Dilemma

[MOC405]

I was wanting to see if I could get some opinions from some of you long-term Mac users. I currently have a 2018 MacBook Pro with 16 of RAM but I believe it has a bloated battery and it overheats far too quickly because the fans won’t kick in. I was wanting to see if I could get opinions on if it would be a better use of my money to try and have those items fixed or try to save up a little bit more money and hurry and get the new Mac mini with 24 of RAM.

 

[russell_314]

I was wanting to see if I could get some opinions from some of you long-term Mac users. I currently have a 2018 MacBook Pro with 16 of RAM but I believe it has a bloated battery and it overheats far too quickly because the fans won’t kick in. I was wanting to see if I could get opinions on if it would be a better use of my money to try and have those items fixed or try to save up a little bit more money and hurry and get the new Mac mini with 24 of RAM.

Take it to the Apple store and ask how much it would cost. If the battery is swelling do not keep it inside your house or anyplace that could catch fire. It might be a cheap fix especially if it's just the battery

I would consider a Mac mini but don't overbuy like many will try and get you to do. I think they're on commission from Apple 🤣. Unless you have a specific need for 24 GB of RAM there's no reason to pay an extra $400 for that.

 

[NeonNights]

If you're sure you won't miss/need the portability aspect going from a MacBook Pro to a Mini, I personally would upgrade and save some expense by staying with 16GB. Apple Silicon runs very well with 16GB compared to 16GB WinTel.

There are still other variables that didn't get mentioned, such as the cost of repairing the MBP. If buy the Mini, what do you plan to do with the MBP? If you repaired it, could you then sell it for enough to offset most of cost of the Mini?

 

[MBAir2010]

The later 2010 MacBook Pros are not 's proudest moments
and most know this, and are wary of buying these MBP
while this decade is a major  breakthrough with the M silicon chip.
I can do anything on my base model 8GB ram MacBook Air 2020
and that M2 MacMini is a major upgrade in speed even with 8GB,
so the 16 GB of ram might be enough for years to come.

 

[MOC405]

I mostly do frontend development with graphic work using Figma, Affinity, Photoshop, etc.. But I want to start doing some 3d stuff to make 3d printed stuff, as well as architecture stuff.

If I upgrade to the new Mac mini, I will still look to have my MacBook fixed, but it would just give me more time to get it fixed.

 

[sublunar]

Definitely want to take it to an Apple Store to get it looked at - if the battery is swelling that could be an issue they could have a plan to address it. An 14" M1 Pro MBP might be a good stop gap replacement if you need one for work.
Apple refurb store should have them from time to time and US retailers appear may have cheap ones too.

That said, with your software needs - check first if they are fully ARM native - Figma and Affinity stuff is I think. Photoshop should be too but some CAD stuff might not be.

 

[m1maverick]

.

 

[smoking monkey]

I second and third those saying to get the battery looked at asap. It's not something to mess around with and can cause injury or damage. I'd also imagine the inside of the computer has dust build up. Getting that cleaned out can have a big impact on the running of the fans.

If you do these two things, you might find the computer is totally fine and don't need a new one. replacing a new battery used to be around 130 bucks. Not sure now, but if there is damage to the casing it could cost you more. Take it in asap though is my recommendation.

 

[MOC405]

Thank you everyone. i think it’s more than just a bloated battery. Right now it is off and has been, but when it does come on the fans don’t come on at all and everything freezes up when it gets too hot. Plus, i figured it was aa bloated battery because the chassis has split up down both sides.

I have found a battery from OWC for around $90 bucks and have been looking for a local at home technician that could install it but I just feel there is going to much more that has to be done to it.

I am figuring that between parts and labor it is going about $500 to $600 to repair it. This is one reason I was thinking of getting the latest Mac mini. If fixing my MBP is going to be half the price of a new machine, it would just be better to do that and fix my MBP in the future.

That brings back the dilemma of 16 or 24 of ram.

Then on a side not, I recently hooked up to using a 2gbs fiber internet line and wondered if it would really be worth upgrading to the 10gbs network card.

