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For PC to Mac switchers...

R

Ryuukumori

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 18, 2008
467
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How long did you go for between purchasing a PC notebook and a MacBook Pro (or any Mac, for that matter)? I bought an HP notebook last May for my college studies (mainly for programming/MATLAB stuff), and lots of other stuff like music and the occasional games that aren't graphic intensive. It's been nice because I'm testing it to the elements (late nights at the library and taking it out a lot). It's kept it good shape overall, except it loves to overheat despite a 9 cell battery keeping it elevated. This overheating gets so annoying that when I go to play League of Legends with some friends, it powers off completely. When I go to turn the computer back on, it will shut off when I resume the game (usually in a matter of 1-2 minutes).

This only happens when I'm gaming. Should I consider buying a Mac if they are better at regulating heat? It's only been a year for this notebook, so should I upgrade in another year or wait until my undergrad studies are finished? I have a job this summer but I'd like to save my money for now for things like study abroad. Any experiences you might like to share going from a PC notebook to a Mac?
 
mrsir2009 said:
I'm proud to say I've never owned a PC. And that I've never owned a copy of Windows. And that I've never owned a copy of Microsoft Office.
Click to expand...

Smugness makes one proud? Oh dear.

To the OP: No laptop that is performing properly should be overheating. I would suggest cleaning out the vents on the laptop before you do anything else. It could also be a heatsink or temperature sensor problem. Macbooks are not known for their cooling, in fact they tend to get quite hot, but I haven't seen many complaints of shutdown due to extreme temperatures.
 
mrsir2009 said:
I'm proud to say I've never owned a PC. And that I've never owned a copy of Windows. And that I've never owned a copy of Microsoft Office.
Click to expand...

LOL.

anyways, i was on a dell pc from 2001 up until a month ago. so its been about 8 yrs on pc. i switched to the mbp in my sig because of 3 things.

1)macs are drop dead gorgeous/fancy/appealing.
2)macs have proven they are extremely well built, hardware/software wise (mac os x is amazing).
3)i wanted a laptop that is overall amazing for casual use, as well as gaming.

overall i see why NOT go witha mbp. these things are beasts of machines.
 
I owned a pc until 2006 when I bought a macbook. I only got it bc it was the cool thing to do in college... Took me ages to figure out how to do things since I didn't know anyone who used a mac.

Now that I'm familiar I couldn't imagine life without it. Every so often I get a reminder of why I love OS X.

I was at my parents house and Mom was having trouble printing from her dell laptop hooked up to a docking station. I fiddled with it for a bit but couldn't figure it out in a couple minutes so I asked her to email me her spread sheet. I just unplugged her printer, plugged it in, and printed. OS X installed the drivers since it is just a generic HP printer.

I just chuckled a bit and asked myself, "why can't everything be this simple?"
 
16 years on windows. Just switched to Mac 6 weeks ago. It was just a trial but I'm not (yet) looking back however Mac's aren't without flaws too...
 
Especially since I transitioned from a pretty crappy Windows PC, my Mac has been nothing short of awesome. See the above post by Billydelp4 for why ;).
 
I've used windows from god knows when... first in cyber cafes then at home... It was 2001 when I got my first desktop and last desktop. After that I changed a few laptops... about 15 months ago I successfully installed hackintosh on my latest laptop PC... and ever since loved Mac OSX :D. Waited for about 3 months to go to the USA to buy my MBP... because here are veeeerryy expensive.
 
I had 3 Windows desktops all in 3 years. First 2 were HP's and the 3rd and last one was a Compaq. As far as I'm concerned it was 2-1/2 years too long. I never really enjoyed the experience of computing until I dumped those Windows machines and bought my first Mac desktop. Took me about a good month to get used to the small difference. For the last 12 years it's been Mac only for me. Haven't looked back and I don't even use Windows and our entire insurance office is Mac based. :)
 
Been using Windows since 1995, and before that the Commodore :)

In 2008 I actually was in the middle of purchasing a high end PC workstation and I chose the Mac Pro instead, giving it a chance. I needed to run Windows on it so if there was no Intel switch, I would have never gotten into Macs. Pleasantly surprised at it's performance under Windows and OS X, I migrated to Macs. Bought a MacBook Pro and play to only get Macs from now on. Unless I need a PC for some reason.

I still use PC's in conjunction with Macs on the same networks. Both are just tools for us, so whoever says one is better than the other doesn't really know what they're talking about.
 
Seems like a lot of you switched just to try it out. That's partly what I'm going for, but at the same time, I'm not really having any other issues other than overheating. Do the MBPs overheat with similar symptoms like my HP is currently undergoing? I'm really tempted to use this thing as long as I can until it's too annoying to upkeep.
 
Well, no, I used Macs extensively at school and at work. I like the aesthetics of macs and now I think it make sense to move to macs because they pretty much do what PC's can do.
 
Ryuukumori said:
...I bought an HP notebook last May for my college studies (mainly for programming/MATLAB stuff), and lots of other stuff like music and the occasional games that aren't graphic intensive ...This overheating gets so annoying that when I go to play League of Legends with some friends, it powers off completely. When I go to turn the computer back on, it will shut off when I resume the game (usually in a matter of 1-2 minutes).
Click to expand...

