How far have you pushed your MBA?

[respectabilia]

When I buy a new machine, I like to test its power by pushing it to the limits until I discover where the cut off point is before it starts to lag and beach ball etc.

So how far have you pushed your 2011 Macbook Airs before you started to notice lag or before a beach ball got in the way? What apps did you run to push it? What was the memory and CPU usage like?

Please try and post the MBA details (11"/13" i5/i7) as well.

 

[xkmxkmxlmx]

Opened 26 google chrome tabs at once this morning and got beach balled, failed to load pages, etc. That's my 13" i5.

My iMac can do it without a stutter.

 

[respectabilia]

Opened 26 google chrome tabs at once this morning and got beach balled, failed to load pages, etc. That's my 13" i5.

My iMac can do it without a stutter.

Oh. From what I've been hearing about the new MBAs, I thought they'd be able to manage this? Guess I was overestimating.

But could this beach ball be due to the connection with the internet (i.e. taking time to download the infer required to display the pages/tabs) as opposed to the system slowing down?

 

[xkmxkmxlmx]

Definitely not the internet connection (I don't even think it would beach ball if it was).

It eventually gets to them... just takes a while. And some beach balls are to be had during.

 

[respectabilia]

Definitely not the internet connection (I don't even think it would beach ball if it was).

It eventually gets to them... just takes a while. And some beach balls are to be had during.

Hmmm. I do hate those beach balls.

 

[ZBoater]

Opened 26 google chrome tabs at once this morning and got beach balled, failed to load pages, etc. That's my 13" i5.

My iMac can do it without a stutter.

I just now opened 30 tabs in Chrome. I used every bookmark I have. I even have a video running in the background (I can hear the audio) from the Disney website while I type this on the 31st tab. No failure to load pages, not beach balls, nothing. It works like a champ.

CPU 67C
Fans 2001RPM (iStat)

I also have Mail and Safari open. Every tab I click opens up instantly. Actually, I just tried it and the tabs are so tiny I had to click on like seven of them to find this one again.

 

[amitdoc2b]

When I buy a new machine, I like to test its power by pushing it to the limits until I discover where the cut off point is before it starts to lag and beach ball etc.

So how far have you pushed your 2011 Macbook Airs


It was on my desk and I accidentally pushed it with my elbow over three feet down onto the carpeted floor. It is perfectly okay though

 

[Sounds Good]

It was on my desk and I accidentally pushed it with my elbow over three feet down onto the carpeted floor. It is perfectly okay though

Okay, *now* you're pushing it!

 

[Cheffy Dave]

When I buy a new machine, I like to test its power by pushing it to the limits until I discover where the cut off point is before it starts to lag and beach ball etc.

So how far have you pushed your 2011 Macbook Airs


It was on my desk and I accidentally pushed it with my elbow over three feet down onto the carpeted floor. It is perfectly okay though

LOL

 

[respectabilia]

I just now opened 30 tabs in Chrome. I used every bookmark I have. I even have a video running in the background (I can hear the audio) from the Disney website while I type this on the 31st tab. No failure to load pages, not beach balls, nothing. It works like a champ.

CPU 67C
Fans 2001RPM (iStat)

I also have Mail and Safari open. Every tab I click opens up instantly. Actually, I just tried it and the tabs are so tiny I had to click on like seven of them to find this one again.

Now this is better news. I just don't understand the inconsistency between your report and the earlier poster who said 26 tabs stalled his machine?

Is your MBA like totally brand new or something? I noticed you have the MBA Ultimate, so can this really make that much of a difference?

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When I buy a new machine, I like to test its power by pushing it to the limits until I discover where the cut off point is before it starts to lag and beach ball etc.

So how far have you pushed your 2011 Macbook Airs


It was on my desk and I accidentally pushed it with my elbow over three feet down onto the carpeted floor. It is perfectly okay though

Lol. After submitting the title for this thread, I was actually just waiting for someone to crack a joke on this.

 

[ZBoater]

Now this is better news. I just don't understand the inconsistency between your report and the earlier poster who said 26 tabs stalled his machine?

Is your MBA like totally brand new or something? I noticed you have the MBA Ultimate, so can this really make that much of a difference?

It is the i7, but that wouldn't explain the discrepancy. I've loaded a lot of stuff - Parallels, Office for Mac, Civ 4, Jedi Knight, about a dozen utilities (Xbench, FileZilla, Carbon Copy Cloner, Stuff It Expander, etc.). To my knowledge I haven't done anything special, although this is my first Mac, so I may have no clue. But I did find that post odd so I decided to give it a shot.

 

[respectabilia]

It is the i7, but that wouldn't explain the discrepancy. I've loaded a lot of stuff - Parallels, Office for Mac, Civ 4, Jedi Knight, about a dozen utilities (Xbench, FileZilla, Carbon Copy Cloner, Stuff It Expander, etc.). To my knowledge I haven't done anything special, although this is my first Mac, so I may have no clue. But I did find that post odd so I decided to give it a shot.

Cool. How about pushing it a bit further? I don't want your new first mac to explode in your face or anything, but I just want to see how far it can go before it starts stalling...

Of course, I'd try it on mine but it's still being delivered.

 

[ZBoater]

Cool. How about pushing it a bit further? I don't want your new first mac to explode in your face or anything, but I just want to see how far it can go before it starts stalling...

Of course, I'd try it on mine but it's still being delivered.

Well, I haven't done anything scientific, but I can tell you that at the same time I ran PowerPoint for Windows inside a Windows 7 VM, PowerPoint for Mac, had Safari and iTunes, launched Quicken for Windows to check my banking account while I was syncing my iPad, and I didn't skip a beat. So far I am thoroughly impressed.

