MacBook Slower After Apple Repair, fan still loud

[swingerofbirch]

I just got my MacBook back from Apple's repair facility. I sent it in for a few reasons: fan is ridiculously loud, kernel panics, freezing, safe sleep mode doesn't work, the palm rest near the edge cracked. They fixed the last one at least!

So, right away I am noticing that this thing is so much slower than before. I am wondering if they might have underclocked it to try to help with the fan noise? Is there a way to check if it's been underclocked?

Also, the fans were above 6200 RPM within minutes of using it again.

This is what the sheet says they replaced:
605-1420 SVC, TOP CASE W/KEYBOARD ASSY
631-0557 BATTERY CONN CABLE ASSY,K36
630-9105 PCBA,MLB,BETTER,K36

Does anyone know what the last two are? Should either of those have helped with the fan? Should I send it back again?

It also smells really, really strongly now like some sort of industrial cleaner....wooo....

 

[logana]

Bottom 2 are

Battery connector - also incorporates the sleep switch (clue)
PCBA,MLB - mainlogic board (motherboard) better means it is the mid-range model (superdrive)

bad smell is probably the heatsink paste

check what processes are running - all users in Activity monitor - probably Spotlight re-indexing.

They have not changed the fan - but the logic board does control the fan speed so give it 24 hours to settle down before you drag it back to the store.

 

[nufanec]

First off, no they wont have underclocked it.

Your fan noise would appear to me to be a software issue. Check your Activity Monitor, make sure you are looking at All Processes (drop down menu at the top of the window). Sort the processes by CPU. I'm willing to bet there is a process hogging a large amount of CPU, causing the slow down and the fans to spin up.

The last two parts are the battery connector and the logic board. The battery connector contains the reed switch which causes the machine to sleep when the screen is closed, and the logic board contains the processors, power management unit, memory controllers, fan controllers, etc.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Yeah, I'll give it some time. I don't want to have to send it in again as I am going on vacation this Sunday and want to bring it in with me. To be honest, they did a good job, it feels very solid. They replaced the entire top plastic part which makes it feel newish and the keyboard feels crisper. It could feel slow because I've been using an iMac while this was gone--it's only a 2 GHZ C2D, while my MacBook is a 2.2 GHZ, although it still seems faster at certain things. I've been spoiled by the iMac's screen as well, as this seems very dim now.

Spotlight didn't have to re-index--they didn't change anything on the hard drive from what I can tell; although, when I opened iTunes I had to agree to to the license agreement again, but all my music seems to be there.

It's not getting as hot, and the fans aren't noticeable unless I am doing the "trigger" activities that could always get it going before. For example, open a Hulu.com TV show while recording a QuickTime Pro movie using iSight. Is that just considered normal on a MacBook, for it to be very loud while doing tasks like that?

I just opened QuickTime, started a movie recording (using iSight) and the CPU usage for QuickTime is 60%. Is that normal?

That was my complaint to Apple: how can I record a video podcast if the fans are blasting so loud it distorts the audio?

So, as another test, I just opened Hulu.com and am playing a TV episode, and Safari is now using 72% of the CPU. QuickTime is using 54% (I guess it adds up to over a hundred because of the two cores?)

Anyhow. Maybe it's just the tasks that I happen to do that cause the MacBook to rev up? Fans are at 6208 RPM. Before opening QuickTime and Safari they were at 1800 RPM.

I have read that Flash is poorly written for Mac OS X, but should poorly written software really affect the computer to the point that the fans are overshadowing the computer's audio input and output?

EDIT: Thank you both for explaining what they replaced!

 

[swingerofbirch]

I called Apple, and they said, as they have before, that the fan noise is not normal. They once even had me play it for them over the phone. They said in creating a QuickTime recording, the comptuer's fan noise should not be audible (which it is to a very great extent from my MacBook). So, they said this time to bring it into an Apple Store, which I'll try to over the weekend (it's about a two hour drive and I don't drive, but my parents are headed up that way so I can hopefully catch a ride with them). I called the Apple Store to make an appointment and they tried to sell me ProCare for the ability to make appointments more than two days in advance (I was polite, but not charmed as I already have AppleCare and feel that should suffice for the ability to make appointments).