My MBA gets really hot! (around 90 celcius)

[L0s7man]

Flash is the problem. Any flash whatsoever can cause CPU to jump to 100%.

My 2010 MBA 11" is only C2D1.4 which is kinda underpowered, but on the flip side it doesn't get hot even when on 100% CPU usage. Bought 13" MBA i7 recently and it could go to 95 degrees in a blink of an eye and could get so hot that I was unable to touch it (upper left corner of the chasis). Ouch ;-)

I guess one option would be to manually manage CPU speed, i.e. instead of allowing the OS to speed up, just keep it at bare minimum. Not sure if you can do that though (Mac OS does it automatically, but it is pretty quick to scale up to full power). And you could always switch to full power but only when you actually need the performance.

 

[ZBoater]

Im sorry, but if a laptop gets hot enough to burn you, that is a manufacturing defect and it should be returned immediately. There is simply no design that should allow skin to burn using an electronic device. IMHO.

 

[qwerf123]

I get these temps when doing extensive stuff. I wouldn't worry

 

[impulse462]

I ran 4 instances of CPU Test when I first bought my 2011 Air. The CPU, within seconds, jumped to 94C, and hovered at 91-93C for the 30 minutes I ran the stress test. Sandy Bridge CPU's are rated to shutdown at 100C, so while the temps are hot, it shouldn't be a problem.

I'd say in general use, my CPU is reaching temps that are much higher than what I'm used to (although I had a 1.4ghz C2D 11" before, which never got hot). I think the reason for this is because the CPU and GPU are both on the same die. GPU's create a lot of heat which could be skewing our /actual/ cpu tempertuare.

 

[ZBoater]

I ran 4 instances of CPU Test when I first bought my 2011 Air. The CPU, within seconds, jumped to 94C, and hovered at 91-93C for the 30 minutes I ran the stress test. Sandy Bridge CPU's are rated to shutdown at 100C, so while the temps are hot, it shouldn't be a problem.

This.

 

[MRU]

Today's the first time I really had to use my laptop while outside, and I have to say I'm really disappointed by the amount of heat that the Air has. The bottom gets quite warm, and worse, the keys themselves get pretty heated too. I wasn't even doing anything too intensive. Just had Word open, was chatting on iChat, and browsing a little bit on the internet. I wasn't even running iTunes. This is really disappointing. The keys especially near the top (the number rows and the Q and A rows) are really warm.

My temps aren't as high as 90 C, but this is just a little disappointing. Will updates with Lion keep the temps under better control in the future?

Did your little bit on the internet browsing include the use of Flash or other video?

Eitherway.. In those instances you should open Activity Monitor and see what is taxing the CPU . It does not get hot with light work, so something else may have been running rouge and eating up CPU cycles to drive the temperature.

There is always a reason. With the same list of Applications running including iTunes my CPU stays at around 50-55c