MacBook Air Mid-2009 overheating in Lion.
Hello!
I own a MacBook Air Mid-2009 (2,1) and it overheats really badly. In Lion it is even WORSE 😟
I'm just browsing the web, no Flash, etc, and it gets VERY hot. This, in ~10 mins after i wake it up. Of course, kernel_task eats up the entire CPU then (140%) and it becomes unusable. The mouse barely moves.
The Air is a pretty powerfull machine (1.86 C2D, 2 Gigs of ram) but the cooling isn't enough. OR OS X takes actions too fast (at ~70 degrees celsius). I ran a simple test. I always hated Windows, but now it impressed me. On OS X, i started a 3D java game, in ~30 secs, kernel_task is killing the CPU, the game plays at 5-6 FPS.
Booted Windows 7, started the same game. Played for 2-3 hours (multiplayer FTW 😀) and i noticed that Windows allows it to overheat more (the case felt much more hotter than in OS X) BUT the game worked nicely, at ~100 FPS. Continously.
So, OS X kills the CPU too fast. Maybe there is a tweak for it to allow more overheating. In Snow Leopard, it overheated slower, but the same problem. I tried CoolBook to undervolt, which apparently modifies Apple's driver for the CPU. And also disables this protection, with kernel_task. It worked nicely, but i want to have Apple software, not 3rd party. And also, it should work out-of-the-box, without additional software.
I always use it on a metal-desk.
So, i can't use it for basic stuff. Such as Twitter, Safari, Xcode, etc.
What do you think?
MacBook Air Mid 2009, Mac OS X (10.7)