Macbook Pro 15inch lasting 8 years?

[yjchua95]

Ok I will be happy to slap a trout at your official Apple face. I guess you're with them since you can't keep arguing against bad design decisions .. 10c lower wouldn't really be that hard if it wasn't for some hipster case designer that want to flash slim sd-card slot like cooling at the coffee shop using only Safari and iTunes - accepting that he can't use anything Apple hasn't explicitly made to gear it towards their ridicolous cooling. Not sustainable in any way.

Just like 97c for quick look is not acceptable. I reported the problem I'm glad they finally found out now that they rush software and models so much they even added new colors so theres something for you, me and the little girl!

Did Google or Microsoft pay you to post here?

Quick Look is designed to be just viewing one thing at a time, nothing else.

If you think it's for hipsters, think again.

I work at VMware as a software engineer and as a project leader. Everyone in my entire department (vCloud) uses only iMacs and MacBooks (retina Pros and Airs).

It's not just for Safari and iTunes, it's for running 3 VMs at the same time, heavy software development and for some of us media production buffs, heavy audio production (hell, even Hardwell uses one) and also 4K cinematography (that's my freelance job as a cinematographer). Vincent Laforet himself also uses a Mac for cinematography.

On a side note: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ecs-than-mbp2015.1895566/page-3#post-21548692

 

[dza]

Did Google or Microsoft pay you to post here?

Quick Look is designed to be just viewing one thing at a time, nothing else.

If you think it's for hipsters, think again.

I work at VMware as a software engineer and as a project leader. Everyone in my entire department (vCloud) uses only iMacs and MacBooks (retina Pros and Airs).

It's not just for Safari and iTunes, it's for running 3 VMs at the same time, heavy software development and for some of us media production buffs, heavy audio production (hell, even Hardwell uses one) and also 4K cinematography (that's my freelance job as a cinematographer). Vincent Laforet himself also uses a Mac for cinematography.

On a side note: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ecs-than-mbp2015.1895566/page-3#post-21548692

No. I don't care about Google or Microsoft- and it amazes me that you @ VMware use Macs now that VMware is such a Microsoft supporting company. But maybe you could use a little inspiration for design and usability because that is where VMware really looks like the 90s LOL! It is put together totally randomly and all continuity in design and overall experience of logging into my.vmware, using the forums etc. Really screams 1999.

I could not run a VM with a full blown system like Windows trimmed down to classic best performance design etc. without again the retina overheating - you wanna share with us what VMs that was?

 

[yjchua95]

No. I don't care about Google or Microsoft- and it amazes me that you @ VMware use Macs now that VMware is such a Microsoft supporting company. But maybe you could use a little inspiration for design and usability because that is where VMware really looks like the 90s LOL! It is put together totally randomly and all continuity in design and overall experience of logging into my.vmware, using the forums etc. Really screams 1999.

I could not run a VM with a full blown system like Windows trimmed down to classic best performance design etc. without again the retina overheating - you wanna share with us what VMs that was?

Then you haven't seen vCloud or Horizon.

Two Linux-based VMs (a Fedora distro and a Debian distro, each with 2 virtual cores assigned and 2GB of RAM), plus a Windows 8.1 VM (4 virtual cores and 4GB of RAM assigned), and they all run without a hiccup on a 15" rMBP with 16GB of RAM. And no, it doesn't heat up. All it does is get to about 85ºC and stay there. If the VMs are idling, temps are around 75ºC.

 

[dza]

I have been able to run any FreeBSD or Linux distribution without problems- but Windows 7 heated up if I used a heavy task in there- just like the macbook pro- no gaming- prolly compiling.

 

[yjchua95]

I have been able to run any FreeBSD or Linux distribution without problems- but Windows 7 heated up if I used a heavy task in there- just like the macbook pro- no gaming- prolly compiling.

Windows 7 is heavy on graphical effects. 8.1 runs way smoother.

 

[dza]

Windows 7 is heavy on graphical effects. 8.1 runs way smoother.

Anyway: If the fans started when the tendency to get warm was obvious - e.g sudden heavy cpu usage and did not wait until it reached 97-100c to start things would be somehow better, but still the inability to keep it below 95c in ~90% spiking cpu usage is worrying.

