12" PowerBooks are HOT

[krohde]

Ok I posted a previous threat on the issues related to the powerbooks getting hot/warm whatever u wanna call it. I have now been measuring the heat coming off them. The temperatures vary from 37-42 Celcius. (100-110F) (in a normally tempered environment and the only process the comp has been doing is playing music for longer periods of time). you cant tell me that is not a problem or something apple should get fixed ASAP. also some users are complaining about the sweat stains. obviously we are going to be sweating a lot more using the machines because they get so hot/warm!

What are your comments on this issue.

[jefhatfield]

i noticed one side on the bottom gets a lot hotter and like the tibook, the combination of the g4 processor and the metal casing do make them hotter than using an ibook, for instance

internally, however, that means more heat is being drawn away from the processor and motherboard and this is good for the optimization of your processor

what i do with any laptop is to have a pillow or blanket there when i am at home...but when i am out in public, and if i have shorts on and no table (like outdoors)...then i am out of luck and there is no way around it

i do hope that motorola comes up with a g4 chip that isn't quite as hot...i don't quite understand the full reason why the g4 chip runs so hot compared to a g3 chip

the mobile chip in my pc laptop, an amd k6-2, is the hottest, and the k6-2+ and later the duron, replaced this chip which was getting so many complaints...and this chip got so hot so quickly that the whole computer slows down (a result of a chip running too hot)

at least i don't know of any k6-2 laptops with a metal casing...that would be horrible and in context, would make the g4 chip of today seem like a very cool chip;)

[Gidman]

Yeah its hot, but stiill it is a very nice computer. When you think of the processing power and storage capability of this little bugger it really is amazing. No, the heat doesn't help the sweat stains at all, but I remember when I owned a PB 110 way back when I graduated college it was hot too. (the 110 still works by the way, which is more than I can say for my PIII work desktop POS)

Has anyone tried the Road Tools laptop pad? Does that make any difference?

I am still thrilled with my purchase.

Gid

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Gidman
(the 110 still works by the way, which is more than I can say for my PIII work desktop POS)


Gid

that is a 12 year old machine, right? or something like that...amazing

as a pc computer repair person, the only pc laptops i have seen last 4 years consistently are toshiba laptops...only problem is that they run this funky operating system that is made in washington state;)

[zimv20]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
that is a 12 year old machine, right? or something like that...amazing


i still boot my 512 from '86 on occasion. when i can find the floppies w/ the OS on them, anyway...

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by zimv20
i still boot my 512 from '86 on occasion. when i can find the floppies w/ the OS on them, anyway...

wow,

either you started at age 2 like some of the posters here or you are middle aged like me (being at least 35-40)

do you remember pre-shockley technology??

...or vacuum tube computers?

where i used to work in 1995 (us govt), they had a multi, multi-million dollar personnel systems computers too expensive to change so they still, sometimes, use a vacuum tube super-computer mainframes:p

since the retirement age of federal employees in some divisions is 30 years, there are still, on the books, vacuum tube engineers and technicians for the us government's computers

but from what i still know from working there, at least there are no football field sized computers with just 1 megabyte of RAM:p

i am also a longtime guitarist so if you want to talk about a group of people really behind the technology curve, many are still into el-34s, 6l6's, and 12ax87 vacuum tube technologies for their ampllifiers more than solid state transistor technologies...many claim, "it just sounds better":rolleyes:

[markomarko]

yeah.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by markomarko
yeah.

it's "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" despite the fact that paul mccartney's dad wanted them to sing, "she loves you, yes, yes, yes" to sound more proper:D

[iJon]

yeah mine kept getting really hot and battery life wasnt lasting that long. then i remember i had put folding on there. then i knew where my battery life was goin, bye bye folding.

iJon

[jaguarx]

Yea it gets pretty warm but it's not that bad, quit ya whining ;)

[zimv20]

Originally posted by jefhatfield

either you started at age 2 like some of the posters here or you are middle aged like me (being at least 35-40)


i was in college.


...or vacuum tube computers?


don't think i ever used any, but just before i got to college (purdue), they had switched away from punchcards and to dumb terminals connected to VAX, running unix.


i am also a longtime guitarist so if you want to talk about a group of people really behind the technology curve, many are still into el-34s, 6l6's, and 12ax87 vacuum tube technologies for their ampllifiers more than solid state transistor technologies...many claim, "it just sounds better":rolleyes:

neat. i started playing guitar in august and bought my first electric a couple weeks ago (a strat).

when i save up some more $$, i'll be in the market for an amp, and i DO want a tube amp. i've been audio engineering for years and i like their sound better. someday, i'll have enough $$ to buy a nice tube microphone, too.

