Does Parallels heat up your alu macbook a lot?

[likemyorbs]

every time i use parallels my macbook gets really hot, which is understandable considering im running 2 os's at the same time. but im thinking its because i have 2gb ram and its a lot of pressure on the cpu, when i upgrade to 4gb do you guys think it will be better?

 

[silverblack]

I don't think it's Parallel that causes the heat, but the OS that you are running in Parallel. So you need to provide details on what OS (Vista? XP? Linux?) you are running, and what apps you usually launch in this OS. What much RAM is allocated to the OS?

Having more RAM will decrease the need to temporarily write cache to the HDD, but the CPU still need to work more or less the same degree to support all the apps in two OS. My guess is, going to 4GB RAM will speed up the system, but not likely to cool down the system by a lot.

 

[likemyorbs]

I don't think it's Parallel that causes the heat, but the OS that you are running in Parallel. So you need to provide details on what OS (Vista? XP? Linux?) you are running, and what apps you usually launch in this OS. What much RAM is allocated to the OS?

Having more RAM will decrease the need to temporarily write cache to the HDD, but the CPU still need to work more or less the same degree to support all the apps in two OS. My guess is, going to 4GB RAM will speed up the system, but not likely to cool down the system by a lot.

I'm running vista ultimate, a pretty heavy system. and i have about 1gb ram for windows when im in parallels, it heats up my computer without any apps even open within it

 

[silverblack]

I am no Vista expert, but I believe 1GB is really pushing it, so I may be a good idea to get more RAM if you want to keep on using Parallel.

Using bootcamp (running either Vista or OS X, one at a time) is also a solution, all the RAM and resources will be used for just Vista. You may want to give that a try anyway. You will be able to see if it runs any more responsively or cooler by itself. So you can better decide for yourself whether more RAM is needed. You can also delete the partition afterward if you don't like it.

 

[likemyorbs]

ive already used bootcamp and it doesnt heat up as much, works fine. ive already ordered my new ram so we'll see how well it works

 

[hekokimushi]

i use fusion. and i had XP and vista on the VM. when each of them ran together with apps. my glsbk heats up to about 64 Deg C. and i have 4Gb of Ram

 

[Schtumple]

As you are effectively emulating an entire operating system, inside another operating system, yes, heat ups are to be expected, and as vista is pretty resource heavy, it will use a steady amount of processor power, hence the heat up.

 

[mosx]

As you are effectively emulating an entire operating system, inside another operating system, yes, heat ups are to be expected, and as vista is pretty resource heavy, it will use a steady amount of processor power, hence the heat up.

Parallels and Fusion are NOT emulation.

They're virtualization. The guest OSes get full access to the RAM and CPU just like they would natively, and Parallels and Fusion provide the interface for the OS to use things like networking and sound.

Emulation means software is acting like another piece of hardware. For example, the old Virtual PC software would act like an x86 CPU to get Windows to run and it would take the x86 processes from Windows and translate it into PowerPC processes and then back.

Parallels and Fusion do none of that. Windows has full access to the native hardware. They're just sort of a layer that allows the OS to boot and run within the other OS.