Late 2008 Macbook Pro 15" High Idle temps

[NzAnE2K]

I've had my Macbook pro for a while now and there has been one thing that kept bothering me. Whenever I use something cpu/graphic intensive, the temp shoots up and stays up. Normally I would idle at around 36C, but after I use youtube or play any game, the temps would stay at around 55C even after exiting all the programs and is at 99% idle. It's fine when I'm plugged in, but when I'm using my battery, I only get about 2.5 hours with the brightness on very low and wifi/bt off. Checking the stats on iStat, the battery is using 19Watts at idle.

I've tried restarting / cold boot but it it still stays high. The only way to get the temps back low is to reset the PRAM. But once I use any application besides TextEdit, the temps just shoot back up and stay that way. It gets annoying to reset my PRAM each time I want to use my battery for an extended amount of time. I took it to the Apple store and all they did was give me a replacement battery which didn't fix anything.

I've tried 10.5 and 10.6 and happens on both. I really have no idea what is going on.

 

[McGiord]

My 15" MBP late 2008 2.8 Ghz, also has terrible battery life. 2.5 hours web browsing without intensive videos with the high battery life video. And less than 1 hour with the high performance video.
About the temperatures, now I am using handbrake to convert a DVD for my iPhone and it is below 80C, will check tomorrow how it stays at idle and post.
What a terrible battery life... What was supposed to be the spec?

 

[McGiord]

1 hour after converting the DVD it is at 66 celsius at idle.