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Long term air user

E

electro1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 23, 2008
10
0
Since I was one of the first to get my hands on the Air, i thought I would share what's going on. I probably got within the first ten Airs that arrived to the Short Hills, NJ store. Got the SSD drive. Everything was fine until recently. Noticed temps starting to climb about 2 weeks ago. Didn't give it much thought. Now, temps are hovering around 57 to 61 degrees 90 percent of the time, with nothing more then email, simple Safari browsing and maybe an excell SS or two. Fan also runs 75% of the time.
Prior to 2 weeks ago only had these issues when videos, (youtube or equal) ran.
Would like to hear from other 1st adopters, regarding any issues.

Thanks
 
Not an long time user, maybe 4 months, so not sure if this is helpful.

My temps running just Firefox is about 50. Fans running about 2500. iStat is showing the CPU over 80% idle. Is it possible you are visiting a site that is pushing up the cycles? What were the temps before?
 
Nope, running nothing now but Safari on this site.
74 degrees
6200 rpms fan.
Nothing changed on my end. Just kinds happened. Heard about everybody else with their fan issues. Never had any. Then started noticing warmer then usual left side, then rear strip. Now, pretty much always warm and majority of time fan. Also notice it more when running Itunes radio. Go figure.
 
electro1 said:
Nope, running nothing now but Safari on this site.
74 degrees
6200 rpms fan.
Nothing changed on my end. Just kinds happened. Heard about everybody else with their fan issues. Never had any. Then started noticing warmer then usual left side, then rear strip. Now, pretty much always warm and majority of time fan. Also notice it more when running Itunes radio. Go figure.
Click to expand...


I this doesn't go away after a while, I would return it.
Something may have physically happened inside.
 
Had mine since early Feb. (HDD Model) and NO problem what so ever!!! Fans are quiet, and no shutdown yet... Best machine I have ever owned!
 
I received one of the first pre-ordered MBA's and my temps hover around 38-41c unless I browse to a site with flash, then it goes to the low 50's.

Have you tried cleaning and running maintenance scripts? Use Onyx, it works quite well. Just be sure to do it when you have a couple of hours to spare. Do everything on each tab of "cleaning" then everything on the "Automation" section.
 
Do you have any or MANY Dashboard widgets running? I second the idea that your probs could be related to background processes, and Widgets are processes that can eat a lot of cycles but are easily forgotten.

If you do have a bunch of widgets, check out this one:
http://osx.iusethis.com/app/stopdashboardwidget

It basically kills all your widgets and dashboard. The great thing is as soon as you hit your Dashboard shortcut button or icon, it starts right up with no delay.
 
I was one of the first to get the MBA...everything was fine till temps started going up in NYC...couldn't take it anymore, I couldn't even watch a movie, it would stuttered constantly...did a little research, decidedly to install coolbook, and it fixed my problem...u might want to look into coolbook....it's not for everyone...hope this helps

But if there is a way you can get a new one, I would do that instead!!
 
Got one of the first batch as well. Fans at 2500rpm at 51C temps with very light load (12% on each core) - Safari running (three tabs on each window, two windows), Mail.app with SpamSieve and MailPlane.

Things to check:
1. Widgets - iStat's Organized ate up some resources so I removed it.
2. Flash on Safari - this is the reason why I download MP4 or run QT plugin in YouTube, when available
3. Kernel Hacks
 
gcmexico said:
I was one of the first to get the MBA...everything was fine till temps started going up in NYC...couldn't take it anymore, I couldn't even watch a movie, it would stuttered constantly...did a little research, decidedly to install coolbook, and it fixed my problem...u might want to look into coolbook....it's not for everyone...hope this helps

But if there is a way you can get a new one, I would do that instead!!
Click to expand...

I think Coolbook is for EVERYONE! It's $10 that will fix core shutdowns forever. Running CPUTest to find your minimum voltages isn't hard, but of the steps involved in running CB, it is the most involved (but also the most important!)

I think I've only seen one post where a user was able to get a core shutdown while running CB. It's possible they didn't really find MINIMUM voltages too (that's my guess) because for that one user, there are tens or maybe even hundreds who are running it and haven't seen a core shutdown since (myself included).
 
weird. Do what everyone above me said, then call Apple. That's the best I could tell you.
 
I have a week 1. Bought it Feb. 9th.

When the weather started getting hotter, so did my Air. It was getting pretty hot just running Safari and the fan was going crazy. We had a blackout, so I had no juice for a day and the heat issue went away. I've still never had a core shutdown.

Also, I doubt this had anything to do with it, but I did the .mac 60 day trial which expired about the same time as my machine started running hot. I noticed a lot of .mac errors in Activity Monitor when my Air was trying to connect to a .mac account that was no longer valid.
 
hey guys, think this is a great thread

can you guys specify whether you've been using the ssd or not?

im really curious about the 80gb hdd. i still cant get over how the mba uses an ipod hdd
 
dannn said:
hey guys, think this is a great thread

can you guys specify whether you've been using the ssd or not?

im really curious about the 80gb hdd. i still cant get over how the mba uses an ipod hdd
Click to expand...

I'm using the HDD model. Its not that bad and I don't care if it uses an iPod hard drive or not. My older 30GB iPod went through a lot more torture then any other laptop/small hard drive's I've owned and it still works perfectly. If anything, I trust this hard drive a little more then others.
 
Follow-up

Ready for the bizarre?
So now my Air is pretty much a room fan (fan is constantly on). Temps are always fluxing between high 60's into 70's. So I go down to the Apple store and can't get an appointment until today at 11:00AM. So back to my office, take the Air out of my bag,,,,,,,,no fan,,,,,normal temps. The balance of the day, the same, all night, the same. The only thing that i did was delete about 100 old emails. Now I'm truly puzzled.
 
Perhaps the heat sink compound cracked and the heat sink is shifting around a little. Or maybe the SMC has gotten into a wonky state (I'd definitely try a SMC reset if you haven't yet).

Or.... well, probably lots of things could explain what's happening. Hopefully the visit to the Apple store will be helpful. (And hopefully you'll be able to show them the problem!)
 
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