MacBook (not Pro) temps, mooing, whining

[willgr]

I see some references to MacBook temps, but nothing yet in the way of a comprehensive thread on just how hot these things get, so let's get one started. Comments on "mooing" and whining are also encouraged, but let's try to keep it to these three affects.

Please feel free to add your observations and temperature measurements for your new MacBook. According to CoreDuoTemp, my CPU idles at about 50 degrees celcius and hits 61-65 just browsing. It also "moos" as the MacBook Pro has been reported to do.

If you need a way to measure your CPU temps, you can Google for "CoreDuoTemp"

 

[ahunter3]

:pens thread with a vision of Kelly Girls mooing and whining about being issued MacBooks instead of MacBook Pros when they show up for their job du jour::

("...& shouldn't that be moaning and whining?", he wonders as he clicks the link...)

 

[nospleen]

I purchased a white 2.0 MB on Tuesday. It did make a mooing sound. The battery would not hold a charge, so I returned it to the store to swap the battery. They said that they would only swap the machine. I ended up swapping it out and bought the black one. I know, I know, what a rip off. But, it looks sweet, so what the hell. Anyway, the black one has not made a peep, no whining or mooing.... Maybe it is the whole, white is the color milk, so the white ones moo.

 

[willgr]

Thanks for the feedback. I can definitely now pinpoint the moo as a fan noise...sounds like it is starting up and shutting down repeatedly.

I'm also getting the whine that goes away with opening Photobooth. Kind of sucks since this was part of the reason I returned a MacBook Pro (ok, well that, the screen, the grinding DVD, $ and Merom in the fall).

If this is a fan, it might explain the high (even for a Mac CPU temps.

Looks like swap time, I've only been down the store three out of four nights this week. Does anyone know if I can swap hard drives or will I have to set up the replacement from scratch?

 

[drmike]

I can definitely now pinpoint the moo as a fan noise...sounds like it is starting up and shutting down repeatedly.

I was thinking about starting a new thread about this. I get a similar noise. I don't know if I'd describe the noise I hear as mooing -- though that's close; when I heard it, it kind of reminded me of a whirring sound, kind of like a tinny, motorcycle sound. But it would start up and shut down repeatedly. If it is the fan, that's okay ... just curious to know if that's truly it (at least in my MB).

I heard the noise after using the MB for a while and then going to Youtube.com to watch some videos. The noise started and stopped quite a bit while watching videos.

 

[GoCubsGo]

That sucks man. I'd take it back.

Welcome to Rev A. Apple's official beta testing program.

 

[mgodfre3]

My MacBook

I bought the 1.83 MacBook on tuesday first thing in the morning and I have no "mooing" in my baby. As far as I can tell the only thing wrong is the heat from the left corner. But other then that it's awesome. How are you guys firguring out you cpu's temp by te way

 

[wpwj40e]

Heat

Bought the white low end MacBook for my 17 yr old son Weds.

Took it back this morning. The laptop itself was great. No weird noises and keyboard/screen etc were really nice. However it go so hot that you literally could not touch the bottom. Holding it on your lap was completely out of the question and it was so hot it left "marks" on one of my end tables.

We checked out two others while at the Apple store this morning and they were just as hot. (Both white BTW)

We were 1 of 3 people at the genius bar complaining about heat from the MacBook. When it came to our turn (we were the 2nd "heat complaint") and had been waiting about an hour. We also had the MB plugged in and ready to go - the genius picked it and stated that it was "defective" immediately by just how hot it was when he grabbed it. No further conversation etc. Told us he would exchange it and then I pointed out the others there for the same reason and the issues with the ones on the floor. Went over to the "display" I had pointed our - genius picked it up and made some "noise" regarding that it was pretty hot. ANyways...ended up with just getting a refund. No real hassle and no restocking fee as they could not find a SINGLE MB on the floor that wasn't running extremely hot. I might add the other two folks also got refunds.

So maybe there are some bad batches out there.

