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Ultimate 11" i7 runs silent

S

SpiffyChee

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 22, 2005
46
0
I've had my 11" ultimate air now for a few days and apart from realizing that it is the best laptop I've ever owned... I have noticed that the fan has been completely silent for every moment of use. Even when playing games, I couldn't even hear it. (then again I was in my apartment which is not 1000% soundproof)

Regarding heat, it gets "warm" when playing games like starcraft II, but that was to be expected. It never got scary hot or anything though.

I noticed some forum members had a CPU temp monitor in their menu bar. How do I get this in my menu bar? I couldn't figure out which software they were using.

p.s. bootcamp assistant will now make a bootable usb for you (provided that you have a windows 7 iso) This was a nice realization for me.
 
SpiffyChee said:
p.s. bootcamp assistant will now make a bootable usb for you (provided that you have a windows 7 iso) This was a nice realization for me.
Click to expand...

Nice ain't it? And the drivers I downloads make the Windows 7 installation the most painless installation I've ever done.
 
ZBoater said:
Nice ain't it? And the drivers I downloads make the Windows 7 installation the most painless installation I've ever done.
Click to expand...

It was so nice! The only thing I didn't like was the fact that I didn't know this before I tried making a win 7 usb bootloader from within windows then installing rEFIt on lion... But that is my error for not opening bootcamp assistant before I started doing stuff.

Figuring out how to uninstall rEFIt was kinda sketchy and I don't know if I fully got rid of it...
 
Oppressed said:
I'm calling shenanigans! Otherwise your fan is broken!
Click to expand...

lol I'll go sit in a closet tonight to see if I can hear it, but I haven't been able to hear it yet. (and it must be working because my cpu has remained cool and cools quickly after intensive applications)

Bobbyk81 said:
Try Istat Menus (Bjango Software).
http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/
Click to expand...

I can't check this at work right now, but could you enlighten me. Is Istat Menus on the mac app store yet? I have the 100$ student app store gift card and it would be nice if I could use that.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd have to agree with u, this is the best laptop i've owned. Probably cause it replaces my 7 year old one that gets stupid hot and has a battery life of an hour or so.

On the fan, I'm with u on this. I barely notice the fan is on as well whether it's watching videos or surfing the net with multiple windows/tabs open.
 
Actually after thinking about it I should have asked this first. Which games do you play? For example NOVA 2 runs completely silent and cool as well.
 
Oppressed said:
Actually after thinking about it I should have asked this first. Which games do you play? For example NOVA 2 runs completely silent and cool as well.
Click to expand...

I finished installing bootcamp last night, so tonight I will install a few more games on both windows and lion. I will post my results soon. So far all I have tried was starcraft II on low/medium settings and it ran silent but warm.(not hot)
 
SpiffyChee said:
I've had my 11" ultimate air now for a few days and apart from realizing that it is the best laptop I've ever owned... I have noticed that the fan has been completely silent for every moment of use. Even when playing games, I couldn't even hear it. (then again I was in my apartment which is not 1000% soundproof)

Regarding heat, it gets "warm" when playing games like starcraft II, but that was to be expected. It never got scary hot or anything though.

I noticed some forum members had a CPU temp monitor in their menu bar. How do I get this in my menu bar? I couldn't figure out which software they were using.

p.s. bootcamp assistant will now make a bootable usb for you (provided that you have a windows 7 iso) This was a nice realization for me.
Click to expand...

is this the i7 1.8GHz? if so can you do a geekbench on it?
 
SpiffyChee said:
I finished installing bootcamp last night, so tonight I will install a few more games on both windows and lion. I will post my results soon. So far all I have tried was starcraft II on low/medium settings and it ran silent but warm.(not hot)
Click to expand...

If you could compare OSX FPS or Bootcamp FPS in games that would be great.
 
Unless you're playing Tetris I don't believe this at all, my 11" i5 spins up just from watching HD content on Netflix.

I couldn't fathom trying SC2 on it, although I might just to test.
 
Everyone is soo concerned with noise when the cpu is under stress. Of course there will be fan noise. Just like every other computer, even the i5. :rolleyes:
 
I hope the OP's results are generally true, I'm seriously considering the 2011 11" Ultimate... :D
 
Archlord said:
Use iStat Menus 2.0 instead of 3.0. It's basically the same and it's free.
Click to expand...

Can you exaborate on their differences? I'm knew to this program. I read iStat Menu's 3.18 has support for lion, does iStat menus 2.0 support lion well? can iStat menus 2 control the fan speed?
 
Neil McRae said:
is this the i7 1.8GHz? if so can you do a geekbench on it?
Click to expand...

5777 geekbench in 32bit on my osx partition
(i7 1.8ghz samsung 256gb ssd)

so far I haven't seen my fan go past 2000rpms and my temp stays at about 50 degrees Celsius in normal use
 
SpiffyChee said:
5777 geekbench in 32bit on my osx partition
(i7 1.8ghz samsung 256gb ssd)

so far I haven't seen my fan go past 2000rpms and my temp stays at about 50 degrees Celsius in normal use
Click to expand...

Great GeekBench Score. You would get around 1000 more if you had done the 64bit test, putting the i7 around 1000 points higher than the i5 1.6 in both 32 & 64 bit tests.
 
entatlrg said:
Any other i7 11" owners with similar results?
Click to expand...

I just had Windows 7 64-bit running in Parallels and installed a Windows Update (just some printer drivers, but an update nonetheless) while I had Safari running in OS X with 7 tabs. It hardly broke a sweat and while the fan kicked up to 3500 for a time, it was pretty quiet. It's a far cry from how the Core 2 Duo reacted to having Windows run in the background.
 
Hi, I am about to buy the 11,6" i7. My main concern is the fan noise. I am a student so I'll be using it in the library and lectures. I do not want to have a noisy fan and get the professors/other classmates' attention. I'd like to know if the i7 gets hot while performing simple tasks (running mail, chrome, word, excel...) and thus the fan starts spinning?

When home, I occasionally would like to watch movies on the 11". I believe it supports 1080p which is great, but once again, will it get that hot so that the fan kicks up and then I won't be able to hear the movie?

Thank you.
 
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