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Purchasing MBP -- Concerns

L

lukin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2008
124
0
Hello all, thanks for any feedback.

So I'm waiting for the update to buy my MBP. I've been doing a lot of research on them, OSX, etc as this will be my first venture in to Mac land.

I'm concerned about the heat issue. I do play a few games, and want to be able to play them with decent performance, which is a big reason I'm going MBP. However, I keep reading about heat problems. People are talking about the cpu getting up to 80c (even 90c!), and the gpu skyrocketing as well. My current pc runs an AMD that never goes over 50c... and 60c is the max for it!

Then again, from what I've read it seems Penryn's maybe don't get that hot?

I just don't understand how that could be a safe thing, not just for the computer, but for my house. That's extremely hot! If I'm playing a game and that thing is too hot to hold... I don't know it just doesn't seem right.

Am I overly worried about this or is it a valid concern? I want to be able to leave it on all day and access it remotely but at the same time I don't want to worry about the heat it's producing back home.

Thanks for any input.
 
the hottest mine's ever been is 70C while encoding a 3GB video file at 720p. during gaming (mostly civ 4 and sims 2) it gets into the 60s but never above. it does get hot, but think about it, you get the performance of some mid-level PC's in a case thats 1 inch thick including monitor so.....
 
According to the application I got on windows, while playing COD4 at full resolution and high settings, my CPU reached about 65 , and my GPU hit about 75-77.

I have a small fan blowing on my keyboard now, and without it my CPU hits about 70, and the GPU around 80 (85max)

All temps are in degrees Celsius (is there any other kind? ;))
 
Haven't run games on this yet, but hottest I've seen is around 78C while doing video work and multitasking with a ridiculous amount of programs open.

Doing normal web surfing and multitasking I get around 50C. If I raise the fan speeds they usually go down to around 43C-47C.

So yeah, Macbook Pro's get very hot if you run high end things, but it's understandable and expected if you run high end things on any notebook.

Sorry though, I don't know much about remote access and how well the MBp fares.
 
swordth said:
According to the application I got on windows, while playing COD4 at full resolution and high settings, my CPU reached about 65 , and my GPU hit about 75-77.

I have a small fan blowing on my keyboard now, and without it my CPU hits about 70, and the GPU around 80 (85max)

All temps are in degrees Celsius (is there any other kind? ;))
Click to expand...

Mmmm, yes, actually. The British Empire used to swear by Fahrenheit (boiling point of water 212, freezing point of same 32; not logical, but quite pervasive in the Empire's extensive territories. Their other forms of measurement - for distance, weight, currency - were equally splendidly illogical, something I suspect J K Rowling might have paid some sort of homage to when devising a currency for her wizarding world).

The MBP is a superb machine, and yes, some of them do seem to run hot when fully stretched. I have not had that problem yet (but, then, I'm not really a gamer). Cheers.
 
Mine goes in to the 70's and obviously becomes hot but it's nothing to worry about. The technology can take it these days.
 
I've owned two Apple laptops, a PowerBook G4 and an Intel MacBook Pro. When I and if I purchase a new one, the first thing I will do is look to see what type of Superdrive it has. Pray to god that it doesn't have a Matshita drive, and if it does do not purchase it unless you plan on buying the over priced Apple care. There is a very high probability that your drive will crap out and die after you've owned the computer for a little over a year.

It's happened to me twice, with the PowerBook I wrote it off as bad luck even though I noticed on the Apple forums a lot of people in my shoes. When I bought this new one I didn't even really think about it, and here I am again. Again this time a search of the Apple forums reveals that it's a very common problem.

A shame that you need expect your pro machine to only last a year and plan accordingly if you expect it to last longer, but this is the case with the Superdrive.

I'm convinced that Apple is well aware of the problems with their so called Superdrives, but the rate of failure put next to the amount they have to replace under Apple care probably makes it favorable to them to continue to sell their "pro" machine with a subpar DVD drive.
 
Thanks for the feedback so far.

What about the magsafe port? I've read so much about fires/sparks/malfunctions... is it safe to leave this thing plugged in all day while at work and remotely using it?

Have the magsafe port issues been fixed?
 
lukin said:
Thanks for the feedback so far.

What about the magsafe port? I've read so much about fires/sparks/malfunctions... is it safe to leave this thing plugged in all day while at work and remotely using it?

