Apple’s MacBook (hot) Air problem

yah, there’s some people on here that are morons, and there’s some on here who have no lives. there’s a simple solution that an apple tech gave me at a apple reseller, and he told me to use pop bottle caps to raise the air, and it works. he even showed me one the model they have out, I sat in the store watching youtube, and doing what I normally do, IT NEVER SLOWED DOWN

I own a MacBook air and am also a computer hardware engineer.

I have had a problem with over heating corresponding exactly to the periods when the vents at the rear of the machine were blocked (using it in bed to watch a movie).. the machine shuts down one core of the CPU under those circumstances and goes real slow, then eventually crashes.

So the answer is to make sure the vents stay clear and they’ll be no problems.

Hello All.

I bought my MBA in May and it worked with some heavy applications for hours without any serious heating ou freezing - did this for over a month.

Suddenly, last week, it started first to NOT let the fan slowdown while the temperature was already down, then finally constantly raising the temperature to a max. ov over 80º C and staying over 70º C all the time, with the corresponding fan excessive speed and noise.

This temperature “raise and stay” was also accompanied by some hiccups, quite frankly never seen by me before in other laptops.

I am taking it to the Vendor today, for a possible refund. It is obvious that (judging from the feedback everywhere) that the problem is more endemic than I’d be willing to admit.

While not a speed demon, it is a sexy machine, the battery would (before the problem) last about 3 hours and the screen is gorgeous.

Now, as it stands, it is a piece of noisy junk.

I have 2 iPhones, 2 iPods and love Apple’s design in general.

This was also my first Mac PC, one thet let me run Windows Vista - with the sexy MBA coat.

So sad to say goodbye to such a beatiful machine… so much in doubt about ever getting another one.

Funny, I had nothing against Apple so far - but it is sad that I have nothing in favour of their sexiest PC - it’s that I wanted to, you know.

(But I still have hopes they come up with something for me… :-|)

the first question that apple asked me when i phoned to complain was, “has it burned you”

There is obviously a problem if they are asking this…

And the idea that that a MBA will run as cool as a MBP, prolly’ applies at the north pole where the pitiful MBA fan isn’t necessary to keep it cool. But use both at the equator and the MBP fan will keep it cool while the MBA melts.

Try using a macbook air in spain. Mine goes in the freezer every half an hour or so.

The questio is. Is it one of the first ones outta the factory: they have obvioulsly changed something with the newr ones. Ae you using it in a hot enviroment: i.e. Spain. Are you pushing the processor.

If the answer to all three is yes, then you have a laptop which is of little use. Nice ornament, though.

I can speak for myself, and my problems ONLY come when I use flash applications.

If you use the processor at full power, that is no problem, but if you do it constanty (~10mins) then you get the overheating. For me it is always around 72ºF.

Disconnecting the battery lets you improve this time a little bit.

The definite solution is to close it, wait until it suspends, and open again: it restarts as new.

My quad core windows 3.4ghz pc with 4 sli graphics cards is amazingly cool and quiet. Mind you, i havnt figured out how to turn it on yet ! Seriously, what is the point of telling everyone your pc is overheating without also saying what its trying to do, how long its doing it for and the ventilation conditions.

An my MBA is still overheating. :-(

You people are really, really stupid - I came here looking for a fix to my (drastically) overheating MBA, and I get a bunch of morons who have no clue what they’re talking about telling me a problem doesn’t exist. You call the current message board chatter circumstantial? Exactly how loud does the call that these machines are defective have to get before you are satisfied that the problem lies with the machine and not someone “out to screw Apple”? I have rarely seen so many people chime in on a support item for a mechanical glitch - the outcry is substantial, not circumstantial.

