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New 13 inch Macbook Air Fan Noise
- Thread starter jwkitche
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i7 here, Hm.. only with light chrome browsing the fan has been non-stop. Might have to exchange it for an i5.
No spotlight indexing happening, nothing....
This is distressing.
Definitely going back to the store for an i5 now. I let it idle back down for 10 minutes. With nothing else running I started a Time Machine backup (across WiFi)... in less than 2 minutes fan is running at 3800.
edit, fixed img: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9494351/Screen Shot 2011-07-21 at 7.02.25 PM.png
edit, fixed img: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9494351/Screen Shot 2011-07-21 at 7.02.25 PM.png
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I think the bad news isn't the new Air laptops, but Lion itself.
I'm running on a 2.13 4gig RAM 13" 2010 model and the fan never came on. Now that Lion is installed the fan is coming on a lot more often. I'm now running activity monitor to see what is causing it and waiting for it to happen again.
But again, the fan *rarely* came on before upgrading to Lion and now it comes on quite a bit. I think the problem is Lion, not the new sandy bridge Airs.
-jamie
I'm running on a 2.13 4gig RAM 13" 2010 model and the fan never came on. Now that Lion is installed the fan is coming on a lot more often. I'm now running activity monitor to see what is causing it and waiting for it to happen again.
But again, the fan *rarely* came on before upgrading to Lion and now it comes on quite a bit. I think the problem is Lion, not the new sandy bridge Airs.
-jamie
I have an i7 MBP 2011 (yes, I know it's not a MBA) and it runs so hot it burned me once. I think the Sandy Bridge processors do this.
Interesting that the i7 MBAs have the same problem as the 2011 MBPs...
Interesting that the i7 MBAs have the same problem as the 2011 MBPs...
Actually, fan just came on but I've been using the computer constantly for 5.5 hours and this is the first time it's come on.
Picked up a 13" i7 this afternoon, installed VMware Fusion and pulled my corporate XP image into a VM. The fan ran while the virtual machine was getting itself organized but once that was done, it stopped. I'm running Lion, a bunch of apps including MS Word, Firefox and iTunes plus the stuff running in the Windows VM, and the machine is running cool and silent sitting on my legs.
All I can think is that there is something wrong with the ones that people are complaining about.
Battery life has been good too. Ran the VM with Outlook, etc for 2.5 hours and the battery was down to 65%. The performance in the VM was snappy too, with only 1.5GB and a single core allocated to it. I'm thrilled with the i7 so far and almost didn't get it.
Best,
Dave
All I can think is that there is something wrong with the ones that people are complaining about.
Battery life has been good too. Ran the VM with Outlook, etc for 2.5 hours and the battery was down to 65%. The performance in the VM was snappy too, with only 1.5GB and a single core allocated to it. I'm thrilled with the i7 so far and almost didn't get it.
Best,
Dave
i7 here, Hm.. only with light chrome browsing the fan has been non-stop. Might have to exchange it for an i5.
No spotlight indexing happening, nothing....
Same here. But with Safair and Mail running. Hope it stops or it's i5 for me.
Just got my 13" i7 Ultimate today. Haven't done a ton except copying files from my MBP, but so far the fans are not a problem.
Went back to exchange for an i5 128GB base... restored from Time Machine. I'm now backing up time machine via WiFi (same scenario as the i7) and fan speed is at a low 2800rpm. I can barely hear it. A huge difference over the i7.
Someone mentioned it might have been a base thermal paste application on the previous i7 machine. Who knows? Maybe we can get a consensus as more i7 MBA users report in. Regardless, I didn't need the extra 128GB anyway.
Someone mentioned it might have been a base thermal paste application on the previous i7 machine. Who knows? Maybe we can get a consensus as more i7 MBA users report in. Regardless, I didn't need the extra 128GB anyway.
Cool and Quiet
Got the i7 here today too. I've clean-installed Lion, Time Machined and browsed on Chrome (Flash Disabled), and it's been cool and quiet. When I test-drive FCPX I'm sure I'll hear/feel it.
Got the i7 here today too. I've clean-installed Lion, Time Machined and browsed on Chrome (Flash Disabled), and it's been cool and quiet. When I test-drive FCPX I'm sure I'll hear/feel it.
This is one reason I'll be waiting to buy till 10.7.1. There are probably a few glitches that are causing fan spinup which more than likely will be ironed out in the update, but only the update will tell. But it also seems like it might be hardware cuz a good # are saying they don't have problems.
How long can you view 1080p video before the fans become noticable?
I have the 13" i5 and the fans start to ramp up after about 10-15mins of 1080 video
Long time forum lurker here...finally decided to post since I'm going to get myself the new 11" 128GB MBA in a month 
Anyways, There seems to be mixed reviews of the new i5/i7 MBA's fan running like there's no tomorrow, and I am also wondering as well if it is because of Lion and/or just because of indexing. Might also be because of poor thermal paste application, since from what I've read, that has been the case with the older generation of MBA. If this doesn't get resolved with a Lion update before I get my MBA, I'll take the risk of opening up my MBA and reapply some good 'ol Arctic Silver on the CPU (if I experience the problem, of course)
For those who are experiencing the problem now, does anyone want to take the risk of reapplying the thermal paste? It might also help with the battery life as better heat dissipation from the CPU would certainly lower the times for the fan to kick in.
Anyways, There seems to be mixed reviews of the new i5/i7 MBA's fan running like there's no tomorrow, and I am also wondering as well if it is because of Lion and/or just because of indexing. Might also be because of poor thermal paste application, since from what I've read, that has been the case with the older generation of MBA. If this doesn't get resolved with a Lion update before I get my MBA, I'll take the risk of opening up my MBA and reapply some good 'ol Arctic Silver on the CPU (if I experience the problem, of course)For those who are experiencing the problem now, does anyone want to take the risk of reapplying the thermal paste? It might also help with the battery life as better heat dissipation from the CPU would certainly lower the times for the fan to kick in.