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Do you find that you can't rest your hand on the palm rest?

H

htchang1987

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 30, 2007
78
0
Although now my iStat is showing the following:
HD: 42
CPU A: 58
Enclosure Base: 38
Enclosure Base2: 38
Enclosure Base3: 36
GPU: 56
GPU Diode: 60
GPU Heatsink: 50

which might seems A LITTLE BIT higher than normal, but I just find that I can't possibly rest my palm on the palm rest to type on my unibody MBP ANYTIME even though I am not doing anything heavy on it. It's relatively hot although it's not burning hot but sweat will starts to form when my palm is on the palm rest for some moment.

It seems that it's because the battery is right underneath. Is this normal as compared to what you guys are experiencing? Because it will be kind of weird if the large area of palm rest on the unibody can't be used to rest our palm while typing.

Compare to my previous white MB, I never experienced any hotness on the palm rest until this new MBP gives me this kind of feeling, causing me to lift up my hand whenever I want to do any typing on it, which is what I am doing right now writing this.

How about everyone of you who own the unibody MBP?
 
I can, but I don't :p It's not too hot for me. Most of the heat for me comes from the top left of the machine.

At least till I purchase a palm rest guard for the body - I don't want the pitting I had with my G4 Powerbook
 
I find that the left palm rest is relatively hotter than the right palm rest...anyway, is it that I am the only one who feels hot but none of you feel in that way?
 
htchang1987 said:
Really?! o_O
Click to expand...

yep, its a no no to rest ur palms while typing. i remember the teacher putting all of the keyboards to the very edge of the table in keyboarding class in HS. it seems funny but can actually help u type faster-better, and supposedly avoid "injuries"
 
mikes70mustang said:
yep, its a no no to rest ur palms while typing. i remember the teacher putting all of the keyboards to the very edge of the table in keyboarding class in HS. it seems funny but can actually help u type faster-better, and supposedly avoid "injuries"
Click to expand...
Well, I suppose it's so, but the large palm rest on the unibody MBP should serve it's purpose for resting palm right? The thing I wanted to find out is that anyone of you have the same feeling as mine that the palm rest is actually hot and uncomfortable to rest your palm on it especially the left palm rest?
 
mikes70mustang said:
yep, its a no no to rest ur palms while typing. i remember the teacher putting all of the keyboards to the very edge of the table in keyboarding class in HS. it seems funny but can actually help u type faster-better, and supposedly avoid "injuries"
Click to expand...

While I once again agree with you mike :)

To the OP... if you haven't experienced CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) take Mikes advice and learn to type with your hands lifted. I thought it was all BS until about 4 years back had case of it serious enough to change my ways and nearly kept me from using a computer keyboard at all. This is due to several years of bad habits, but it is some serious pain shooting down your arm and wrists when you get it from improper/over stressed wrist positions.

To the heat issues, while not resting on it obviously fixes the issue lol. The heat never seems to be anything beyond warm on the wrist area, now up around the power connector, that can get pretty damn hot after extended heavy use such as running a game or whatever. Aluminum is lightweight, strong and one hell of a heat sink :)
 
sehnsucht77 said:
that is why i got the moshi palmguard. i like the additional texture of the surface too.
Click to expand...
So the palmguard actually resist the heat from reaching your palm? How effective it is? But the palmguard actually block the screen from closing tightly right?
 
So does that means the unibody MBP's palm rest can just be considered as a "not so palm rest" sort of things? It doesn't serve its purpose as a palm rest due to the warm temperature...
 
The only time my UMBP gets anywhere near being hot is if I'm gaming on it, and that isn't very often... even then, I can still touch the computer without feeling any pain.
 
htchang1987 said:
So does that means the unibody MBP's palm rest can just be considered as a "not so palm rest" sort of things? It doesn't serve its purpose as a palm rest due to the warm temperature...
Click to expand...

Putting aside what the area is used for or called. I would suggest this, keep track of when it's so hot you can't put your wrist/hand on it. I used a 15" UMBP for about 3 months prior to upgrading to the 17". I didn't really game on the machine but I used it daily for an 8 to 10 hour work day, at home as well and never recall having the left front area to hot to touch, or anything even uncomfortably warm. If you can show even a couple instances under normal use it's too hot to touch you should probably contact Apple, or take it to an Apple store and demonstrate the issue. It may have some issue that causes your particular UMBP to heat up over a normal one.

The only area I find "hot" is around the ESC key in the upper left corner. The 17" runs so cool even that is rare, if I am watching full screen video it gets warm as my 15" would get what I consider hot to the touch.

The temps your reporting are average operating temps. Anything below 90C is normal and well within operating guidelines.
 
It is not "too hot to touch" at all, I can touch it without ANY pain, is just that you will feel the warmness passing through your palm and I didn't feel any warmness with my previous white MB that's why I am asking here if this is normal or not.
 
htchang1987 said:
It is not "too hot to touch" at all, I can touch it without ANY pain, is just that you will feel the warmness passing through your palm and I didn't feel any warmness with my previous white MB that's why I am asking here if this is normal or not.
Click to expand...

I would say yes it's normal then, my bad, thought I read where you were implying it was hot. I think this is just due to the fact the unibody is basically one large heat sink. Aluminum does a great job of carrying and dissipating heat. Plastic doesn't do so well so whatever internal heat sinks and fans just had to exhaust the heat and now they get the benefit of the entire case helping cool the inner workings.
 
mine is just fine no heat issue whatsoever, even after 4 hours of continuous use.. i think you have a bad machine.
 
Personally, I do not believe you have a problem with your notebook temps. They really do seem to be fine. Maybe you hands are just sweating, possibly the new alum makes it more noticeable. I have no idea, but I have never experienced any issues such as this.
 
I haven't noticed the palm area hot at all. The only area where I feel it gets fairly hot is the bottom left side near the hinge. I don't game, if this makes any difference. I'm generally running simple Photoshop files, iTunes, Microsoft Messenger, Safari, Mail and Transmission. My iStat statistics are:

HD: Macintosh: 35
CPU A: 44
Enclosure Base: 30
Enclosure Base 2: 30
Enclosure Base 3: 28
GPU:29
GPU Heatsink: 37
Mem Controller: 39

Hope this helps.
 
Switch from the performance setting to extended battery (or whatever it's called).

The heat will this go away as you're not using the 9800GT card anymore.


Regards,
Simon
 
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