 

[NeonNights]

The new M2 Minis have WiFi 6E so you can get 1Gbps real-world speed, but you'll need a 6E router or gateway and it depends on location/distance.

If you get the 10GbE option on the Mini then you'd need a router/gateway that has at least a single 2.5+ Gbit port to make full use of your 2Gbps Internet service.

To fully maximize the 10GbE option you'll have to invest in some pricey networking gear and upgrade your entire network to 10GbE for fast Internet and even faster data transfers between local devices.

 

[MOC405]

Well I’m using the AT&T fiber which has a 5gb plan so I would assume their gateway has a 2.5 port

 

[chrfr]

Thank you everyone. i think it’s more than just a bloated battery. Right now it is off and has been, but when it does come on the fans don’t come on at all and everything freezes up when it gets too hot. Plus, i figured it was aa bloated battery because the chassis has split up down both sides.

I have found a battery from OWC for around $90 bucks and have been looking for a local at home technician that could install it but I just feel there is going to much more that has to be done to it.

I am figuring that between parts and labor it is going about $500 to $600 to repair it. This is one reason I was thinking of getting the latest Mac mini. If fixing my MBP is going to be half the price of a new machine, it would just be better to do that and fix my MBP in the future.

That brings back the dilemma of 16 or 24 of ram.

Then on a side not, I recently hooked up to using a 2gbs fiber internet line and wondered if it would really be worth upgrading to the 10gbs network card.

If you get Apple to replace the battery for $199 (US pricing) you’ll also get a new keyboard which is known to be an ongoing problem on these computers.

 

[russell_314]

Thank you everyone. i think it’s more than just a bloated battery. Right now it is off and has been, but when it does come on the fans don’t come on at all and everything freezes up when it gets too hot. Plus, i figured it was aa bloated battery because the chassis has split up down both sides.

Treat this as it's about to catch fire because when the spicy pillow pops, that's what's going to happen. Get it fixed as soon as possible.

I have found a battery from OWC for around $90 bucks and have been looking for a local at home technician that could install it but I just feel there is going to much more that has to be done to it.

This isn't for do it yourself unless you have experience working on laptops. Just let Apple do it. I had a friend that did the do it yourself route against my advice and he just wasted money. I so wanted to tell him I told you so but I decided to be nice 🤣

I am figuring that between parts and labor it is going about $500 to $600 to repair it. This is one reason I was thinking of getting the latest Mac mini. If fixing my MBP is going to be half the price of a new machine, it would just be better to do that and fix my MBP in the future.

Don't guess... Ask Apple how much to replace the battery and if they find anything else they would give you an estimate. Of course this is a good time to upgrade so I won't talk you out of that. The new Apple Silicon Macs are awesome! Just make sure you're not dependent on some old unsupported app that requires Intel or an older version of macOS.

That brings back the dilemma of 16 or 24 of ram.

What's your memory pressure now? If it's green then go with 16. Don't pay attention to how much you use because the OS will use whatever you throw at it. That confuses a lot of people into paying extra for unnecessary upgrades. You have to look at memory pressure.

 

[CraigJDuffy]

I was wanting to see if I could get some opinions from some of you long-term Mac users. I currently have a 2018 MacBook Pro with 16 of RAM but I believe it has a bloated battery and it overheats far too quickly because the fans won’t kick in. I was wanting to see if I could get opinions on if it would be a better use of my money to try and have those items fixed or try to save up a little bit more money and hurry and get the new Mac mini with 24 of RAM.

You can manually adjust the fans to make them kick in sooner with software like MacsFan Control

 

[Fishrrman]

First step -- take the MBP to a brick-n-mortar Apple Store RIGHT AWAY and let them look at it.
If the battery is so swollen that it's distorting the case, they might replace it for free.

If they won't offer a free replacement, be prepared to pay $249 for a new battery. It used to be $199, so it's not as good a deal as before, but might still be worth the price to you (if you intend to keep it as a "second Mac").

Next -- I'd suggest an m2pro Mini, rather than just the m2. For the extra $$$, you get FOUR ports on the back (instead of only two), 16gb of RAM standard, AND, I suggest you get a 1tb SSD (because that DOUBLES the SSD speed over the 512gb version).