[ian559]

Man vax terminals that brings back bad college memorys (I'm 38).
My powerbook gets warm real warm. The battery release gets the hottest on mine. But its really not that bad. The alum is just disapating the heat. My old work ibm thinkpad pent 2 233 was tons hotter and only had about 1 hour in the battery.

So I see it talked about here but what the hell is folding???????

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by zimv20



don't think i ever used any, but just before i got to college (purdue), they had switched away from punchcards and to dumb terminals connected to VAX, running unix.



i know purdue is a really high end cs school, so you probably had, at that time, the state of the art in computing

i don't think my school had a computer science or data processing degrees back then (1982)

actually, many schools were not hip to computers yet and they didn't have the same uses then as home users have for it now which is amazing with all the choices out there when one sees a store like compusa or fry's

[ian559]

I went to University of Cincinnati. Our Vacs lab had like 10 terminals total. That plus the lab was Ice cold. The mainframe seem to fill a whole room

[cb911]

yeah, all of the PowerBooks (G4's) run fairly hot. playing Warcraft III on my TiBook 667 it gets it's hottest about after a 1/2 hr. but then again, you don't play with it on your lap, so it shouldn't matter...

come on, the heat that comes from the 12" PB's can't be that bad... if it really is higher than normal though, you should take it in to the store and get them to have a look at it...

[zimv20]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i know purdue is a really high end cs school, so you probably had, at that time, the state of the art in computing


i'm sure it was. it's funny to me, though, thinking of the hundreds of multiple connections each VAX had to support (it could be pretty darn slow sometimes) and knowing that my ibook probably has more power than each of those vaxes.

by the time i graduated, 1988, they started putting sun workstations in the classrooms.


i don't think my school had a computer science or data processing degrees back then (1982)


the purdue program, when i started, was part of the school of math. there was a lot of theory, e.g. theory of computing. not even that much programming my senior year.

[jefhatfield]

i have a friend who did his computer studies starting in the late 60s or early 70s so everything he must have done was math and computer theory at mit

i don't think they even had a qwerty keyboard for input but switches and knobs and the like in the old pictures seen from the late 50s and beyond

my first computer science class was all lecture and memorization of terms like data, bit, byte, etc...

i think the first computers (in a workable/practical sense) that the college saw were 286's many years later and they were used until the late 90s...talk about stretching the budget...california, you know:rolleyes:

[zimv20]

Originally posted by jefhatfield

i don't think they even had a qwerty keyboard for input but switches and knobs

neat. you reminded me of a funky machine i used in '84. it was a dumb terminal / typewriter. it didn't have monitor, but instead typed onto a continuous feed of paper. but it was hooked up to the VAX and ran unix.

e.g. if you typed 'ls' (unix directory listing for those who don't know), the 'ls' would get typed onto the paper, the ls command would get run, and the results would get typed onto the paper.

it was pretty darn wacky. couldn't use vi, though, only those tedious line editors :-)

[Gidman]

When I worked in the Secretarie's office at the US Department of state in the Baker/Christopher/Eagleburger Era, I remember that our office had the most up to date systems in the department.

What were they? Wonderful Wang one piece POS's that even had green screens. (But nice tactile keyboards.) I mean come on State this was like 1992-6!

I also remember my Commodore Vic 20 and my Tandy POS (You know the ones that even allowed you to play video games stored on Audio tape?). But by far my favorite was that Powerbook 110. Took it to England with me for research in Cambridge and the damn thing still works. Thats why, after such a long interval the next comuter I purchased for myself was this great (albeitt hot (to bring it back on target) )12" G4 Powerbook.

Gid

[jefhatfield]

hey gidman,

why do you want to be on target...it's fun for us oldies to compare notes

i also remember the computer that printed out onto roll paper before monitors...it all seemed so pointless at that time...i think we typed into a keyboard that had all the letters listed chronologically a thru z...and i remember those liner notes that also printed out with a single instruction

the paper on the machine i remember had its letters burned into it and the paper caught fire from time to time and at best, the thing smelled like a forest fire:p

[iShater]

Originally posted by zimv20
neat. you reminded me of a funky machine i used in '84. it was a dumb terminal / typewriter. it didn't have monitor, but instead typed onto a continuous feed of paper. but it was hooked up to the VAX and ran unix.

e.g. if you typed 'ls' (unix directory listing for those who don't know), the 'ls' would get typed onto the paper, the ls command would get run, and the results would get typed onto the paper.

it was pretty darn wacky. couldn't use vi, though, only those tedious line editors :-)


I thought VAX ran only VMS, what kinda UNIX did it run?