This really stinks - 'cause my son really, really wanted an Apple laptop and I was planning on picking up one as well to go with my iMac. We have decided to wait a few months to see if this gets sorted out. At least until August.

I wanted to LOVE this new laptop and except for the heat issue it was great. And it even played (while dialed down) many of the games my son plays and he was pleased as punch.

Hope Apple sorts this out. It took many revs of my iMac to get it right. Not gonna go through this again. This time gonna wait it out.

 

[drmike]

Bought the white low end MacBook for my 17 yr old son Weds.

Took it back this morning. The laptop itself was great. No weird noises and keyboard/screen etc were really nice. However it go so hot that you literally could not touch the bottom. Holding it on your lap was completely out of the question and it was so hot it left "marks" on one of my end tables.

We checked out two others while at the Apple store this morning and they were just as hot. (Both white BTW)

We were 1 of 3 people at the genius bar complaining about heat from the MacBook. When it came to our turn (we were the 2nd "heat complaint") and had been waiting about an hour. We also had the MB plugged in and ready to go - the genius picked it and stated that it was "defective" immediately by just how hot it was when he grabbed it. No further conversation etc. Told us he would exchange it and then I pointed out the others there for the same reason and the issues with the ones on the floor. Went over to the "display" I had pointed our - genius picked it up and made some "noise" regarding that it was pretty hot. ANyways...ended up with just getting a refund. No real hassle and no restocking fee as they could not find a SINGLE MB on the floor that wasn't running extremely hot. I might add the other two folks also got refunds.

So maybe there are some bad batches out there.

This really stinks - 'cause my son really, really wanted an Apple laptop and I was planning on picking up one as well to go with my iMac. We have decided to wait a few months to see if this gets sorted out. At least until August.

I wanted to LOVE this new laptop and except for the heat issue it was great. And it even played (while dialed down) many of the games my son plays and he was pleased as punch.

Hope Apple sorts this out. It took many revs of my iMac to get it right. Not gonna go through this again. This time gonna wait it out.

That's a real bummer. I wonder if I should have mine looked at by Mac techs. Not only for the mooing/whirring I hear (which isn't very loud but in a quiet room it is noticeable), but for the heat as well. Mine hasn't burned any furniture just yet, but the bottom gets way too hot for it to be used on the lap, and while I don't think it's hot enough to burn skin, it's not something you really want to touch until it's asleep or has been off for a few minutes.

Hmm. Gonna have to think about it and maybe see what Apple says. Good to know they refunded the money, though. Dang -- I'd like to keep mine, but if the mooing/whirring persists and the heat gets out of hand I might take it in. I still have about ten days before my return period is up.

 

[macenforcer]

Since when has a mac laptop not burned the living daylights out of legs?

 

[mmmcheese]

Thanks for the feedback. I can definitely now pinpoint the moo as a fan noise...sounds like it is starting up and shutting down repeatedly.

This is exactly what it is...the fans are just going at a really low speed, and fluctuating in RPM...

I can't see how anyone would be annoyed by it, it's super quiet...if anything, it's kind of funny.

 

[drmike]

This is exactly what it is...the fans are just going at a really low speed, and fluctuating in RPM...

I can't see how anyone would be annoyed by it, it's super quiet...if anything, it's kind of funny.

Well, that is good to know. One question, though: are the fans supposed to fluctuate every few seconds? In other words, I can the whir/moo sound for a few seconds, then it disappears, then a few seconds later it appears again, and then it disappears, and so on. I'm asking just out of curiosity and just checking to see if this kind of fan behavior is "normal"? (This is my first new Mac in many, many years, and I'm not familiar yet with what's "normal"/"abnormal" with Apple's hardware.)

 

[JamSandwich]

I don't recall where I read it (probably a download site), but someone was questioning the need to enter admin access when installing CoreDuoTemp, and the insinuation seemed to be it might be spyware or in some way malicious.