I wouldn't bother with the 10gb ethernet, 1tb is plenty fast for the next few years to come.
If you can specifically state WHY you "need" 10gb, then perhaps you need it.
But if you can't so state, you probably don't.

 

[Cham2000]

You can manually adjust the fans to make them kick in sooner with software like MacsFan Control

Is this a good thing to do? Normally, Apple have adjusted the fan operation according to the temperature/heat produced by the processor. Manually changing the fan operation may eventually led to other problems. We need to be careful with this.

 

[CraigJDuffy]

Is this a good thing to do? Normally, Apple have adjusted the fan operation according to the temperature/heat produced by the processor. Manually changing the fan operation may eventually led to other problems. We need to be careful with this.

It’s fine to do as long as you make it more aggressive than Apple - I wouldn’t recommend making your CPU run hotter but running cooler is never a bad thing.

Apple quite happily let their machines (particularly OPs machine) overheat so imo manually adjusting it is probably better for the machine than sticking with the default.

 

[Cham2000]

It’s fine to do as long as you make it more aggressive than Apple - I wouldn’t recommend making your CPU run hotter but running cooler is never a bad thing.

Apple quite happily let their machines (particularly OPs machine) overheat so imo manually adjusting it is probably better for the machine than sticking with the default.

I wonder why Apple is letting their SoC getting hot, with fan running at low speed. Just to reduce the fan noise? This is hard to believe.

 

[CraigJDuffy]

I wonder why Apple is letting their SoC getting hot, with fan running at low speed. Just to reduce the fan noise? This is hard to believe.

The 2016 onwards intel MacBooks are the worst affected. Rumour is intel promised a 25 W (or whatever) chip and Apple designed a cooling system to deal with this. Turns out the intel chip was actually 35W so now the cooling system was inadequate.

Yes. Historically, Apple have been happy to let your Mac run hotter rather than increase fan noise. Fan noise is irritating and results in a bad user experience and the CPU is fine running away at a higher temp. This said, if you don’t mind the fan noise you’ll get better performance and potentially even longevity by running the fans more aggressively and keeping the chip cooler.

Why MacBooks Get So Hot and What Apple Did to 'Fix' the Thermal Issue of Popular Laptops

Apple’s engineering team had to build the smallest possible thermal system to fit inside the thin Macbooks.

www.news18.com

 

[foo2]

The 2016 onwards intel MacBooks are the worst affected. Rumour is intel promised a 25 W (or whatever) chip and Apple designed a cooling system to deal with this. Turns out the intel chip was actually 35W so now the cooling system was inadequate.

Yes. Historically, Apple have been happy to let your Mac run hotter rather than increase fan noise. Fan noise is irritating and results in a bad user experience and the CPU is fine running away at a higher temp. This said, if you don’t mind the fan noise you’ll get better performance and potentially even longevity by running the fans more aggressively and keeping the chip cooler.

Why MacBooks Get So Hot and What Apple Did to 'Fix' the Thermal Issue of Popular Laptops

Apple’s engineering team had to build the smallest possible thermal system to fit inside the thin Macbooks.

www.news18.com

It’s … a “news” article that quotes a YouTube brand, with no Apple, engineering, R&D, or other authoritative sources. This guy watched a video then wrote an article on the YouTube video. The main dislike I have of that is the YouTube video isn’t authoritative either.

The final 2 paragraphs state:
Overheating became such a big problem that 16 inch MacBook Pro released in 2019 would frequently throttle its Intel i9 processor to speeds lower than the previous i7 processor. Users also complained about its loud fan noise.

To remove this issue, Apple released their own processor called the M1. The M1 processor is much more efficient and does not run nearly as hot as Intel.

This is poor writing (or, perhaps, editing). In no world did Apple see a problem with a 2019 product and then, a year later, develop and release a fully fleshed out M1 processor. M1 development was likely always a thought of Apple’s leadership (using the phone SOC in a Mac) and become a higher priority during Intel’s 7th-gen CPU Apple bug fiascos (Skylake), which anyone can google and clearly see Engineering-level commentary around.

