Hi Everybody, I bought an early 15" Macbook pro in around May of last year. I have been running boot camp since it first came out, and when I upgraded to BC 1.2 and installed Vista, I couldn't boot back into OS X so I now just use this laptop as a Vista laptop.
The problem that I have is with heat issues. I have done a lot of reading on this subject and even opened up this MBP and hacked away at the thermal glue. No matter what I do I can't get the temperature down to a normal level, and the laptop reboots a few times per day as soon as the CPU sustains a higher level of usage.
On average, the cores run at around 80-81C, and with CPU use (eg. zipping some files) it will peak up to the high 80's (88-89) and further up to 94-95C if I am playing a song. I can't place the laptop on my lap (and I only use it when I am on the road and need Windows) and the rebooting is very frustrating.
Previously when I was able to boot into OS X, I would use fan control to kick up the min-speed to around 6000rpm, and I would have less problems. It is at the point now where even a little bit of usage will see the temp spike and the machine reboot (I only mostly use it for windows dev, nothing fancy).
After multiple reboots in the past 2 days, I sat down today to solve the problem. First thing I noticed was that while running Vista, my fans were not spinning at all. To verify this, I removed the keyboard from the MBP and ran winamp with visualization to put a bit of load on it, and at no time did the fans switch on (the two small fans that run inside the sink/vent).
Obviously there was a driver or chipset whereby the operating system wasn't instructing the fans to spin up (I know that there is some level of firmware-based temp control, but for some reason this isn't working either and there is obviously some OS-level fan control). I have read some posts stating that since the thermal control is all in firmware, that the OS you run makes no difference - so in theory OS X and Vista should run the laptop at the same temprature. Everything I have seen so far indicates that this is not true, and even without looking at temperature monitors Vista runs A LOT hotter than OS X and you can tell by just touching it (at the bottom towards the vent, and below where the screen meets the base).
What I did next was to install the latest Windows drivers from the new Boot Camp 1.4b (it isn't on the Apple site anymore - so I used a mirror). I extracted the driver CD from the DMG file in Windows and ran the setup file which updated all the drivers (including the latest ATI driver which is included). I actually created an archive of the latest drivers and am in the process of uploading it - I will post the URL here once done so others can update their drivers without downloading the complete DMG and/or booting into OS X.
The latest drivers made no difference to fan control, and the Rightmark CPU tools were telling me that the cores were still running at 84-88C.
I installed Input Remapper, and in the config it shows the following:
So again, the fans are not turning at all, which would explain why the system is so fragile (running HL2 or Bioshock goes about 30 seconds in and then reboots). So questions:
* Has anybody else seen their fans not run at all in Vista? The most common problem seems to be that the fans don't run fast enough - not that they don't run at all
* Any ideas on how to force the fans to run?
* Any 3rd party tools that can be used? eg. tools from other laptop manufacturers. I assume that the messages that need to be sent are standard (ACPI), so tools from another manufacturer might work
* Would it be possible to RE or port smcFanControl?
* Could I have accidently killed something when I opened up the Macbook that would now cause the fans not to work? I figured that if I accidentally tripped the power to the fans, that Input Remapper wouldn't even detect the fans
* What would the best tool be to under-clock the laptop? I would be looking for a tool that could have profiles, or even better it would automatically change voltage and clock settings based on the temperature
Thanks for any help/feedback in advance!
The problem that I have is with heat issues. I have done a lot of reading on this subject and even opened up this MBP and hacked away at the thermal glue. No matter what I do I can't get the temperature down to a normal level, and the laptop reboots a few times per day as soon as the CPU sustains a higher level of usage.
On average, the cores run at around 80-81C, and with CPU use (eg. zipping some files) it will peak up to the high 80's (88-89) and further up to 94-95C if I am playing a song. I can't place the laptop on my lap (and I only use it when I am on the road and need Windows) and the rebooting is very frustrating.
Previously when I was able to boot into OS X, I would use fan control to kick up the min-speed to around 6000rpm, and I would have less problems. It is at the point now where even a little bit of usage will see the temp spike and the machine reboot (I only mostly use it for windows dev, nothing fancy).
After multiple reboots in the past 2 days, I sat down today to solve the problem. First thing I noticed was that while running Vista, my fans were not spinning at all. To verify this, I removed the keyboard from the MBP and ran winamp with visualization to put a bit of load on it, and at no time did the fans switch on (the two small fans that run inside the sink/vent).
Obviously there was a driver or chipset whereby the operating system wasn't instructing the fans to spin up (I know that there is some level of firmware-based temp control, but for some reason this isn't working either and there is obviously some OS-level fan control). I have read some posts stating that since the thermal control is all in firmware, that the OS you run makes no difference - so in theory OS X and Vista should run the laptop at the same temprature. Everything I have seen so far indicates that this is not true, and even without looking at temperature monitors Vista runs A LOT hotter than OS X and you can tell by just touching it (at the bottom towards the vent, and below where the screen meets the base).
What I did next was to install the latest Windows drivers from the new Boot Camp 1.4b (it isn't on the Apple site anymore - so I used a mirror). I extracted the driver CD from the DMG file in Windows and ran the setup file which updated all the drivers (including the latest ATI driver which is included). I actually created an archive of the latest drivers and am in the process of uploading it - I will post the URL here once done so others can update their drivers without downloading the complete DMG and/or booting into OS X.
The latest drivers made no difference to fan control, and the Rightmark CPU tools were telling me that the cores were still running at 84-88C.
I installed Input Remapper, and in the config it shows the following:
So again, the fans are not turning at all, which would explain why the system is so fragile (running HL2 or Bioshock goes about 30 seconds in and then reboots). So questions:
* Has anybody else seen their fans not run at all in Vista? The most common problem seems to be that the fans don't run fast enough - not that they don't run at all
* Any ideas on how to force the fans to run?
* Any 3rd party tools that can be used? eg. tools from other laptop manufacturers. I assume that the messages that need to be sent are standard (ACPI), so tools from another manufacturer might work
* Would it be possible to RE or port smcFanControl?
* Could I have accidently killed something when I opened up the Macbook that would now cause the fans not to work? I figured that if I accidentally tripped the power to the fans, that Input Remapper wouldn't even detect the fans
* What would the best tool be to under-clock the laptop? I would be looking for a tool that could have profiles, or even better it would automatically change voltage and clock settings based on the temperature
Thanks for any help/feedback in advance!