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MBA 2011 i7 Overheating Issues - interesting new findings on page 3

Great job!

Can you play a Netflix movie and report on heat levels / fan noise?

It would be much appreciated, as I'm looking to get a 13" i5 MBA for light work and Netflix streaming on the go.
 
Kilgore-Trout said:
Great job!

Can you play a Netflix movie and report on heat levels / fan noise?

It would be much appreciated, as I'm looking to get a 13" i5 MBA for light work and Netflix streaming on the go.
Click to expand...

I am afraid that I can't. Netflix is not available in the UK.
 
theSeb said:
I am afraid that I can't. Netflix is not available in the UK.
Click to expand...

If you want to be able to watch Netflix in the U.K or any other Web use that is dependent on your location, I suggest using a public VPN service that makes it possible to select a VPN in another country. The IP address will indicate that the server is based in the U.S., so Netflix is not blocked.

Around five years ago I reviewed multiple public VPN services and I eventually settled on Witopia.net. It has VPN servers all over the world and a number of encryption options. VPN access is controlled via Viscosity which places a tiny icon in the Finder Menu Bar. VPN is initiated via the icon while a drop-down menu shows all the server options.

Pricing varies depending on the kind of VPN you need and there are bundles that include VPN for iOS and other portable devices like the Android. If all you need is VPN for a Mac the price is around $3.33/month. An OS X/iOS VPN account runs around $5/month. Multi-year subscriptions offer nice discounts; since I have a three-year subscription that I got in a special offer for $99, the prices are estimates based on my somewhat fuzzy memory regarding the various pricing options. All plans allow unlimited data transfers.

Installation is very easy (Viscosity is part of the supplied installation package) and Witopia customer service is excellent. There is a 30-day money-back cancellation period.

While some VPN services slow down the Internet connection, Witopia's often equal and sometimes surpass my Charter 10mbps broadband connection.

VPN encrypts all data transfers so it ensures a safe public WiFi experience and your Web usage cannot be monitored and logged by your ISP. VPN should be considered essential if you spend a lot of time utilizing public WiFi and wired hotspots.
 
Just thought I'd update this. I'm currently using the i5. I tried my best to match TheSeb settings. I played the same exact video and here is what I found. I took this screenshot at the 2 minute mark. I was idle the whole time. Interesting enough was when I started using the web to post this response, it dropped a few more degrees. But when back to idle, it heated up. :confused: Anyways just thought I'd share with you. Maybe the heat is due to Lion and the apps it's using since they haven't been "fully utilized" to Lion OS?
 

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Here is a screen shot running a 1080p youtube video, Safari with 5 tabs, Photoshop editing the elephant wallpaper, a blank Word doc and iTunes playing Iron Man 2. As you can see the temps are 78C and fan is nearly at 5700 rpm. The movie didn't come out the screen shot. But the point here is that the temps on the i5 vs i7 appear to be the same. The lower temps are mainly while at idle. So I'm not sure i7 is subject to more heat. :confused:
 

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Apple Expert said:
Here is a screen shot running a 1080p youtube video, Safari with 5 tabs, Photoshop editing the elephant wallpaper, a blank Word doc and iTunes playing Iron Man 2. As you can see the temps are 78C and fan is nearly at 5700 rpm. The movie didn't come out the screen shot. But the point here is that the temps on the i5 vs i7 appear to be the same. The lower temps are mainly while at idle. So I'm not sure i7 is subject to more heat. :confused:
Click to expand...

I'll put up a similar screenshot of my i7 just for comparison in a few minutes, but what are your idle temps on the i5?
 
Chrome running with 8 tabs, word has a document up, 1080p youtube video, itunes is playing a video, spotify and mail are also running...my i7 is looking good to me!
 
I went for an i5, my corporate machine has an earlier i7 which does a fair impression of a "hair dryer" :) I know it`not "Apple for Apples" :rolleyes: My i5 idles at around 40C and so far has not ramped up the fans. Playback of an iTunes movie will see CPU temp rising to low 50C`s, ambient is around 25C.

Still loading software, so we will see so far very impressed with the new air, runs cool and compared to my "toasty" MacBook Pro 2Ghz 4.1 blazingly fast.

I am running SNC Fan Control as it is just an application, it installs no startup scripts, background processes or daemons. You can choose to start manually or on login, at the end of the day the more system monitors, processes etc the bigger the impact on the battery life. With SNC I can see CPU temp and fan speed which is good enough for me, ans can set default`s for Battery, AC & Charging, which is very useful as it far easier to keep a system cool, than try to cool a hot one down...

The i7 has a place for some, yet for the vast majority the i5 is more than enough. Short of the odd video encode I would never stress the machine.
 
hey guys - long-time user 1st time poster. I bought a 13" i7 a week ago and was concerned about the heating issue, especially after perusing this thread. I would hit low 90'sC, 6500rpm with only low-def youtube and word running (monitored w iStat). It would idle b/w 50-60C. Performance was fine but fans were driving me a bit crazy...

Anyway forced myself to replace it today and went for another i7 after testing it in the apple store w basically every app open. Idles at 40C and runs 1080p vid, word, iTunes, multiple safari tabs at ~70C, fans ~3500rpm. Very relieved! - get it replaced if ur concerned ;)
 
Did they say whether the heat fault with your MBA i7 is a fault they are aware of or is it just one of those defective models that happens in all manufacturing?Did they give you any trouble when you wanted to swap it?
 
I checked with a few store workers and none were aware of it as a widespread issue - guess mine was probably defective :roll eyes:
On the plus side they were very obliging when replacing it - didn't even put the 1st one to test!
 
alexMBA said:
I checked with a few store workers and none were aware of it as a widespread issue - guess mine was probably defective :roll eyes:
On the plus side they were very obliging when replacing it - didn't even put the 1st one to test!
Click to expand...



That's good to hear nothing worse than at a fight when trying to get something replaces that broken especially if they don't want to admit a wider issue
 
Allright i've gotten my 13" i7 air aswell now, have been doing some testing and so on, only found one strange thing (that isn't related to windows/osx gui differences).

I've been trying out xbmc as a mediaplayer and found a perculiar thing. When playing a sample of a 1080p movie (transformers) on an external screen using a hdmi adapter the fans are perfectly stable, however, when leaving the player on but no movie playing (or simply starting the program and not selecting a movie) the temperatures skyrockets and within one minute i hit 90 degrees celsius, while fans do spin up I decided to kill xbmc when i hit 93 degrees, doubt it is an "air" issue, but I was wondering if anyone else have noticed this (or would care to try to reproduce it).

To clarify, xbmc is run on the external screen in fullscreen mode if that makes a difference.
 
I've got an i5 and i7 11-inch and in many cases the i7 runs a degree or two C cooler than the i5 for the most part. For the most intensive tasks I do (exporting and converting music files) the i7 can get slightly higher from a temps perspective but they drop a lot quicker than the i5.
 
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