So i had the same experience and can see the issue. You can use your MBA w/o this happening. The overheating and processor shut down occurs only when you block the air vent at the back of the machine. so if you use the MBA on a desk you can view hours of youtube. No worries. if however, you do this on your bed the air vent will be blocked and then one core will shut down leading to a number of problems.
that’s all folks - jdc

Actually, I am using my MBA right now (bought March 4, with the 64 G SSD) and it is HOT and SLOW right now. I’ve been using it for about 5 hours now.

Hoping that the machine is defective… it is my first Mac and this isn’t looking good.

This is being blown way out of proportion.
I’ve owned dozens of laptops (Sony, Dell, HP, Apple, etc.) and every single one of them got piping hot at some point.
As a matter of fact, my last 17″ Sony’s plastic case was actually deformed by the heat on the right side !!!
I’ve noticed my MBA getting warm (just warm - NOT hot enough to cause discomfort or concern) once or twice in the past month of daily use, but the computer never slowed down or froze. It most often gets warm on the left side when charging.
This is by far the best laptop I’ve ever owned. I carry it around with me all the time and it’s a pleasure to use.
I expect a lot from Apple (especially because their machines are so damn expensive). Thus, I’m pretty diligent in finding flaws in their products, but overheating in the MBA is simply not one of them.

MBA is another MacMini to me… the forms great but they shrink all the power to be the lightest.

My Macbook Air isn’t overheating, at all, the CPU stays around 45 to 55 degrees celcius, 20 degrees cooler than my MBP.

The problem (was) caused by an overenthusiastic fan, giving the false impression that there was a heat problem.

The update fixed the problem, after i reset the SMC (shutdown the MBA, hold shift-option-ctrl + power)

the air vents are almost under the MBA, so putting it on a bed without any type of support is a bad idea.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Apple it is to never buy first generation Apple products unless you absolutely need to. I’ve been burned (no pun intended) too many times.

I think everyone is right and everyone is wrong….

There are obviously a lot of fanboys out there that would rather take a bullet to the chest than admit that there is a slight flaw (if you could even call it that) in the design of an Apple product.

But at the same time, the issues can be way overblown at times.

I have a MBP, just bought one actually. I do some video editing and other demanding stuff on this thing, it works great…but guess what, it gets hot as all hell when you push it.

So for those saying they don’t get hot, they do. The Macbook Airs sitting in the store all day do precisely that, sit there. They aren’t using any serious CPU power and thus aren’t going to be as hot. Same if you surf the web or check e-mail.

Bottom line though is your comments are worthless if you don’t evaluate them from an objective point of view.

Laptops get hot. Dell Laptops (I own one, I have compared them), Apple Laptops, HP Laptops. Get over it.

Articles based on posts on discussion forums are a waste of everyone’s time. This article is based on a few tens of people who have had problems and logged into the forum to complain. There’s no information on what percent of the people have had this problem. The worst part is quoting the number of times a forum has been viewed as relevant! One of those views is presumably the author of this inane and pointless article. There’s no indication that those page views were owners of the product. Did you even bother to contact Apple to find out what percentage of customers have complained? Do you get paid by the page-view, Mr. Elmer-DeWitt? This is some despicable unjournalism.

I’m an embedded software engineer … computer systems without fans or extensive cooling. Very few embedded systems use Intel chips because … they run REALLY hot.

Seems like the complaints about heat with MacBooks coincides with the introduction of Intel into the Apple product line.

I own a MacBook Air and use it every day. It does not overheat or even get hot — it gets barely warm underneath. I keep it on my lap at all times, and have no discomfort. I have not yet downloaded the patch that Apple released lately. I have had this laptop for four weeks now, so I think I have tested it enough to know. By the way, it does not lock up either. It turned out to exceed all of my expectations and beat all of my fears that I had prior to ordering it.

I also own a Dell D410, which is also a sub-notebook. I used to love this laptop. However, it gets much hotter, and I had to buy a lap desk to be able to keep it on my lap.

MacBook Air is a pleasure to hold in your hands and very exciting to use; I have a positive energy boost every time I turn it on. Dell D410 is just a laptop — no excitement when using it.

