I had a macbook air 13', 128G (mid 2011). I recently installed two updates (EFI and Thunderbolt). After that, every time I woke up the computer, CPU temperature starts to rise with even 0% CPU usage. It gets really hot (CPU temperature of 80 celcius) after 10 minutes and the fan drives me crazy. I have never had this problem before the updates. The solution is to restart the computer. Has anyone experienced the same problem?
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Macbook Air gets hot after waking up
- Thread starter fisherwwj
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Same here! I have an i7 13". This thing always ran cool. Now with nothing running, cpu temp spikes and activity monitor shows nothing significant. After a reboot, cpu calms down. But your right...after a wake from sleep is when it gets crazy. I hate not knowing whats causing my Air to become a frying pan 
incidentally, my wife's i5 11" Air does not seem to have this issue.
incidentally, my wife's i5 11" Air does not seem to have this issue.
Same here! I have an i7 13". This thing always ran cool. Now with nothing running, cpu temp spikes and activity monitor shows nothing significant. After a reboot, cpu calms down. But your right...after a wake from sleep is when it gets crazy. I hate not knowing whats causing my Air to become a frying pan
Greetings,
I have installed all the updates, and the temperature of my MacBook Air CPU is always in the range of 50 - 60 degree Celsius. My fans always run at around 1900 - 2000 rpm. Your situation is a tad odd here.
I have also read somewhere that the i7 models usually have this overheating problem.
If this overheating issue bothers both of you much, you can try to contact Apple and see if they can repair or exchange a new machine for you.
Cheerio,
Pham Duc Minh Anh
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My i7 never has had a heat issue until the latest round of updates (EFI and Thunderbolt). After a reboot it goes away until after it wakes from sleep. Its not at the point to return to Apple yet. Just trying to see if anyone else like the OP might be experiencing the same situation. Many smart people here so someone may have already had and isolated the problem or even fixed it.
Having the exact same issue on my 13'' i5. It can successfully come out of sleep 3 or 4 times without issue, but it will eventually start to overheat without explanation (IE, because some process running away, etc).
I agree this started sometime after the EFI or Thunderbolt update, but since they came out relatively close together, I'm not sure which would have actually caused it.
I agree this started sometime after the EFI or Thunderbolt update, but since they came out relatively close together, I'm not sure which would have actually caused it.
i'm having the exact same problem, only sometimes when it comes out of sleep it starts to get steaming hot and a restart cures whatever the problem is. i wonder if we can get a firmware update to fix the problem, there must be more of us experiencing this.
New update out.
We'll see if the new thunderbolt update that's out fixes the issue. (Seems to be warming up already 44C at the moment) ambient room temp at the moment is 24C. I've had mine (13" i5) for a little over a week and now the issue is starting. It was fine when the ambient room temp was below 80F (26C), but I live in the Midwest and when the temp outside gets around 68F, the room temp goes into the low 80s.
I've also noticed that the machine retains heat after I close the lid. It looks like it vents through the keyboard possibly? Last night was the first time I'd heard the fan and I've used it for a couple of hundred hours. I shut it down and left it open in front of a fan (so passing air would remove the heat). After restarting I did not have an issue (after about an hour). It had been warm until now, but 80c in the case is too hot. I'm sure it's like anything else, when components get hot, the work less efficiently, which makes them work more, which makes them hotter.
I wondered about this issue before I bought the Air since it seemed too good to be true that a laptop would have no visible ventilation. It is a cool machine, figuratively speaking for the moment.
We'll see if the new thunderbolt update that's out fixes the issue. (Seems to be warming up already 44C at the moment) ambient room temp at the moment is 24C. I've had mine (13" i5) for a little over a week and now the issue is starting. It was fine when the ambient room temp was below 80F (26C), but I live in the Midwest and when the temp outside gets around 68F, the room temp goes into the low 80s.
I've also noticed that the machine retains heat after I close the lid. It looks like it vents through the keyboard possibly? Last night was the first time I'd heard the fan and I've used it for a couple of hundred hours. I shut it down and left it open in front of a fan (so passing air would remove the heat). After restarting I did not have an issue (after about an hour). It had been warm until now, but 80c in the case is too hot. I'm sure it's like anything else, when components get hot, the work less efficiently, which makes them work more, which makes them hotter.
I wondered about this issue before I bought the Air since it seemed too good to be true that a laptop would have no visible ventilation. It is a cool machine, figuratively speaking for the moment.
I had to wait until a little later to test it... and yes... it's much worse now. Open the macbook air, opened skype to make a call, was on for 11 minutes when I looked at the 82C temperature on the CPU. That's a bit high. It was off for about 4 hours prior.
Hi Everyone,
This is an issue with the EFI2.1 update. I have been able to reproduce this problem on 3 Mac Book Airs. (two i7, and one i5)
The genius at the Apple Store was able to reproduce it, however the engineers at Apple HQ were not able to on their test machines.
Everybody who has noticed this issue (and I say notice, as I'm convinced all MBAs do this after the EFI update), needs to take their MBAs back to the Apple Store to let them know.
