need advice re: heat issue

[mayabowen]

Hi everyone,

I have looked through the forum and decided to ask for your opinion. I have a 2010 17' MacBook Pro with 8 gb memory. I use it a lot for writing, and over the last year I've been having problems with heat in the area where my left hand rests. It starts heating up within 2 hours of use, and it's almost never extremely hot, but it is hot enough to irritate my wrist.

I checked Activity monitor, and nothing's running out of the ordinary. Also my battery seems ok.

I wanted to ask if this heat is normal for MacBook Pro, and is there any way to minimise it? I can no longer write on this computer as it is, but I really like this laptop, so it would be a shame to let it go and have to buy a desktop.
Is this heat just a normal limitation of the hardware, or is there a way to get rid of it, via some kind of insulation or some such? My husband suggested a copper sheet underneath the machine, to conduct the heat away, but it seems a bit excessive.

 

[snaky69]

Hi everyone,

I have looked through the forum and decided to ask for your opinion. I have a 2010 17' MacBook Pro with 8 gb memory. I use it a lot for writing, and over the last year I've been having problems with heat in the area where my left hand rests. It starts heating up within 2 hours of use, and it's almost never extremely hot, but it is hot enough to irritate my wrist.

I checked Activity monitor, and nothing's running out of the ordinary. Also my battery seems ok.

I wanted to ask if this heat is normal for MacBook Pro, and is there any way to minimise it? I can no longer write on this computer as it is, but I really like this laptop, so it would be a shame to let it go and have to buy a desktop.
Is this hear just a normal limitation of the hardware, or is there a way to get rid of it, via some kind of insulation or some such?

The aluminum body conducts heat much better than a plastic case, hence why you feel the heat coming off of a MBP more than a comparable plastic laptop.

MBP's have always run on the warm side of things. It shouldn't be heating up in the palmrest area though.

Download the iStat widget and report back with actual temperatures, without that, there's no way to say if yours are normal or not.

 

[maflynn]

It starts heating up within 2 hours of use, and it's almost never extremely hot, but it is hot enough to irritate my wrist.

download iStat Pro (its free) or istat menus (its not free). Both apps will tell you what the temperatures are exactly. The MBPs do get warm to the touch but how hot is too hot can be subjective w/o knowing the temps.

 

[mayabowen]

Thanks for that guys! Ok, this is what iStat says:

and the left side is mildly warm, right where my wrist/bottom of the palm rests, and by the end of the day my hand will be really sore (I write about 5-6 hours each day).

 

[maflynn]

The cpu looks like its 49c which is generally pretty average. It doesn't look like your laptop is getting overly warm, at least by that screen shot.

 

[mayabowen]

@mayflyn: I had a feeling it was just a feature of MacBook Pro and that I needed to change over to a desktop in order to work as much as I need to, but I thought I better check first.

Is there any way to increase insulation or anything at all than can reduce the temp it further?

 

[maflynn]

If its a retina MBP, then no, there are palm covers but apple highly recommends that you don't use them particularly with the retina MBP.

I use a lapdesk to project by legs from the heat when using my rMBP while sitting in the living room. When I'm using it on my desk, I use an external keyboard.

 

[mayabowen]

It's not retina display, but I looked up the palm covers and seems they protect from scratches, but I wasn't sure they'd do anything for the heat.
I suppose external keyboard is an option, although it's a bit space-consuming.

Thanks so much for the advice