I bought an HP Pavillion DV7 1175NR two years ago and ran into similar problems. I actually ended up blowing air into the back and it seemed to have fixed the problem with the shutting down. I did just recently order my macbook pro. I got sick of dealing with all the PC issues due to poor build quality.
 
Been a PC user for years, was not interested at Macs at all at one point, remember my GF talking about getting one and turning my nose up at the idea.

Then I had to use a Alu MacBook at work to get loads of screen shots so I could put them into Adobe Captivate in Windows to make a virtual Leopard for our learning site, that's what turned me.

Was my first experience of using a notebook and not feeling the need to plug a mouse in straight away, and the more I used it the more I got to like OS X. Bought my first MBP in April 09 as a result. Funnily I hear people say they got a Mac after having an iPhone, where as I'm the reverse, I got an iPhone cause I liked my MBP so much.

Glad I managed to rid myself of my ignorance of Apple, would say personal preference wise I prefer OS X, however I do like Windows to and it just depends on what I want to do as to which OS I use. Thankfully with Steam starting to bring out some games my need for Windows is reduced and have taken bootcamp of the MBP. Just have Windows for my desktop now.

Unless there's some major changes I wouldn't buy a Windows notebook, however desktop wise I would stick to building my own as it's cheaper and easier to maintain and there's always the hackintosh route.

To the OP on the overheating matter, you will notice Apple notebooks get very hot at times, mainly due to the aluminium case which acts like a giant heat sink, however never had either of the 2 I've owned switch off due to overheating.
 
OP, it sounds like your PC is just over 1 year old. Is it still under any kind of warrantee that would allow you to have HP open it up and verify whether the thermal paste is applied correctly to dissipate the heat? If not are you (or someone you know) comfortable enough to do the same? There have been threads here on MR about MBP owners running into the same problems and they were all fixed completely by reapplying thermal paste correctly. No guarantees that your HP can be fixed by just doing this step, but it is worth at least trying. If none of the free routes are open, it might be worth taking to an authorized HP service center and finding out how much it would cost for them to do the same.

We use the Mac version of MATLAB where I work and Apple supplies an IDE with the gcc compiler in their Xcode tool which is free with all Macs. Being Unix-based makes re-using modules for interpreted scripting languages like Perl easier as well. As long as your programming isn't in .NET, being on a Mac shouldn't be a problem. Game selection isn't great on the Mac, but Steam seems to single-handedly be bringing more choice to the platform.
 
I'll check out the warranty. In the meantime, how hot do MBP temps get? I want to compare them with my HP.
 
Ryuukumori said:
I'll check out the warranty. In the meantime, how hot do MBP temps get? I want to compare them with my HP.
Click to expand...

125F @2500 rpm smcfancontrol- late 2008 MBP 15" 2.4GHz running Firefox (MR forum spy, twitter, facebook) and iTunes (playing and open). Any YouTube video will sent it to 135-150F @2500rpm
 
spillproof said:
125F @2500 rpm smcfancontrol- late 2008 MBP 15" 2.4GHz running Firefox (MR forum spy, twitter, facebook) and iTunes (playing and open). Any YouTube video will sent it to 135-150F @2500rpm
Click to expand...

That's about 52 degrees C. That's nice, my machine running now with just IM windows, firefox, and iTunes not playing is 56. And converting 150 deg F is roughly 65 deg. C. I swear last time I checked mine went in the 80s and 90s during gameplay. I'm playing my game here in a second and will post back temps.

mrsir2009 said:
My 13" MBP idles at 40-50 C depending on the temp around it. And when I'm playing intense hardware driven games like XPlane it gets up to 80-90 C.
Click to expand...

Perhaps my machine just can't handle temps like yours! Do you see any negative effects like complete shutdowns when temps reach that high? My fans are blasting and I feel a hot stream of air coming from my vents when I game.
 
Ryuukumori said:
That's about 52 degrees C. That's nice, my machine running now with just IM windows, firefox, and iTunes not playing is 56. And converting 150 deg F is roughly 65 deg. C. I swear last time I checked mine went in the 80s and 90s during gameplay. I'm playing my game here in a second and will post back temps.



Perhaps my machine just can't handle temps like yours! Do you see any negative effects like complete shutdowns when temps reach that high? My fans are blasting and I feel a hot stream of air coming from my vents when I game.
Click to expand...

When I'm playing XPlane the fans turn up a bit, but not that much... How hot does your computer get (temp wise)?
 
After more than 15 years of up and downs with MS operating systems, I was one of those "experienced users", until my last windows computer, an HP laptop with Vista got so hot that the mainboard melted, and it was just 3 months old.

So I threw the crappy piece of junk, and decided to never touch a Vista computer, so I made a decision and turned to Apple.

I never looked back again since I bought my first mac, and I'm a really happy man...
 
I use both in my everyday use and I think they both have their moments. I use the mac more for Final Cut, but use the PC for work. Both get real hot in my lap, but if I use them on a table they stay cool/warm.
 
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