2020 Air Overheating

I hear you about voiding warranty but I need my mac to work and apple is ignoring this issue. I don't think they care about issues we are having if they do. Apple please pm me and help. Otherwise adding a thermal pad fixes my issue proving it is a heat problem.

The Macbook Air 2020 fan is not even connected to the CPU via heatpipe, so it's running for almost no purpose. Heat dissipation on this model is notoriously bad, there's nothing you can do I'm afraid.

I purchased a MacBook Air 2020 last September and from Day One, I have had trouble with the computer overheating and emitting a loud hissing noise from the fan. It's particularly prevalent when I'm a panelist on zoom webinars; the fan kicks in and people complain about the noise. The workaround I have found is to close everything up and restart the computer, which is extremely stressful when you are in the middle of an important meeting. I have done the following things to try to alleviate the problem: I have the computer set on a raised stand, I shut down all unnecessary programs, and I make sure to turn the computer off for at least an hour before the webinar. I just installed MacOS 11.1 and I hope that helps. But after seeing so many complaints similar to mine about the overheating and fan noise of this model, I have lost all confidence in it. I wish that I had bought a MacBook Pro instead. I think Apple owes its unhappy purchasers of the 2020 MBA the courtesy of letting us upgrade to a more dependable Apple computer at a minimal cost to us. I have been a devoted Apple user for years and I want to continue to feel positive and confident about this company and its products.

One answer is that no matter what anyone does on any notebook Mac, the fans are on continuously and that is normal.

Using Activity Monitor

• Use Activity Monitor on your Mac
• What to do when a process is using excessive CPU – The Eclectic Light Company
• Runaway applications can shorten battery runtime, affect performance, and increase heat and fan activity.
• Using Activity Monitor Part 1- CPU and Memory
• Using Activity Monitor Part 2- Energy, Disk, and Network

Get a third-party utility to measure temperatures. The case may be hot simply because it is a major component of heat dissipation. I have always used iStat Menus.

"One answer is that no matter what anyone does on any notebook Mac, the fans are on continuously and that is normal. "

That is patent rubbish. My mid 2013 Air ran perfectly -- and silently -- for seven great years while doing MUCH more than my "superior spec" 2020 Air, whose fan cranks merrily away full blast while I'm doing nothing but running a web browser.

I just now (16OCT2020) got off the phone with Apple "customer relations", and so far they are pretending that they're not even aware this is an issue being discussed on their own forums, not to mention just about every major tech and business website. I was willing to pay a reasonable restocking fee to return my 90-day old Air and upgrade to a MBP, but they were having none of it.

They offered "troubleshooting" or "repair", but the issue is not with MY Air -- it's all of them, and the issue is well known by now.

I told the rep I'd just wait for the inevitable recall or class-action suit.

So, this is interesting... I'm about 12 hours in to updating to macOS v10.15.7, and things seem... better. Too early to say yet if it's really helping or, if so, HOW it's helping. But so far, so good -- curious if anyone else with these issues is seeing any improvement/changes with the latest OS.

Mine was doing the same thing my screen was even turning green and the MacBook Air would just shut down on me I just got it not even 6 months .. and use it only for school been fighting for an exchange sent it in for repair the erased the hard drive sent it back to me saying it was a software issue.. I started the setup and already there was words that you could only see part of the word then I entered my Apple ID and the computer started to overheat again .. I had nothing in the computer didn’t even get the chance to put my hard drive back in that the issues 1 of the issues happened again ... I really feel as if it’s a safety issue its so hot I could cook an egg ! They should make a recall in all the MacBook Air from 2020 . I also have the impression iPhone 11 is the same thing because my phone becomes boiling as well .. pretty sure there’s internal defects and they have no clue what to look for still fighting with them to have an exchange! About to get a loyer Involved. I paid for a products that doesn’t withstand there monetary value.. they just keep in wasting my time lying to me on the phone and transferring me and hanging up.

worst experience if my life !

we purchase a product because we need it to be functional not have to fight and get it in reparations every 2 weeks there’s limites to what a company can expect from a paying consumer! waste of precious time and money!

compensation for making our experience **** should be in order! Or product of higher monetary value!

Make a complaint call Apple support and request to speak to tier 2 they have no choice to fix the issues at had ! If we all complain and want a callback so the issue is fix or so we can get a product worth the value we paid we need to complain it’s a safety issue

Apple Repair can't solve the problem because there's nothing to "fix" -- it's a flawed design to begin with. And now, Apple's f*ckery continues, because the 2020 Air I *just bought* is no longer available -- the replacement unit using Apple's M1 processor has replaced it. Why did they even offer this machine for sale if they knew they were going to supplant it six months later?! Horrible. Oh, and now my fan is coming on -- because I'm typing text into an input field on a web page. Pathetic.

Yes, I have had the same experience. But one of them told me that they daily have a thousands of calls about too noisy fans, so they might tell us that they are not aware, but in reality they are. I kind of hope, that they're trying to figure out a way to solve this issue without having to build a whole new computer. (I have called them like 5 times and sent it back 2 times)...

Things that tax my state of the art, 10th-Generation Intel Core i5 Macbook Air to the point that the fan runs full blast:

1. Zoom (from a web page, not the app)
2. Importing photos into Photos
3. COPYING files from my iPhone (not importing into a database, just a simple file copy using the image capture app)
4. DOWNLOADING files (Seriously?!)
5. Viewing web pages

One afternoon I heard a strange noise coming from the room where my Air is. I went to investigate, and even though I had put the unit into SLEEP mode hours before, something WOKE IT UP and the fan was running full blast -- that was the noise I'd heard.

Why are ANY of these things taxing the CPU to the point that the fan needs to turn on and try (and fail) to cool it? Importing photos into a Photos database is the ONLY task listed here that should even remotely do that.

My "lesser" 2013 MBA did all of these things without a hiccup -- and without the fan EVER coming on. I'd still be using it if the battery AND keyboard weren't both in need of replacement.

everyone appears to be overlooking the glaring factor of the reduced processor capabilities. my old mac book air had a 2.2 ghz I7 ... the new mac book airs have a 1.2 with "turbo " mode . so to compare performance of these two processors , yeah the 1.2 will produce way more heat , especially in "turbo" mode than the old mac book airs.

Faster clock speeds generate more heat, but still -- I understand the point. I don't think anyone is overlooking that. A reduction in raw clock speed is not necessarily a deficit to overall performance, especially with double the computing cores-- depending on the task. We're not talking about rendering 4K video here or something -- we're talking about an inefficient cooling system so poorly designed and implemented that the fan has to come on doing something as simple as displaying a web page or downloading a file. Tl;dr, the units are garbage and Apple knows it, or you'd still be able to buy them. You'd think a company that just closed out a US$100 Billion quarter and is one of the most valuable in the world could afford to keep its loyal customers happy-- most of us aren't asking for a refund; just a chance to return an inferior product Apples should have known wasn't ready for prime-time for a credit -- towards a DIFFERENT Apple product.