 

[yjchua95]

Anyway: If the fans started when the tendency to get warm was obvious - e.g sudden heavy cpu usage and did not wait until it reached 97-100c to start things would be somehow better, but still the inability to keep it below 95c in ~90% spiking cpu usage is worrying.

Says who? In spikes, I see that most of the time, the temperatures were well regulated in the 70s. Under sustained operations, then it averages between 85-95ºC, but never beyond that. So I'd argue that it handles it quite well.

 

[dza]

Says who? In spikes, I see that most of the time, the temperatures were well regulated in the 70s. Under sustained operations, then it averages between 85-95ºC, but never beyond that. So I'd argue that it handles it quite well.

Mine stays more or less at 90c and above. Lowest while under pressure is 87c. It gets worse with age- which brings back to point one: Not a keeper. I refuse to pay a repair I've not caused.. Its due to the overall bad cooling and the aging with time. I have mine on a flat surface at company and never in my bag. It hasn't accumulated more dust than any show model. It's ridicolous.

 

[yjchua95]

Mine stays more or less at 90c and above. Lowest while under pressure is 87c. It gets worse with age- which brings back to point one: not a keeper.

As long as it doesn't shut itself down you're safe. Seriously, you've got to stop worrying so much and just trust the sensors to do their job. If it really overheats, the Mac would shut itself down to avoid damage.

Hell, one of my colleagues had a 2012 Mac Mini (2.6GHz quad core) that ran on full processor load for 24/7 straight for days regularly (average temps of 90ºC) and it's still running fine to this day.

 

[dza]

As long as it doesn't shut itself down you're safe. Seriously, you've got to stop worrying so much and just trust the sensors to do their job. If it really overheats, the Mac would shut itself down to avoid damage.

Hell, one of my colleagues had a 2012 Mac Mini (2.6GHz quad core) that ran on full processor load for 24/7 straight for days regularly (average temps of 90ºC) and it's still running fine to this day.

Sure. But it's pure gambling! Stressing them that much can cause irreversible damage and higher temperatures in general- like what will happen in 1-2 years on the avg Retina Macbook Pro like what happened with my old late-2013 and 2.5GHz it was suddenly 10c hotter in general - and no, a pentalope to remove the backplate, and remove dust was not included in the package ... Nor did dust blowing it help anything at all ... It was on its way to get hotter and hotter with time!

 

[yjchua95]

Sure. But it's pure gambling! Stressing them that much can cause irreversible damage and higher temperatures in general- like what will happen in 1-2 years on the avg Retina Macbook Pro like what happened with my old late-2013 and 2.5GHz it was suddenly 10c hotter in general - and no, a pentalope to remove the backplate, and remove dust was not included in the package ... Nor did dust blowing it help anything at all ... It was on its way to get hotter and hotter with time!

It's not gambling - it's just pushing it to the max but staying within its design limits.

I also used a Pentalobe to remove the back panel and the logic board myself (additional tools used) and removed the dust myself, and that brought back temps back to normal on my Macs.

If it gets hotter over time but not due to dust, then either the OS must've gotten more resource intensive, or that it didn't happen.

Even to this day, my late-2013 13" rMBP still runs as cool as it was when I first bought it.

 

[yjchua95]

Mine stays more or less at 90c and above. Lowest while under pressure is 87c. It gets worse with age- which brings back to point one: Not a keeper. I refuse to pay a repair I've not caused.. Its due to the overall bad cooling and the aging with time. I have mine on a flat surface at company and never in my bag. It hasn't accumulated more dust than any show model. It's ridicolous.

On a side note, here's the temp/freq graph of my late-2013 13" rMBP doing a x264 encode.

And throughout the process, it never throttled. Freqs remained well above the base 2.8GHz mark throughout.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Sure. But it's pure gambling! Stressing them that much can cause irreversible damage and higher temperatures in general- like what will happen in 1-2 years on the avg Retina Macbook Pro like what happened with my old late-2013 and 2.5GHz it was suddenly 10c hotter in general - and no, a pentalope to remove the backplate, and remove dust was not included in the package ... Nor did dust blowing it help anything at all ... It was on its way to get hotter and hotter with time!

