heat: 2008 vs 2009?

[Tim018]

Alright, so my question is if there is any difference in heat between the 2008 and 2009 mbp. The macbook pro i have runs really warm all the time, watching a flash video puts the fans at 6200 rpm even on the 9400m card and runs really hot (too hot for lap). I cannot even run bootcamp because the extreme heat. The fans are so loud at 6200 rpm that its difficult to even hear music over them. Im still on 10.5 due to the fact that 10.6 runs horrid on it and is usually +15c hotter than 10.5 on average. (65-75c idle and basic tasks on 10.6! )

So my question is are the newer macbooks better than this? I have my macbook on a belken stand that lowers heat quite a bit along with smc. Even in photoshop work the fans are blasting away making it hard to hear music which is really annoying since i paid the extra $$ to not have to listen to my old toshiba's fan noise.

When cs5 becomes available I'm planning on purchasing it, however, I have a desktop pc and a macbook, and due to licensing i have to decide to be on one platform or another. However, the way my 08 macbook runs heat wise and noise wise it is not very convincing that i should get one of the i7 macbooks when it comes out to replace my desktop and 08 mbp. so are the newer macbooks cooler and more usable? or are they just as bad as the one i have?

thanks alot for any tips

Tim

 

[Jaro65]

Have you tried opening your MBP up and cleaning the fans? What you're describing sounds pretty extreme. I've read some posts here on MacRumors where people found quite a bit of dust/lint in their fans and since it impeded the airflow, the machines ran warmer and the fans were spinning quite a bit as well. I have to say that for the most part, my MBP's are very quiet.

 

[Tim018]

thanks for the idea...but yes i have taken an air can to the fans after opening it up. the main issue is watching a flash video and running anything other than 10.5. 10.6 and bootcamp (xp/vista/7) all run really hot and fans you can hear down the hall...

 

[plinden]

I have a week 34 2009 MBP that runs pretty cool. I never hear the fans. I'm usually running Safari, Mail, Address Book, FireFox, iCal, a Linux VM and sometimes a Windows 7 VM in Fusion, Apache, two Java webapps (one in Resin, one in Jetty), Eclipse, iTunes, Froq, an Oracle db, MacVim and iPhoto, and the fans are currently at 2000 rpm.

Of course I hardly ever watch Flash videos, being in the YouTube HTML5 beta and having ClickToFlash installed. My fans do come on hard when I Flash is in use. The 10.1 beta is much better than the current stable version but is still pretty bad.

As for the upcoming (we hope) i7s, no one will know about them until they're out. They do have a higher TDP than the current CPUs.

I had a late 2008 MBP for a year at my last job, and it didn't get too hot either, with similar usage. So you may have a bad laptop.

 

[ayeying]

Uh... I don't experience any "hotness" even on this Core Duo system, which is Apple's hottest MacBook Pros ever built.

 

[neteng101]

I have the same model and no issues at all with heat? The 9600 does run warmer but the 9400m is plenty cool. On 10.6. Temps in the 50s - 52-54C... fans at 3200 rpm.

 

[Pax]

It sounds like you might have a problem with your machine. In my (limited) experiences the uMBPs run quite cool, very much cooler than the older non-unibody models.

I would expect to see idle CPU temperatures of 40-50 C. Under full CPU load the CPU will be hot (90+ C) but I'd expect fan speeds of 3000-4000 rpm at which they are audible but not "loud". The enclosure base should be quite warm but never so hot you cannot hold your hand against it, or keep it on your lap in comfort. This is using the 9400m.

If you like you could post your idle & full load temperatures on here and we could take a look. Programs like iStat Pro will report lots of temperatures including the enclosure base.

 

[Jaro65]

I have the same model and no issues at all with heat? The 9600 does run warmer but the 9400m is plenty cool. On 10.6. Temps in the 50s - 52-54C... fans at 3200 rpm.

I actually switched to 9400m on my machine and I've been just using that for the last few months. Frankly, I haven't found any difference while running Windows Vista in VM, LightRoom, Evernote, Things, iCal, Skype, etc., etc.