How downgrading to 10.6 SL removed "overheating"

[joselms]

This is my second 2011 13" MBP in a week. I returned the first one, a 2.7/i7 running on Lion, to Apple for serious fan throttling issue due to heat I have never experienced in my old 13" UMPB 2.4 c2d. I was registering 5800 RPMs and 80*C for a simple YouTube video or Time Machine backup with nothing else open.

This second unit, a 2.3/i5 I bought, has same issue with the first machine. Fan revs up to 5000-5800 RPM at 70s to 80s Celsius temp for simple non-gaming, non-video/photo editing apps.

I bought a Snow Leopard CD to try to erase the hard drive by pressing "C" to force it to boot from the CD and install 10.6 but apparently pressing C with Lion on a partition is not going to work anymore. Pressing Alt/Option key to bring up Disk Utility and erase the drive will also not work as the disk "cannot be unmounted."

I tried Alt/Option and restore from a Time Machine backup. Luckily I have plenty of dates to choose from both 10.6 and 10.7.

Voila! After successfully installing Snow Leopard, I ran the same video streaming sites on multiple tabs while time machine backup is running in the background, mail is also running in the background, and browsing shopping sites and I didn't encounter the "over heating" anymore, just like my trusty 2010 2.4 c2D.

An Apple customer rep I spoke to gave me a lengthy lecture about how Snow Leopard will not run on this machine and is not intended to. The guy was a complete idiot--didn't know what he was talking about. Early 2011 MBPs shipped with Snow Leopard with Lion as free upgrade.

 

[marc11]

You computer wasn't over heating to begin with.

 

[joselms]

Yes i am aware. For the lack of word i mentioned "overheating" or RPMs and celsius to put it into context. 5800 RPM and 80+ Celsius, that is not overheating but certainly alarming considering I did not experience that on my earlier 2010 13 UMBP. In all honesty and without exageration, I had to step back and force the mac to close because the fan was spinning out of control it sounded like its about to explode.

 

[Hellhammer]

Same case with my MBA. The fan was constantly spinning even with basic tasks like non-Flash browsing. Downgraded to SL and no more heating and my battery life is literally double now.

 

[marc11]

Yeah there is something in Lion that seems to make them run warmer, damned if I know what it is though. But for me, it isn't enough to go through the effort of going back to SL, I like Lion enough, despite its warts to see it through, hopefully it improves with the next update.

But for me, so long as I stay away from Flash heavy video my fans stay below 3000 rpm and my temps below 70c.

 

[TheJing]

I'm watching YouTube videos right now and my fans are at 2000rpm and my CPU is at 48C. Maybe there is something wrong with your machine.

I have the Macbook Pro 13" '11 i5 running Lion.

 

[Nychot]

When i got my new 13 macbook pro the other day i went to.the apple store and had the genius.downgrade my lion to snow leopard with no problem. In fact he said he did it to his own mbp for the same reason i did. My ms office 2004 wont run under lion. And i wasnt about to spend $150 for office 11. Apple is trying to push lion and they tell you its not backward compatible which is a total lie. Like you said the 2011 mbp CAME with snow leopard before lion was introduced. I now have snow l on all my macs and total compatibility.

This is my second 2011 13" MBP in a week. I returned the first one, a 2.7/i7 running on Lion, to Apple for serious fan throttling issue due to heat I have never experienced in my old 13" UMPB 2.4 c2d. I was registering 5800 RPMs and 80*C for a simple YouTube video or Time Machine backup with nothing else open.

This second unit, a 2.3/i5 I bought, has same issue with the first machine. Fan revs up to 5000-5800 RPM at 70s to 80s Celsius temp for simple non-gaming, non-video/photo editing apps.

I bought a Snow Leopard CD to try to erase the hard drive by pressing "C" to force it to boot from the CD and install 10.6 but apparently pressing C with Lion on a partition is not going to work anymore. Pressing Alt/Option key to bring up Disk Utility and erase the drive will also not work as the disk "cannot be unmounted."

I tried Alt/Option and restore from a Time Machine backup. Luckily I have plenty of dates to choose from both 10.6 and 10.7.

Voila! After successfully installing Snow Leopard, I ran the same video streaming sites on multiple tabs while time machine backup is running in the background, mail is also running in the background, and browsing shopping sites and I didn't encounter the "over heating" anymore, just like my trusty 2010 2.4 c2D.

An Apple customer rep I spoke to gave me a lengthy lecture about how Snow Leopard will not run on this machine and is not intended to. The guy was a complete idiot--didn't know what he was talking about. Early 2011 MBPs shipped with Snow Leopard with Lion as free upgrade.

 

[Hellhammer]

Yeah there is something in Lion that seems to make them run warmer, damned if I know what it is though. But for me, it isn't enough to go through the effort of going back to SL, I like Lion enough, despite its warts to see it through, hopefully it improves with the next update.

But for me, so long as I stay away from Flash heavy video my fans stay below 3000 rpm and my temps below 70c.

Lion seems to be more CPU and GPU intensive, hence the extra heat and less battery life. My CPU usage was constantly higher under Lion (was at around 10-12%) and in SL it usually hovers at 5%.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

Seriously, I'd blame Flash more than OSX Lion if I were you. Flash made my Macbook fan revv big-time under snow kitty too when I ran that OS, and there's no change under Lion with Flash, or any other apps either for me.

Flash for Mac is just crap, it's that simple. (And I don't say that as some kind of Applehead fanatic worshipping Steve Jobs either because I'm not; my main rig's a PC... )

 

[GermanyChris]

Seriously, I'd blame Flash more than OSX Lion if I were you. Flash made my Macbook fan revv big-time under snow kitty too when I ran that OS, and there's no change under Lion with Flash, or any other apps either for me.

Flash for Mac is just crap, it's that simple. (And I don't say that as some kind of Applehead fanatic worshipping Steve Jobs either because I'm not; my main rig's a PC... )

The OP's not the only one..I've downgraded also..

It's not Flash, Mine ran hotter and got about 1/3 less battery life under Lion I've got an image of lion that I'll reinstall if i hear good things about 10.7.2 but until I hear something positive I'm sticking with SL.

 

[joselms]

Seriously, I'd blame Flash more than OSX Lion if I were you. Flash made my Macbook fan revv big-time under snow kitty too when I ran that OS, and there's no change under Lion with Flash, or any other apps either for me.

Flash for Mac is just crap, it's that simple. (And I don't say that as some kind of Applehead fanatic worshipping Steve Jobs either because I'm not; my main rig's a PC... )

This site was suggested by the other community at apple.com:

http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/aquarium/aquarium.html

On my previous machine, the 13" 2.7/i7 running Lion:
RPM hovered around 5800s, CPU temp was 80+ Celsius
(about 20-30 seconds to reach this RPM)

On my current machine, the 13" 2.3/i5 running Lion:
RPM hovered around 5600-5800s, CPU temp was 80+ Celsius
(identical to the 2.7/i7)

On the same machine, 13" 2.3/i5 downgraded to Snow Leopard:
RPM ranged from 3300-3600s, CPU temp was 78-80+ Celsius
(It was initially stable at 2000 RPM for more than a minute,. I was going to close the browser because it stuck at 2000 RPM but thought of giving it time to heat up, and it took a while for the RPM to rev up to 3600 and eventually settling at around 3300 RPM 78 C. The other two on Lion took no time to "start the take off roll" and rev up all the way to 5800 RPM.)

All three tests ran on same version of Firefox 7.0.1 on similar condition, no other apps running, fresh from startup.

How do you explain that?