I'm looking into getting a new powerbook (the current one out) and am wondering about how hot it gets. Specifically, is there a problem leaving this machine always on? My current desktop hasn't be shutdown in more than 30 days, and hasn't had more than 5 minutes downtime in 3 months. Will the powerbook be able to do this kind of thing or does it just get too hot and fry?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
powerbook heat question
- Thread starter joeyjojoe
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I pretty much leave mine on all the time because its my Alarm Clock. However It usually gets an hour or two of sleep per day. However I set mine on a book, with the fan ports hanging off the back... Works great, no problems.
TEG
TEG
The different Powerbooks have different heat issues (the design of the 12 and 17 inch vary quite a bit from the design of the TiBook). That said, all you really need to do is make sure the bottom of the machine is raised up, allowing cooler air to circulate beneath.
I noticed today at the Apple Retail Store they had moved almost 100% of the laptops to stands to allow air to circulate underneath. It cracked me up a bit because I could see the worker bees checking me out checking the temp of the laptops (out of the corner of their little bitty eyes....
)
On another note, I'm glad all the employees have the T-shirts for the G5 on, but where the hell is the machine in the store??? (they even have the window displays up--- back in the day when I worked retail sales, we never put up window displays when the product wasn't even in the stores; it just led to annoyed customers if they couldn't get the excessively advertised product..) My Apple supplier, OTOH, has a G5 and gave me a call to check it out.... (he knew I wasn't buying until I could be a little more hands on with the machines)
)On another note, I'm glad all the employees have the T-shirts for the G5 on, but where the hell is the machine in the store??? (they even have the window displays up--- back in the day when I worked retail sales, we never put up window displays when the product wasn't even in the stores; it just led to annoyed customers if they couldn't get the excessively advertised product..) My Apple supplier, OTOH, has a G5 and gave me a call to check it out.... (he knew I wasn't buying until I could be a little more hands on with the machines)
My 500MHz TiBook can get pretty toasty -- almost uncomfortably so. Hot to the touch underneath. The higher clock-speed models aren't likely to be any cooler.
I use a CoolPad at home. For my 500MHz machine, it pretty much keeps the fan off unless I'm running a Photoshop filter and ripping a CD....
I use a CoolPad at home. For my 500MHz machine, it pretty much keeps the fan off unless I'm running a Photoshop filter and ripping a CD....
okay thanks, well it looks like i'm set to get a powerbook in the near future. thanks for answering my question.
i guess i have one more question. i'm planning on buying a 250 gb firewire drive along with the powerbook. is there a heat issue invovled with downloading files directly to the firewire drive? will the firewire port get really hot or something like that? i basically don't want to fry my powerbook, and i suspected leaving it on all the time or downloading to the hd would cause problems. anyone know?
ok you have to have a little faith in apple here, in that they wouldnt just ship out powerbooks that would overheat so easily.
firstly, theres no way your firewire port is going to "overheat" by moving the small amount of bandwidth that comes through your internet connection, through to your firewire drive over a long period of time. infact moving maximum bandwidth through firewire over a long period of time still wont make anything overheat. if it did, then youd need to send you powerbook in to get fixed.
secondly, special cooling pads and raising your laptop up above your desktop are, in most cases, definitely not necessities, even if your doing cpu intensive stuff or leaving your laptop on for a long period of time. heat will not build up inside the laptop over time; thats what the fans, heatsinks, and heat dissipation design are for.
thirdly, claiming that the higher mhz your powerbook is, the hotter it will get, is a false statement in many respects. you have to take into account that newer revisions have better ways of getting rid of heat. my friend and past roommate has an 800mhz powerbook, and i have a 1ghz (both 15" Ti), and his definitely runs a lot hotter than mine does.
my powerbook sits on a wood surface desk, with no extra cooling peripherals, and ive never had problems with overheating. and i do plenty of cpu intensive tasks, often leaving my computer on for extended periods of time also. so i say go ahead and get the laptop of your choice and dont worry too much about overheating, because apple worries about all the heat issues during design, so we dont have to.
firstly, theres no way your firewire port is going to "overheat" by moving the small amount of bandwidth that comes through your internet connection, through to your firewire drive over a long period of time. infact moving maximum bandwidth through firewire over a long period of time still wont make anything overheat. if it did, then youd need to send you powerbook in to get fixed.
secondly, special cooling pads and raising your laptop up above your desktop are, in most cases, definitely not necessities, even if your doing cpu intensive stuff or leaving your laptop on for a long period of time. heat will not build up inside the laptop over time; thats what the fans, heatsinks, and heat dissipation design are for.
thirdly, claiming that the higher mhz your powerbook is, the hotter it will get, is a false statement in many respects. you have to take into account that newer revisions have better ways of getting rid of heat. my friend and past roommate has an 800mhz powerbook, and i have a 1ghz (both 15" Ti), and his definitely runs a lot hotter than mine does.
my powerbook sits on a wood surface desk, with no extra cooling peripherals, and ive never had problems with overheating. and i do plenty of cpu intensive tasks, often leaving my computer on for extended periods of time also. so i say go ahead and get the laptop of your choice and dont worry too much about overheating, because apple worries about all the heat issues during design, so we dont have to.
You could cook an egg on the left palmrest of the 12" PB. That little sucker is hot! My TiBook gets pretty warm on the bottom under where the processor is located, but not too bad unless it's running at 100% capacity for a while. Like others have said, get a podium pad or something similiar to help get air under the computer. Your fan will run alot less.
okay sounds good folks, thanks for dispelling my doubts. i'm ready and waiting for a powerbook, and maybe one of those 250 gb lacie fw 800 drives.
i wonder how much difference is really felt between fw400 and fw800. i was thinking about getting the western digital fw400 250gb "special edition" drive (it has a goofy light up enclosure), but then went to buy it and it was $450 (much more than the lacie drive). can anyone comment on the reliability of lacie drives?
i wonder how much difference is really felt between fw400 and fw800. i was thinking about getting the western digital fw400 250gb "special edition" drive (it has a goofy light up enclosure), but then went to buy it and it was $450 (much more than the lacie drive). can anyone comment on the reliability of lacie drives?
ive only heard good things about lacie drives, though it may actually be slower than the wester digital, depending on the lacie's cache size and rpms. you will probably see zero difference with fw800 over fw400, to be honest. your internal drive and external drive arent fast enough to utilize that bandwidth