable about this is this new fan runs quieter then the one that was built in before and much quieter then the fan I had in my Air 1,8Ghz (which still isn't fixed yet, I'm waiting on it).

I let it run for over 30 minutes and guess what? The Air didn't freeze at all. The Air is able to cool itself down without any problems. I noticed some really minor core issues. But it is so much different from what I had before. Right now you have like one core that turns itself off for literally for one second and then both are working again without a problem. Before the fix, when one core shut down it didn't come back on and the whole Air froze.

To have the main board and the fans exchanged definitely did it for me and solved my problem.
I hope that my 1,8Ghz Air will be fixed the same way.

It can be that there will be one day a software fix for the core shutdown to eliminate it to happen at all but it is not the same that I experienced.
In other words there is a heat issue and it doesn't have to do with a core shutdown software bug.

Looking at my Air I'm thinking that either the fan is from a better brand or thermal grease was playing a part in this or they even changed something on the logic board itself.

To have it fixed though did it and I can only recommend for you guys to try the same. If somebody tells you it is a core shutdown issue don't let them get rid of you with that excuse. Tell them how your system freezes, how the Air produces so much heat that it can't cool itself down enough any more, because that is the real issue.

Now I can use video chat without a problem and can scroll through iPhoto without the Air going crazy. It was worth the trouble sending it in.


**
Daniel

I took matters into my own hands.

I found that mine had too much thermal compound, and a very stiff variety of the stuff preventing the heat sink from actually touching the top of the CPU and northbridge.

Took it apart. Cleaned it up.

Now, when I run two or three 'yes > /dev/null' it takes over 15 minutes for any problems to show, (both cores nailed) and instead of the system becoming horrible to respond, it simply drops a core for a second, and immediately recovers.

Running on one CPU, with a load average somewhere around 1, the laptop no longer has problems. Unexpected loads are excepted without dropping the second CPU.

For me, I found a fix, and better, this is how the laptop is behaving in a house over 85 degrees.

The best part is that during light loads, like editing e-mail, posting to forums, &c., the temperature stays low enough that I don't ever hear the fan running. It's another change for the better; where the fan would rev up and just stay there, seemingly in spite of what appeared to be a light load. Hours of that fan running...

I don't know if Apple has a specific problem that they need to address or if I just got unlucky. I do know that my laptop did have a problem. There's no question that what I did ended the core-shutdown problems. I can even play WOW on it (not that I bought it to do that) without it dying in 15 minutes. I can be answering e-mail, be available for chat, doing work with the Stonegate Java client, bring up Excel with the terminal session open, and the laptop no longer dies when I do a software update at the same time.
In other words, it's behaving like I'd expect it to. It's not the fastest thing in the world- I didn't buy it to be. It's the perfect laptop for a tech support guy needing a strong terminal (the Powerbook bends in the middle after much use, becoming frightening flexible... Ask me how I know!) while at the same time needing the power to answer up to management and teammates when things get hot and heavy, and problems are affecting Production (and the bottom line!).

I now trust it to give Powerpoint presentation. That in itself is a huge change.

DO NOT take it apart if you've any doubts as to your ability to track around 15 tiny screws, two cable connectors, and finally, NOT bend a thin piece of metal as you clean it up, while using the smallest amount of heat sink compound possible for good coverage of the processor and northbridge.
DO NOT take it apart if you are going to break something that will void your warranty (Apple won't cover it if you do!)
DO NOT take it apart unless you understand that you get to keep both halves if you break it.

But DO remember it was designed by a team of PEOPLE. A human designed the machines to put it together. A human probably put too much heat sink compound on my processor.
I'm not smarter than a bunch of engineers. I just don't have a problem double checking someone else's work. Especially when their carelessness costs me.

Apple: Love your products. DO something, please, about your quality control?