Normally I don't think about such things, but then again, I don't normally download a lot of software. And I certainly don't track outgoing web traffic on my Macs the way I do on my PC desktop, which is in a perpetual state of lockdown

Any thoughts? I wound up downloading it from the "blog" of Jonathan Pepin, the author.

More on topic, just picked up my MacBook earlier today. I haven't been doing that much that's intensive on it, but right now CoreDuoTemp is reporting 48C as a temperature. (51 now that I've reached the end of the post, but I don't think it's eclipsed 55). I can live with that. Hopefully I don't have any problems others have reported. I think it can only be a positive thing that I ordered mine online and it presumably came from further down the assembly line from the first systems, which are probably on shelves at brick-and-mortar Apple stores.

 

[macenforcer]

I tell you what. I have a Vaio desktop and a macbook and a G5 and I am really starting to hate the G5 with all the noise it makes. The vaio is silent, the macbook is silent. Time to put the G5 on ebay. Vaio + Xbox 360 = Home entertainment MECA!

 

[drmike]

More on topic, just picked up my MacBook earlier today. I haven't been doing that much that's intensive on it, but right now CoreDuoTemp is reporting 48C as a temperature. (51 now that I've reached the end of the post, but I don't think it's eclipsed 55). I can live with that. Hopefully I don't have any problems others have reported. I think it can only be a positive thing that I ordered mine online and it presumably came from further down the assembly line from the first systems, which are probably on shelves at brick-and-mortar Apple stores.

Thanks for the info about your experience. I'm going to download the CoreDuoTemp and run it this weekend. I'll compare the temp readings you got with the ones I get. Mine runs pretty hot with just Safari going. I did an entirely unscientific "test" by stopping by the Apple store on my way home and checking out how hot the display MacBook got while running Safari. Pretty warm, but I think mine's running a bit hotter. Will have to see for sure when I run the Temp program.

 

[JamSandwich]

Thanks for the info about your experience. I'm going to download the CoreDuoTemp and run it this weekend. I'll compare the temp readings you got with the ones I get. Mine runs pretty hot with just Safari going. I did an entirely unscientific "test" by stopping by the Apple store on my way home and checking out how hot the display MacBook got while running Safari. Pretty warm, but I think mine's running a bit hotter. Will have to see for sure when I run the Temp program.

Just a note. Goofing around briefly with Comic Life, Skype and some slightly more processor-intensive stuff and and my temps moved up to around 70. Curious what will happen when I try to do more work than just fooling around.

The temp dips very fast (faster than I'd expect) once load on the CPU drops. Maybe three minutes ago it was 70, it's now 56.

Still curious as to whether anyone can definitively say CoreDuoTemp is a "safe" app to run, too

EDIT: Also to clarify, my MacBook is the middle model, as purchased (512MB, etc.). Great upgrade from my G3

 

[firsttube]

Ordered mine the day of the announcement. black, 120 gb, 512 ram. (wish i knew about the hard drive accessibility)

Order Date
05/16/06
06:24 AM PST /8:24 central.

What time was the online store updated? I don't think I ordered too long after the announcement, 2 day shipping. It left china on may 18th at 10 pm. Arrived in Alaska at 1:13 pm (5/19) got to indianapolis at 11:57 PM (i'm not sure what time they're talking about for the different locations) from anchorage, ak. "initial shipment release" (from indy) 2 hours later. How long after the announcement did I order? I'm wondering if people who ordered after the announcement have already received theirs.

I do find it ironic that the new apple store is giving 1 macbook away each hour when people who've paid for one had to wait for them to come from china!

I'm also nervous about opening it. With all these negative posts, should I just send it back and wait out all the (alleged) issues?

Thanks for any input!

EDIT: Realized, you can't return custom built orders, right? So open it and hope it doesn't have any issues?

 

[ncook06]

I'm also getting the whine that goes away with opening Photobooth. Kind of sucks since this was part of the reason I returned a MacBook Pro (ok, well that, the screen, the grinding DVD, $ and Merom in the fall).

I returned 3!