This issue is reproducible in the following way:
1) Let MBA sleep on battery for about 90 minutes
2) Plug Power in and then immediately open lid
3) Wait about 10 minutes and temp will be close to 80 degrease (while CPU is idle 100%)
So please, let your Apple Store know about this
This is an issue with the EFI2.1 update. I have been able to reproduce this problem on 3 Mac Book Airs. (two i7, and one i5)
The genius at the Apple Store was able to reproduce it, however the engineers at Apple HQ were not able to on their test machines.
Everybody who has noticed this issue (and I say notice, as I'm convinced all MBAs do this after the EFI update), needs to take their MBAs back to the Apple Store to let them know.
This issue is reproducible in the following way:
1) Let MBA sleep on battery for about 90 minutes
2) Plug Power in and then immediately open lid
3) Wait about 10 minutes and temp will be close to 80 degrease (while CPU is idle 100%)
So please, let your Apple Store know about this
I ruled out a hardware issue with mine, and it looks like it indeed is an EFI issue.
I demoed this problem to a genius, he dismissed it as Airs get warm and they can't trust non apple temperature reporting software, and decided to run their diagnostics.
To my surprise it didn't pass the test... it didn't even load the test. He concluded it's a faulty logic board the the heat is a symptom of that.
Well now I have a new logic board and a new I/O board. First thing I did was install the newest EFI and test the problem... still exists.
Oh, and an easier "fix" is to close and open the lid instead of restarting the computer. Or you can disable deep sleep, but that will drain more battery overnight.
I demoed this problem to a genius, he dismissed it as Airs get warm and they can't trust non apple temperature reporting software, and decided to run their diagnostics.
To my surprise it didn't pass the test... it didn't even load the test. He concluded it's a faulty logic board the the heat is a symptom of that.
Well now I have a new logic board and a new I/O board. First thing I did was install the newest EFI and test the problem... still exists.
Oh, and an easier "fix" is to close and open the lid instead of restarting the computer. Or you can disable deep sleep, but that will drain more battery overnight.
I thought I was alone! I just noticed this problem today after I installed the updates yesterday. I opened up my 11" 2011 Air today (the higher end one) and left it open while I went to go make a cup of coffee, I had Sparrow, twitter and Safari open. The fans were running at 4500rpm because I had never switched them back down since watching a movie the previous night. When I came back, about 5 minutes later, the CPU was 80+ degrees Celsius! Even with the fans running that high! Now that I restarted the computer though, the CPU is back in the 50s with fans on 2500rpm.
To me, this issue happen every time I connect the charger, open the lid, and start using it.
I found another way to solve this issue.
Open the lid, then connect the charger, not the other way around.
So far it's working properly, even after using flash, my MBA was around 80'C in CPU with fan at 2500rpm
I found another way to solve this issue.
Open the lid, then connect the charger, not the other way around.
So far it's working properly, even after using flash, my MBA was around 80'C in CPU with fan at 2500rpm
I've also got the 13" 2011 i5 model with the same thing happening. I have SMC fan control and even turning it up to 5500 RPM didn't make a dent in the temperature. I shut down for a minute and turned back on and everything went back to normal. It's only happened once about a week ago. The computer hangs out in sleep and gets a restart usually about once a week.
Not sure when the EFI update was installed, so I can't be sure if this happened before or after. Hopefully it doesn't keep happening because it is quite annoying.
Not sure when the EFI update was installed, so I can't be sure if this happened before or after. Hopefully it doesn't keep happening because it is quite annoying.
I'm rather annoyed by the heat/fan issues that I've been having as well.
It doesn't happen every time I use my MBA, but I'd say more often than not.
I open it, and it awakes from sleep. Sometimes the heat starts rising immediately, and sometimes it happes later on while I'm using it.
The only applications I have running are Mail, Chrome, and TextEdit. I see no reason as to why the temperature rises to around 70°, and the fans start spinning to cool it down.
If I shut the lid of the MBA to put it to sleep, the screen goes off, but the fans keep spinning (it doesn't really go to sleep). The only way to correct the problem is to restart. Sometimes I have to restart 3-4 times a day. Once I restart, the temperature drops down to normal, and the fans stop spinning.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to correct this?
![Screen Shot 2012-04-04 at 10.51.49 AM.png]( "Screen Shot 2012-04-04 at 10.51.49 AM.png")
It doesn't happen every time I use my MBA, but I'd say more often than not.
I open it, and it awakes from sleep. Sometimes the heat starts rising immediately, and sometimes it happes later on while I'm using it.
The only applications I have running are Mail, Chrome, and TextEdit. I see no reason as to why the temperature rises to around 70°, and the fans start spinning to cool it down.
If I shut the lid of the MBA to put it to sleep, the screen goes off, but the fans keep spinning (it doesn't really go to sleep). The only way to correct the problem is to restart. Sometimes I have to restart 3-4 times a day. Once I restart, the temperature drops down to normal, and the fans stop spinning.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to correct this?
Yes, make a habit of first waking your Air and then plugging it in. Yeah it's not ideal but works... I haven't really had this problem for months, the most annoying thing was reminding my wife to do the same.