Interesting signature you have.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by jefhatfield

the paper on the machine i remember had its letters burned into it and the paper caught fire from time to time and at best, the thing smelled like a forest fire:p

omg is that funny.

a friend of mine was working the drive-up window at a bank on a really busy friday. after several hundred transactions, her machine caught fire.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by iShater
I thought VAX ran only VMS, what kinda UNIX did it run?

i'm suddenly thrown into an existential quandry about my belief system. i _pretty_ sure they had vaxen back there...

at the time, i wasn't aware there were different kinds of unix, so to me it was just "unix." though i'll hazard a guess it was some kind of BSD, 'cuz i do remember using the "biff" command. (and now i'm not even sure that only BSD unixes had the biff command).


Interesting signature you have.

thanks. i've got a million of 'em. okay, about 30.

[Glossybear]

I took the temp of my 12" yesterday just after the battery fully charged, while ripping CDs and surfing.

105

It was actually hotter about 5 minuets before I took the temp, when the battery was actually charging.

It is HOT, but certainly not too hot! I love it too much, even if I had to wear asbestos pants I would use it!

[ian559]

Like you I just thought thos old vax computers were unix......... But you are right there were differant unix systems then. University of Cincinnati still had vax labs when went back in 1989 to take some classes for a job.

[iShater]

Originally posted by zimv20
i'm suddenly thrown into an existential quandry about my belief system. i _pretty_ sure they had vaxen back there...

at the time, i wasn't aware there were different kinds of unix, so to me it was just "unix." though i'll hazard a guess it was some kind of BSD, 'cuz i do remember using the "biff" command. (and now i'm not even sure that only BSD unixes had the biff command).



thanks. i've got a million of 'em. okay, about 30.

You are probably right, I didn't know VAX had some unix on it.

As for the signature, it wasn't a compliment, wasn't sure how to take it.


Now back to the topic, sort of. Does the 12" iBook run much cooler than the PB? does the temperature vary whether it is running on the battery vs. pluged-in?

[agreenster]

I used to have a 500TiBook that cooked the crap outta me. Now I have a 1gHz TiBook, and its not even 1/3 as hot. I dont what changes they made, but they were good ones.


I dont know a thing about the 12 inch. Sounds too hot though

[zimv20]

Originally posted by iShater

As for the signature, it wasn't a compliment, wasn't sure how to take it.

by "it" do you mean what Chambliss said, or my use of it as a signature?

oh -- i wonder if you think i agree w/ the statement. absolutely not.

Does the 12" iBook run much cooler than the PB? does the temperature vary whether it is running on the battery vs. pluged-in?

i've got the 12" ibook and though it does heat up, it doesn't seem too bad to me.

if it's on my lap, it's running off battery. it gets hot 'cuz i'm folding on it, too.

[iShater]

Originally posted by zimv20
by "it" do you mean what Chambliss said, or my use of it as a signature?

oh -- i wonder if you think i agree w/ the statement. absolutely not.



I did mean you using it as a signature (and I guess deep down wondering if you agree with it). Thanks for the clarfication, and sorry for being nosy.


i've got the 12" ibook and though it does heat up, it doesn't seem too bad to me.

if it's on my lap, it's running off battery. it gets hot 'cuz i'm folding on it, too.

I am considering an iBook for my next machine (first Mac). I plan to take it with me on trips to Kenya for processing videos and digital pics, so I expect to use it on my lap a lot on the road.

So the temp is purely a CPU-load issue with nothing to do with the battery discharging?

Thanks.

[iShater]

Originally posted by agreenster
I used to have a 500TiBook that cooked the crap outta me. Now I have a 1gHz TiBook, and its not even 1/3 as hot. I dont what changes they made, but they were good ones.


I dont know a thing about the 12 inch. Sounds too hot though

So if we wanted to make a "heat index" ranking for Apple Notebooks, how would we rate them? from coolest to hotest?

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by agreenster
I used to have a 500TiBook that cooked the crap outta me. Now I have a 1gHz TiBook, and its not even 1/3 as hot. I dont what changes they made, but they were good ones.


I dont know a thing about the 12 inch. Sounds too hot though

when the tibook 400s and 500s came out...they were ultra-cool (style-wise) with titanium shells and the 1" inch form factor and all with the G4 chip

but on the very next revision, apple got serious about the heat issue and cooled down the machine

and revisions after that, i don't know if apple went cooler or not as far as heat

[zimv20]

Originally posted by iShater

So the temp is purely a CPU-load issue with nothing to do with the battery discharging?


the ibook gets warm on the bottom left (as it's on your lap), but the battery is on the bottom right.

kenya, eh? that's awesome.

[iShater]

Originally posted by zimv20
the ibook gets warm on the bottom left (as it's on your lap), but the battery is on the bottom right.

kenya, eh? that's awesome.

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, Safari and all, the most beautiful place I have ever been!!!

[Grokgod]

Is the 17 as hot as the 12.

It seems that there has been noise or rumors that the 12 is pretty hot but i havent heard anything about the 17 beng as hot.

Is it the size of the 12?