Have the magsafe port issues been fixed?
Click to expand...

I would like to know this too, I've seen pictures of melted magsafe ports.. makes me wanna increase fire insurance :(

Off topic: Fahrenheit is indeed the most ridiculus unit I've ever heard of. I really feel for the people who live in a country where Fahrenheit is the norm.
 
New ones should be coming out soon anyway, But a Mac is the best computer you will EVER buy. Try it out, you will be amazed that you even considered anything else...

PS- How do you start a thread?
 
The heat issue -- if it is actually a problem -- could be fixed in the next MBP. One rumor said that there was going to be a whole new manufacturing process....Maybe that will have an effect on the heat problem?
 
Shot22 said:
The heat issue -- if it is actually a problem -- could be fixed in the next MBP. One rumor said that there was going to be a whole new manufacturing process....Maybe that will have an effect on the heat problem?
Click to expand...

The new manufacturing process came with Penryn, which for reasons I can't understand doesn't seem to run much cooler than Merom.

The update in the new MBPs will be the Montevina chipset, not a CPU change.
 
lukin said:
Thanks for the feedback so far.

What about the magsafe port? I've read so much about fires/sparks/malfunctions... is it safe to leave this thing plugged in all day while at work and remotely using it?

Have the magsafe port issues been fixed?
Click to expand...

Snowcat001 said:
I would like to know this too, I've seen pictures of melted magsafe ports.. makes me wanna increase fire insurance :(

Off topic: Fahrenheit is indeed the most ridiculus unit I've ever heard of. I really feel for the people who live in a country where Fahrenheit is the norm.
Click to expand...

Anyone have answers for us?

Thanks.
 
lukin said:
Anyone have answers for us?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'm still curious about this. Is it ok to leave the magsafe plugged in all day/night unsupervised?

I can't imagine they would put out a product this nice and expensive and say to only use the magsafe when supervised. What's the deal with this thing these days? I know they said they would replace the 'bad' ones, but is it the technology itself that is a hazzard or bad parts or what?

Thanks.
 
I am concerned about the video board, too. Somehow, Apples and NVideas assurances do not hold much water for me. This has me on the sidelines until something affirmative is done to address this issue.
 
lukin said:
Hello all, thanks for any feedback.

So I'm waiting for the update to buy my MBP. I've been doing a lot of research on them, OSX, etc as this will be my first venture in to Mac land.

I'm concerned about the heat issue. I do play a few games, and want to be able to play them with decent performance, which is a big reason I'm going MBP. However, I keep reading about heat problems. People are talking about the cpu getting up to 80c (even 90c!), and the gpu skyrocketing as well. My current pc runs an AMD that never goes over 50c... and 60c is the max for it!

Then again, from what I've read it seems Penryn's maybe don't get that hot?

I just don't understand how that could be a safe thing, not just for the computer, but for my house. That's extremely hot! If I'm playing a game and that thing is too hot to hold... I don't know it just doesn't seem right.

Am I overly worried about this or is it a valid concern? I want to be able to leave it on all day and access it remotely but at the same time I don't want to worry about the heat it's producing back home.

Thanks for any input.
Click to expand...

Is that AMD a desktop?
 
Not a very scientific measurement but the newest MBPs get to the point of almost (not quite) hot as to be uncomfortable for it to be on your lap.
 
My 5 month old 2.5ghz MBP is quite cool compared to my old 2.16ghz MBP. Normal usage in Mac OS X is around 48-52°c with fans running at 2000rpm. It can go up to 60°c when plugged to my 24" monitor, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, watching a movie, adium, safari, transmission, sometimes photoshop/indesign and other somesuch applications.

On the other hand when I play games like CSS or Crysis in windows xp the fans usually are on constantly and heat is around 70°c. That seems quite normal to me compared to what I'm doing, especially Crysis.

I leave my laptop plugged in 24/7 and I've done so with both my MBP's and I've not experienced a single problem with my Magsafe connector or the powerbrick. I've not seen or heard of any problems related to the Magsafe that I've seen in person, and I'm a IT guy. We've all heard the horror stories on the intertubes about burning Magsafes and fires.
 
Comparing a desktop's CPU temps to a laptop's isn't a very good comparison. A desktop has loads of space for the heat to escape while a laptop doesn't. Anyway I can attest to the fact that the Penryn MBPs do run cooler than the previous models.
 
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