While I’m aware one can say that Apple had throttling issues before the 2019 (and thus the article isn’t literally saying the 2019’s throttling, only, lead to the M1) that’s the conclusion most would draw. It’s both inaccurate (we have many Apple and Intel engineers saying exactly what the problems were…) and unclear. And the “writer” is literally just quoting a YouTube video.

For those curious, here’s an Intel engineer stating Apple’s issues with Intel in the Skylake era: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ex-intel-engineer-apple-turned-away-from-intel-over-skylake-cpu-bugs/. Yes, I am aware one source is the YouTube video. From the Intel engineer…

 

[CraigJDuffy]

It’s … a “news” article that quotes a YouTube brand, with no Apple, engineering, R&D, or other authoritative sources. This guy watched a video then wrote an article on the YouTube video. The main dislike I have of that is the YouTube video isn’t authoritative either.

The final 2 paragraphs state:
Overheating became such a big problem that 16 inch MacBook Pro released in 2019 would frequently throttle its Intel i9 processor to speeds lower than the previous i7 processor. Users also complained about its loud fan noise.

To remove this issue, Apple released their own processor called the M1. The M1 processor is much more efficient and does not run nearly as hot as Intel.

This is poor writing (or, perhaps, editing). In no world did Apple see a problem with a 2019 product and then, a year later, develop and release a fully fleshed out M1 processor. M1 development was likely always a thought of Apple’s leadership (using the phone SOC in a Mac) and become a higher priority during Intel’s 7th-gen CPU Apple bug fiascos (Skylake), which anyone can google and clearly see Engineering-level commentary around.

While I’m aware one can say that Apple had throttling issues before the 2019 (and thus the article isn’t literally saying the 2019’s throttling, only, lead to the M1) that’s the conclusion most would draw. It’s both inaccurate (we have many Apple and Intel engineers saying exactly what the problems were…) and unclear. And the “writer” is literally just quoting a YouTube video.

For those curious, here’s an Intel engineer stating Apple’s issues with Intel in the Skylake era: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ex-intel-engineer-apple-turned-away-from-intel-over-skylake-cpu-bugs/. Yes, I am aware one source is the YouTube video. From the Intel engineer…

I wasn’t really looking to write an academic paper on it with proper sources - just anecdotally supporting the very well known fact the 2016 onwards intel MacBooks had serious thermal issues due to poor design. M1, of course, completely solved this.

 

[smoking monkey]

I wonder why Apple is letting their SoC getting hot, with fan running at low speed. Just to reduce the fan noise? This is hard to believe.

Mmm... Maybe so you need to buy a computer more often. This is both a good and bad thing. The cynic in me says so you shell out more clams more often and it's worse for the environment, but the other part of me thinks that it's not such a bad thing as it keeps macs up-to-date and feature rich and makes it easier for Apple.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I was wanting to see if I could get some opinions from some of you long-term Mac users. I currently have a 2018 MacBook Pro with 16 of RAM but I believe it has a bloated battery and it overheats far too quickly because the fans won’t kick in. I was wanting to see if I could get opinions on if it would be a better use of my money to try and have those items fixed or try to save up a little bit more money and hurry and get the new Mac mini with 24 of RAM.

I'm unsure of your portability needs as a MacBook Pro is not a Mac mini and vice versa. But assuming that this 2018 MacBook Pro doesn't have functioning portability and you are otherwise moving to a stationary setup, then I'd definitely cut your losses and go with a new Mac mini.

In general, my advice for anyone looking to stick with the Mac platform is that if you are on an Intel Mac and that Intel Mac ISN'T a (a) MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), (b) iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020), (c) iMac Pro (2017), or (d) Mac Pro (2019), it's time to consider upgrading. I'm iffy on including iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019) and iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019); they're plenty powerful, but I feel like Apple is going to cut support for the remaining non-T2 Intel Macs relatively imminently. Both of the 2020 Intel 13-inch MacBook Pros are also a weird gray area; if your needs are basic and it's working fine, no reason to HAVE TO upgrade; but it should at least be considered because performance was never that great to begin with and doing a resell-and-upgrade might be able to be done without spending all that much.