 

[respectabilia]

Well, I haven't done anything scientific, but I can tell you that at the same time I ran PowerPoint for Windows inside a Windows 7 VM, PowerPoint for Mac, had Safari and iTunes, launched Quicken for Windows to check my banking account while I was syncing my iPad, and I didn't skip a beat. So far I am thoroughly impressed.

Thanks. You did this alongside the 30 tabs (they were loaded right) or this is a separate test?

Because when I use my current 2010 MBP, my RAM starts to run very short if I have too many Safari tabs and windows open. Safari can take almost up to 1.5GB sometimes of memory, and that's after the 10.7.1 update.

My worry with the MBA is that I will be limited in multitasking Safari windows and tabs in particular, while keeping other apps like Word, Pages, Spout, Byword, Day One, Omnifocus, Firefox, Chrome, 1password, Mail, iTunes, Echofon, iCal, iPhoto, etc. all open (as I do now, and my MBP struggles time to time).

[By the way, that baby in your profile pic looks real cute, even though he looks like he's about to punch me in the face!]

 

[ZBoater]

No, I had done this before the 30 tab test.

I have been using Safari so far even though I have Chrome and Firefox loaded. I don't typically have more than 4 or 5 tabs open at any time though.

I'll do this again and open all three browsers, and then launch Parallels (which will cut the CPU and memory in half). Let's see what THAT does...

 

[respectabilia]

No, I had done this before the 30 tab test.

I have been using Safari so far even though I have Chrome and Firefox loaded. I don't typically have more than 4 or 5 tabs open at any time though.

I'll do this again and open all three browsers, and then launch Parallels (which will cut the CPU and memory in half). Let's see what THAT does...

Will be interesting!

 

[bizzle]

I had four instances of "yes" running and 2 1080p trailers running and it still ran fine. i5 1.7 13"

 

[ZBoater]

Will be interesting!

Not sure how much of this you can make out in this screenshot, but here it is:

Chrome, Safari, and Firefox open with a bunch of tabs each.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (for Mac AND Windows) open will files.

Twitter, Pixelmator, Mail, and Appstore open.

Switching between apps and tabs was pretty smooth. I have to tell you of all the browsers, Safari was the one that struggled the most opening multiple tabs. Chrome ate them for lunch.

With all this open I was able to take the screenshot, post it to Dropbox, and come post this.

I don't know about you, but I will never be doing all this stuff at once. Ever.

iState reports 86C and 5387RPM for the fans. It be workin!!!!

 

[respectabilia]

Not sure how much of this you can make out in this screenshot, but here it is:

Chrome, Safari, and Firefox open with a bunch of tabs each.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (for Mac AND Windows) open will files.

Twitter, Pixelmator, Mail, and Appstore open.

Switching between apps and tabs was pretty smooth. I have to tell you of all the browsers, Safari was the one that struggled the most opening multiple tabs. Chrome ate them for lunch.

With all this open I was able to take the screenshot, post it to Dropbox, and come post this.

I don't know about you, but I will never be doing all this stuff at once. Ever.

iState reports 86C and 5387RPM for the fans. It be workin!!!!

Excellent!

This is exactly what I wanted to know. Looks like the MBA is a beast after all.

It's a shame about Safari though...I really wanted to stick with it, but it looks like for those bigger tab sessions, Chrome will have to do.

And yeah, I doubt I'll ever use all these apps at once in normal use, but it's good to know where the limits lie! Or was that the limit?

Thanks for that anyway.

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I had four instances of "yes" running and 2 1080p trailers running and it still ran fine. i5 1.7 13"

Sounds like good news, but what's an instance of "Yes"?

 

[xkmxkmxlmx]

Just wanted to clarify that I am running the 13" i5.

I just tested it out with both Safari AND Chrome. Both gave me beach balls.

I got the Samsung drive/screen (not that it matters), but I am starting to think I have a lemon.

I have only had it for 3 days and I am having all sorts of problems.

Beach balling on safari, fan noise on random low cpu tasks, audio randomly popping. I am also having this weird wake from sleep bug as well.

Jeez... (another) apple store visit might be in my future...

 

[misterneums]

My beachballing I've had comes from doing panoramic photo merges in CS5 while having Lightroom up in the other desktop. When I go to save the file to a JPEG, things start to get really slow (maybe because the file is a ~350 MB PSD file.)

 

[alecgold]

On my 11" i7, having spotlight running for the first time after I migrated 150Gb, together with mail, safari, word, parallels with XP and copying 18Gb of files gave some short beach balls and some lag, but that is to be expected as far as I'm concerned.
Unless some program really got stuck (non-responsive and you have to force-quit it) I haven't had much beach balls.
It's quite some bit better than my 13" 2010 ultimate.

 

[macfly4]

I'm getting beach balls with iPhoto when going into editing photos. kind of surprising and annoying. i7 11" , wouldn't think it couldn't handle this basic editing . anyone else noticing iPhoto slowness?

 

[Madmic23]

What about HD video editing? Has anyone tried this with iMovie or Final Cut yet?
I'm in the market to replace my 13" Macbook, and I'm trying to decide between a 13" Air (since it's so close to the Pro) and a 15" Pro.
Obviously the Pro will run circles around the Air, but even the Air is a pretty big upgrade from my current Core2Duo MacBook.

 

[Cynicalone]

I encoded a video with the 64-bit version of Handbrake for an iPad.

While the encode was running I continued to use the MacBook Air. With all my usual apps open Safari (with a reasonable amount of tabs), Mail, Twitter, Reeder, iCal, etc. The MacBook Air was hot (95º C) and loud (6500 RPM) but it ran just fine and remained fast and responsive. I was very impressed.

I have the 13" i7 model.