MBA 2010 13"... Getting a bit warm. FYI.

[ender21]

I've just been sitting here for a while surfing the web. The only two apps I have open are Chrome and iTunes (which is idling), and after a while I started to notice it becoming ever-so-slightly annoyingly warm on my legs.

I whipped out my IR thermometer and sweeped the bottom of the case. From back left to right it peaked at 104F and as I went away from the fan and other heat sources, dipped to as low as 97F by the time I got to far right.

I probably wouldn't game, render in iMovie or iTunes with it on my lap, but am mildly surprised I noticed it as much as I did.

This is far from a dealbreaker, though.

 

[dukebound85]

100F isnt that hot at all imo considering the chip is prob running near 90C under a decent load

 

[ender21]

100F isnt that hot at all imo considering the chip is prob running near 90C under a decent load

Agreed. Compared to my several previous laptops, it's definitely the coolest. I was just surprised I found myself noticing it.

 

[vraxtus]

Weird, mine's been oddly cool. With general use (internet and iTunes) it barely even seems warm in my lap. If yours continues to do that I would have it checked out.

 

[ender21]

Weird, mine's been oddly cool. With general use (internet and iTunes) it barely even seems warm in my lap. If yours continues to do that I would have it checked out.

Go figure, vraxtus. I think you were on to something. I came home from work and booted up from full power down and have been doing exactly the same thing as last night for over 1 hour now. iTunes idling + Chrome browsing, yet so far nada in terms of warmth or fan noise. The "hot spot" of the Air is barely noticeable. Let me get the IR thermometer to read again...

... 92F degrees. WOW. Huge difference from last night.

One change. I disabled Flash in Chrome last night and did a COMMAND+Q on the browser and restarted it. Maybe the MBA required a full reboot to affect this change?

Interesting note: During this time my battery life has been ping-ponging from 8+ hours to over 11. Guess I'll see how long it lasts under this modest a workload!

 

[Macpowered]

I have the 11" and it's not even warm, just lukewarm/tepid at most.

 

[PsyD4Me]

I've just been sitting here for a while surfing the web. The only two apps I have open are Chrome and iTunes (which is idling), and after a while I started to notice it becoming ever-so-slightly annoyingly warm on my legs.

I whipped out my IR thermometer and sweeped the bottom of the case. From back left to right it peaked at 104F and as I went away from the fan and other heat sources, dipped to as low as 97F by the time I got to far right.

I probably wouldn't game, render in iMovie or iTunes with it on my lap, but am mildly surprised I noticed it as much as I did.

This is far from a dealbreaker, though.

dude, did you have the previous MBA? not that ran hot, this boy runs coloer

 

[bcaslis]

Go figure, vraxtus. I think you were on to something. I came home from work and booted up from full power down and have been doing exactly the same thing as last night for over 1 hour now. iTunes idling + Chrome browsing, yet so far nada in terms of warmth or fan noise. The "hot spot" of the Air is barely noticeable. Let me get the IR thermometer to read again...

... 92F degrees. WOW. Huge difference from last night.

One change. I disabled Flash in Chrome last night and did a COMMAND+Q on the browser and restarted it. Maybe the MBA required a full reboot to affect this change?

Interesting note: During this time my battery life has been ping-ponging from 8+ hours to over 11. Guess I'll see how long it lasts under this modest a workload!

Did you just restore from a backup or migrate data to a new MBA? If so, the spotlight indexing will run full blast and that will cause it to heat up. Once the indexing finishes it will back to normal and run cool.

 

[vraxtus]

Go figure, vraxtus. I think you were on to something. I came home from work and booted up from full power down and have been doing exactly the same thing as last night for over 1 hour now. iTunes idling + Chrome browsing, yet so far nada in terms of warmth or fan noise. The "hot spot" of the Air is barely noticeable. Let me get the IR thermometer to read again...

... 92F degrees. WOW. Huge difference from last night.

One change. I disabled Flash in Chrome last night and did a COMMAND+Q on the browser and restarted it. Maybe the MBA required a full reboot to affect this change?

Interesting note: During this time my battery life has been ping-ponging from 8+ hours to over 11. Guess I'll see how long it lasts under this modest a workload!

Could be a loose end process that was eating CPU cycles and causing the heat? But glad it seems to be working better today!

 

[ender21]

dude, did you have the previous MBA? not that ran hot, this boy runs coloer

Oh I'm pleased with its performance. I was just surprised I could feel the heat while doing nothing that was taxing the CPU. I'm with you though. This runs much cooler than any previous notebook I've owned even with last night's apparent anomaly.

Did you just restore from a backup or migrate data to a new MBA?

Nope. I had the CPU meter active and its activity was negligible.

 

[Lone Deranger]

Some webpages draw more on the CPU's than others. Got a bit of Flash content embedded in there and feel the temperatures rise.

 

[netdog]

I found that Software Update heated things right up. Otherwise it has been dead silent. But boy, when these things rev up, it's like a Harrier.

The first thing that I installed was Click To Flash.

 

[WardC]

I found that Software Update heated things right up. Otherwise it has been dead silent. But boy, when these things rev up, it's like a Harrier.

The first thing that I installed was Click To Flash.

Software update runs the fans at full blast on my Mac Pro tower during the last part of the install process. I think this is normal for all macs.