Either it had an issue with the hardware, a possibility of course, or, and this more likely, a rogue bit of software was running constantly in the background and causing rising temps. No one gives you tools to work on their tech when you buy computers, phones, tablets etc what are you on about?? Please try and get a grip!!!

Having seen your comments on numerous threads you clearly have a problem with apple products thats fine don't buy them then, slagging them off in an apple forum here to help people will not make you any friends.

 

[dza]

Either it had an issue with the hardware, a possibility of course, or, and this more likely, a rogue bit of software was running constantly in the background and causing rising temps. No one gives you tools to work on their tech when you buy computers, phones, tablets etc what are you on about?? Please try and get a grip!!!

Having seen your comments on numerous threads you clearly have a problem with apple products thats fine don't buy them then, slagging them off in an apple forum here to help people will not make you any friends.

No really I don't. Best laptop I've ever owned if cooling was adequate and OS X out of the box the best operating system for me.

I am a minimal user coming from FreeBSD/Debian/ArchLinux trust me the only thing I did besides installing installing a temperature gauge, StarCraft 2, Google Drive, SizeUp, thats about it. Then i disabled the slow animations via 'defaults write' and other apple annoyances.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

No really I don't. Best laptop I've ever owned if cooling was adequate and OS X out of the box the best operating system for me.

I am a minimal user coming from FreeBSD/Debian/ArchLinux trust me the only thing I did besides installing installing a temperature gauge, StarCraft 2, Google Drive, SizeUp, thats about it. Then i disabled the slow animations via 'defaults write' and other apple annoyances.

I have been using macbook pro's for 6 years and while they do get warm, thats what happens with a metal laptop (all metal laptops), the only time they have got really hot is when they are being pegged hard with gaming or video editing (or using chrome with flash, it's bloody useless). That is the trade off you accept for having a thin light and powerful laptop, just try out a razer blade gaming or similar and you'll find exactly the same issues... The cooling is more than adequate it keeps the chips within their design specs when you are hammering the CPU/GPU, granted much of this heat goes into the chassis of the computer but thats the nature of what you bought it uses the case as a heatsink.

 

[Queen6]

Used a MacBook Pro for ten years, be assured they now run a lot cooler than the early days. It is what it is, a trade off for a thin & light chassis with high performance primary components. Even have an Early 2008 15" kicking around and it ran non stop for over five years connected to multiple displays, amazed how it never burnt out the Nvidia 8600GT GPU. I think that`s why we still hang on to it, as have never seen a computer take so much punishment and keep on going.

Spinning forward to Retina, the 15" is a seriously powerful Notebook and also a victim of the same, typically running "hot" and the fans frequently becoming intrusive, equally this is to be expected. I now prefer the 13" Retina MBP, backed up by a 12" Retina MB far cooler and quieter and the 13" is powerful enough for current needs. As for the 15" rMBP I will revisit that one when we see the Skylake update, we can then se what Apple brings to the table.

Q-6

 

[mlts22]

I have a 2008 MacBook, first rev of the aluminum ones, bought the first day Apple had those for sale (like it matters, but it was cool at the time.) The battery was replaced, the HDD has been upgraded to an Intel enterprise SSD, the RAM was upgraded to 8GB, and for basic tasks, it still performs decently. This MacBook stays powered on and running... and has been doing so on a nightstand by my bed, since I purchased it.

As for the life of a computer, the #2 killer of stuff is bad power (#1 would be heat). If you have a circuit with clean power, even for a laptop, your computer will last a lot longer. I learned this the hard way when power failed, my UPS decided to tank... and I lost a desktop and server.

As for virtualization, this is a "why not" question, rather than "why?" I just ordered a 13" MBP, whose main job will be desktop virtualization with VMWare Fusion. With how much malware attacks through Web browsers, doing your stuff in a VM only makes sense, and with a SSD, the performance loss isn't really noticeable on a newer machine. As an added bonus, a new MacBook means you can just install the VM software, move the disk images, and fire them up... no need to worry about what the virtual machines have, hardware-wise.

 

[Queen6]

As for the life of a computer, the #2 killer of stuff is bad power (#1 would be heat). If you have a circuit with clean power, even for a laptop, your computer will last a lot longer. I learned this the hard way when power failed, my UPS decided to tank... and I lost a desktop and server.

