Snow Leopard - problems with portable lineup fans/heat

smsFanControl sure isn't enough. I don't know why I upgraded to SL. I was a windows user until late 2008 and I really didn't have any issues at all with windows (xp). I switched because of Logic Pro, that's it. I normally don't upgrade anything but I thought, rather naïvely, that Apple at least wouldn't make their next OS worse than the one before (like MS did with VISTA). Big mistake. I'll wait one more week and if there's no official news on this issue I'll return SL (you can do that here in Sweden according to our law) and I'll downgrade.

My computer makes roughly about 40dB more noise than my old PC (midi tower) at this moment. Total misery.

In my opinion Apple released even a wrong driver for Nvidia 9400. I have a MacBook late 2008 and I share with the MBP the graphic card. The overheat is mostly done by an exceptional CPU consumption due to graphics activity like Flash Player and Skype video calls.
What is unacceptable is that after almost a month after the release Apple didn't find a fix.
This is really an MS-like OS !

Hi all.

Here I've a white MacBook of late 2006 with a 2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2 GB of DDR2 at 667 MHz RAM and a GMA 950.

After upgrading from leopard 10.5.8 with latest updates to SL, I got an overheat and a fan blowing like a plane while running firefox 3.5.2 or Safari 4, it happened too with Opera 10.0.

I've done the PRAM clearing, the SMC clearing and the PRAM again.
Now the fan is blowing more than with leopard but less than after the SL update.

By the way, it's quite clear to understand what is happening: now the CPU is running most part of the system in 64 bits.

That means it works with larger and more registers while before it was doing that with 32 bits operations only and half the number of 32 bits registers only, so it's faster but like you doing a lot of physical activity, it produces more heat.

They have succeed to make us upgrade to an OS which is more power hungry: if you do more activity, you need more energy, a CPU has the same requirement as now he moves twice as much data as before in the the same time.

One solution to alleviate the issue will be to reduce the frequency of the CPU and to lower down the voltage like coolbook did on leopard but can't at the moment on SL: most of the time, the CPU is idling and don't require to run at full speed.

Another solution to combine with the former and that would be even greener and so good for the environment, would be for Apple to only write the critical parts of the OS and applications using 64 bits instructions and data structures, the rest remaining 32 bits, this way we would get the best power consumption / performance ratio.

Anyway, if nothing is done on the part of Apple to come back to sound level of leopard ASAP, they'll have to face a trial for latent defect and TOGETHER we will win!

Maybe it requires some snow in the mouth to keep the temperature low ? 🙂

You're right hotkidd. Using Firefox (instead of Safari) improves lightly: heat is lower and fan is slower.

But it does not solve the issue.

AFFECTED: YES
MODEL: MacBook White 3,1
CPU: 2.2 GHz Core2Duo
RAM: 4Gb
DRIVE: 120Gb HD
CLEAN INSTALL OR UPGRADE: UPGRADE

Same problem. And I don't know if it's me, but I feel it kind of slower. Now I'm afraid of using multiple applications at the same time. And about checking my email in bed just before sleeping, forget it. Too hot. Makes me want to go back to Leopard, or even Tiger. right now I'm only using Firefox, with two open tabs and it's 80C

There isn't any fix to this??

One more thing about this issue.

Not only macbook have issue with fan/heat and Snow Leopard, but some (like mine) have also an "auto-wake up" problem. Heat is high, fan runs fast and when put into sleep mode my MacBook "auto wakes up" after a few minutes (10-15) and fan runs at 6200rpm without any application running but finder.

I have to admit that am very surprised that apple still hasn't fixed this problem, every day the moment you start Safari and it hangs on flash the CPU goes up to 80-90C easily , this is now a serious issue that Apple really need to fix immediately , I had this problem on 2 macbook pros 09 1 mac mini
macbook air

AFFECTED: YES
MODEL: MacPro 2008
CPU: 2x2.8GHz
RAM: 10Gb
DRIVE: 1Tb HD
CLEAN INSTALL OR UPGRADE: CLEAN INSTALL

Reset the PRAM and the SMC and still nothing. No unusual CPU activities either... Has happened all of a sudden when upgrading to 10.6.1

UPDATE: Found out my 2nd processor is running it's 2nd core at 90º! Fan running at around 2,500rpm

Message was edited by: Halmat

For me the problem relates primarily to the Flash Player plugin - when the fans start blowing I check the activity monitor, see that this is the culprit, select Force Quit, and it calms down to less than 20% CPU use. Haven't found a solution to Flash Player so far.

AFFECTED: YES
MODEL: Macbook (white 13" late 2007)
CPU: 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 3Gb
DRIVE: 120Gb HD
CLEAN INSTALL OR UPGRADE: UPGRADE

AFFECTED: YES
MODEL: MacBook 13" Early 2009/Penryn (id: MacBook5,2)
CPU: 2.0 GHz Core2Duo
RAM: 4 Gb
DRIVE: 320 Gb HD
CLEAN INSTALL OR UPGRADE: CLEAN INSTALL

With Leopard my Mac was around 35-45°C on idle, now with Snow Leopard is always at 60°C on idle.

SMC and PRAM reset had no positive effect.

Waiting for a fix, or downgrading to Leopard in a few days.

I found the plugin 'Click to Flash' that stops Flash Player from playing when you don't want it to, and this seems to be working very nicely (and has the added benefit of avoiding those annoying Flash ads)

sahmsahm, you are the man !! This plugin is wonderful, it stops the motions that Flash plays in most of my preferred pages and falls the temp to 45-50 Celsius. Great workaround, waiting Apple to do its job...
Thanks a lot.
Nando.

I second fairaghi, great workaround clickforflash, my MBP now runs safari with clickforflash @ 46° average.
thanks a lot for sharing!

my mac book did the usual superfan act with flash under 10.5 but since i upgraded to SL....itunes, hulu, Final Cut, even the default screen saver makes the fans go nuts and my mac is running super hot...to the point it warped the plastic on my small laptop desk i use. plus my battery which was down to about 1hr of use now says it has and hour left and five to ten mins into use it just dies i dont even get a low battery warning anymore plus now it says i need to service the batery. i'm worried all this excessive heat is going to kill my laptop...the heat gets so bad at times that even the optical drive area and the hard drive area get hot, not just warm...

AFFECTED: YES
MODEL: MacBook Pro 2,2
CPU: 2.3 GHz Core2Duo
RAM: 3Gb
DRIVE: 160Gb HD
CLEAN INSTALL OR UPGRADE: UPGRADE

Yes, I have noticed the same problem, whenever flash is running in either safari or firefox, the cpu goes to 50-60% usage, and temperature increase to 60-70 C. I did not dare to run in flash long enough to see it increase pass 70 C.
Idle temperature 45-50 C.
This issue should be addressed...


AFFECTED: YES
MODEL: MacBook Aluminium
CPU: 2.4 GHz Core2Duo
RAM: 2Gb
DRIVE: 250Gb HD
CLEAN INSTALL OR UPGRADE: UPGRADE