 

[brbubba]

After two days of nothing I suddenly have the mooing and its annoying as hell!!!

It just started after about 15 minutes of recharging which is when the system is unbearably hot, during recharge while in use.

EDIT: Ugh jumped the gun. Its still happening even on battery power and under full charge, although a lot less so. Seems to only happen when I do something processor intensive in those cases.

 

[mkrishnan]

I have an iBook, it doesn't moo or whine, but suddenly, after entering this thread, I'm ashamed of my skin color and afraid to drink milk. What's going on here????

The iBook and PB were hot...but wpwj40e said the MacBook was so hot it made marks on the tabletop? I'm sorry you weren't able to end up with an Apple notebook for your son. That really stinks. Any chance you can post pictures of that tabletop, though, please? I'm really curious....

 

[TallShaffer]

I've been using my macbook (1.83) for about a day and a half now, and it's been awesome. Any laptop will get to be fairly warm/hot. Sure, the left corner is on the higher end of warm and the lower end of hot, but it's a dual core laptop that's really thin! The thing runs realllly quietly, so I have no complaints at all. I use it on my lap, and it's a nice lap warmer.

We'll see what happens when I decide to run WoW on it!

 

[wxboss]

I've been using my macbook (1.83) for about a day and a half now, and it's been awesome. Any laptop will get to be fairly warm/hot. Sure, the left corner is on the higher end of warm and the lower end of hot, but it's a dual core laptop that's really thin! The thing runs realllly quietly, so I have no complaints at all. I use it on my lap, and it's a nice lap warmer.

We'll see what happens when I decide to run WoW on it!

You made some good points here. Since I'm planning on buying an MB soon, I was reading through this thread, and I can understand why the fan needs to "mooo" every so often.

While I'm not saying that there aren't some legitimate problems discussed in this thread, the fact that you do have a thin machine with quite a bit of horse power means there will be a need at some point for the fan to kick in and cool things off especially under processor intensive circumstances.

Also, and just for my curiosity, when comparing core temps, could you also include the ambient temp under which those readings were made. Room temperatures are also a factor in how warm the processor gets.

Thanks

 

[bankshot]

We bought our Macbook on Friday evening at the Apple Store. 2.0 GHz white. So far, so good.

Heat: as others said, the left back area (near the screen) gets warmest under heavy use. Still, this is not any warmer than my work PowerBook (1.25 GHz G4) and the iBook (600 MHz G3) that the new Macbook replaced. I have been able to sit it on my lap, wearing shorts, without trouble. Warm, definitely. Scalding/burning, no.

Moo: Huh? Nothing of the sort, as far as I can tell. Is this some sort of fan noise gone horribly wrong? The fan comes on when the machine is working hard, but it's actually quieter than the fans on either the PowerBook or the iBook. Sounds like a normal fan to me.

Whine: None so far. The DVD drive was a little noisy when reinstalling the system (I always do this to get just the options I want) but well within ordinary expectations. At one point, I was paranoid and thought I heard a whine when the room was very quiet. I put the Macbook up to my ear and found that it was the hard drive spinning. Normally the hard drive is loud enough that I can tell what it is, even in a notebook, but this was actually quiet enough that I had to put it close to my ear in a quiet room to hear it. No complaints.

My one piece of advice for anyone who is afraid of these problems affecting them, buy a stock machine and upgrade it yourself. If it ends up having problems, you can always insist on exchanging it (removing any memory/disk upgrades you did). Apple apparently does not allow exchanges on build-to-order machines, so you end up having to send it in for repair possibly many times.

 

[afornander]

i dont have a macbook (i wish i had one) but from going to about 5 forums, i would have to say that you have about a 1/3 chance of getting one with a heat prob and getting a wierd sound prob.

 

[cardude280]

I have the base model Macbook and mine has the MOO
but it not too loud. And as far as how hot it gets it about ~65C in web browsing.Ive used it all of today and its my first mac that works and i very happy with. I have 1 thing that annoyes me the drives are loud but is a good sized laptop