I run voltage regulators with surge suppression at home, on the road I always pack a small surge suppressor. With the voltage regulators I can live with 170V - 260V with a steady output of 230V. As we have lived in many "off beat" places the regulators have more than payed for themselves.

Q-6

 

[mlts22]

I run voltage regulators with surge suppression at home, on the road I always pack a small surge suppressor. With the voltage regulators I can live with 170V - 260V with a steady output of 230V. As we have lived in many "off beat" places the regulators have more than payed for themselves.

Q-6

I'm hoping to do similar soon, although not full-time. I am looking at buying a decent small motorhome, or perhaps a serviceable pickup and truck camper.

With a RV, combined with how unpredictable power can be, one of my must haves will be a pure sine inverter, so no matter what, assuming sufficient battery charge, I have clean 120VAC to the computer stuff. Since I am in the US, I basically take the above poster's voltages and divide by two. With a decent charger and inverter, 85-130 volts is doable.

Even at home, I've been considering adding some solar panels with a good MPPT charge controller, a set of AGM batteries, an inverter, and a dedicated 120VAC circuit for computer stuff. This essentially functions as an always-on UPS, but because of the solar aspect, can run low-drain items for a long time, independent of if the electricity is on or off.

 

[bunnspecial]

I'll just throw in a statement as to the fact that I still regularly use an early '08 15" MBP. It's not cutting edge and if I need to do something computationally intensive, I'll grab a new machine. Otherwise, for web browsing/email/word processing and even some moderately stressful tasks like photo editing, it is more than capable. This particular computer is maxed at 6gb RAM and has a 500gb hybrid drive. Mavericks is the main OS I use on it(more correctly, the main OS I use on everything that supports it), but it supports Yosemite and even El Capitan. About the only downside is that battery life is not so great. The battery is removable

I just sold a second early '08 with 3gb of RAM and an SSD. Despite the small amount of RAM, it was very peppy under Mavericks.

I'll also add that this particular model(early '08) has known heat-related GPU issues. I re-applied thermal compound in both computers and use aggressive fan control settings to keep temperatures as low as reasonably possible. Some 15" models do have GPU issues, so it pays to watch for this coming up in whatever generation you end up buying.

Of course, the rMBPs also can't be upgraded like other models, so it's important that if you do really want to squeeze maximum life out of it that you max everything out that you reasonable can.

I'll also throw in a mention that I have several Powerbook G4s and even a few G3s that remain perfectly useable. The G3s and older G4s are primarily fun/hobby computers, but I could use the late '05 15" or 17" as my main computer still. Yes, I'd be cramped compared to what I'm use to in newer models, but it's still very doable. In fact, I did use a 15" late '05 Powerbook for a week back in May as a challenge on the PPC subforum.

 

[fyun89]

I have 2012 rMBP with 2.7 maxed spec and the latest 2017 rMBP with touchbar is only <30% faster than mine. Still working great and I've just recently replaced the battery. So they're working as new.

Just be careful not to chip the metal chassis. It hurts -- i have a very very tiny ding that's been disturbing me badly ((

 

[Poki]

I have 2012 rMBP with 2.7 maxed spec and the latest 2017 rMBP with touchbar is only <30% faster than mine. Still working great and I've just recently replaced the battery. So they're working as new.

You just revived a very old thread, but why not -- yeah, Intel didn't deliver any amazing upgrade the past five years. Unfortunately, they did deliver huge upgrade between 2009 and 2012, so your 2012 machine is already four times faster than my 2009 15" MBP. However, don't forget that the RAM, the GPU and especially the memory are significantly faster in the new machines, which might make a bigger difference than pure CPU speed depending on your use case.

 

[jerwin]

and battery life. seven hours vs ten hours.
fifteen percent better benchmarks, though, to be frank, that probably is boosted by cryptography, and not general purpose instructions.
faster i/o
fastet gpu, though, if you rely on cuda, that may not be an advantage.

 

[Poki]

and battery life. seven hours vs ten hours.

Ten hours? Mine is at 40 minutes now.

 

[bnmcj1]

8 years is long time for a non full touchscreen computer as it seems old school already