MacBook Air was my first foray into the Mac world. I have now decided that I am migrating my home computing environment to Macs. And, by the way, it runs Unix under the hood, so I can finally immerge myself in Unix.

Why do you hate Apple?

XamaX, you obviously didn’t pass school, or Portugal’s schooling has serious issues!! negative plus negative gives negative, not positive!!!
negative times negative will lead to positive…..

I see that many of these comments object to PED’s last sentence about how “Apple has once again put design considerations ahead of performance”.

I’ve been a proud owner of Apple computers since 1980, and I can assure you that Apple has a long, long history of putting form above function.

Often this bias manifests itself in harmless indulgences that simply make our computing experience a little more pleasant, like the “vents” on the external floppy drive of my original Apple II Plus, designed to match the cool-looking vents of the computer. But guess what? Vents on a floppy drive are not only useless, they might actually be harmful because they let dust in. So Apple carefully closed them up from the inside with black tape, protecting our floppies and read/write heads without compromising continuity in design elements. (Never mind that part of the appeal of the air vents was that they seemed to be simultaneously stylish *and* functional.)

On other occasions, though, Apple latches on to some aesthetic ideal, like fan-less computers, and refuses to let go of it for years, despite overwhelming evidence that it’s causing problems. For proof I need only three words: hockey puck mouse.

Most of us appreciate the fact that Apple, more than any other computer company, strives to make its technology useful, attractive, and humane. So let’s not act surprised and defensive when it sometimes misjudges and ends up pushing the envelope “just a bit too far.”

My $4200 DELL with every possible option available gets so hot that I finally bought a lap-desk-board type of thing to shield the heat…. no big deal and in the winter, it’s nice and toasty!!

negative plus negative equals positive?

Those that whine are probably the folks that bought one for bling and not one to use… Apple makes the cutting edge laptops and provides apple Care to make sure that everything is better than just OK. Providing a few folks “claims” of hot laptops is nothing compaired to the thousands of folks that bought PC laptops and have major problems DAILY….
Get a life folks…

I came here just to read the dunderhead comments by Steve of Chapel Hill NC. Thank God he didn’t disappoint.

18 million Xbox 360’s sold. Warranty firm Square Trade says 16.4% warranties they’ve dealth with have been returned under “disabled” . Thousands and thousands of Xboxes have overheated to FAILURE point with components fried. Msft has a billion dollar hit for claims. Now THAT is a hardware overheating problem story!

Thanks for letting us know about this problem! I’m happy I bought a Thinkpad. They are better computers anyways.

Dude - shoulda got a dell

This piece of writing - I don’t call this news, much less an article - is in itself proof the MacBook Air is turning itself into a major hit.

Think about it: Apple’s success => Fortune/DeWitt bashes

Once I said it’s worthless to read his writings, copy-pasted or not, but I retract: it’s worth it ‘cos you can look the opposite way and see what’s really happening.

Like when I learned in school: negative plus negative equals positive!

excuse me if this sounds like a crazy thought, but why don’t you actually take a macbook air and….. here’s the crazy part…. test it. all your article amounts to is a link to a message board. as a journalist, it seems, you would want to know the truth (or at least try to determine it). simply repeating what others are talking about on message boards means nothing. by the way…. engadget.com has results of actual testing on the newest macbook pro and they do indeed run much cooler
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/28/apple-macbook-pro-penryn-tests-a-little-more-speed-a-lot-less/

how can i get my “news” stories on yahoo finance. my “report” at least provides a link to my source….

The only way to fight Dimwit’s amateurish journalism is boycott. By reading/commenting you only strengthen his position. This will be my only comment and hopefully last read. Note to self, do not click on Fortune links.

Oh my god, someone’s (the OP in that discussion) MBA is overheating….by overheating, it means the temperature is barely higher than his skin temperature (39C vs 37C).

That’s hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns!

So…. are these things badly designed, or not?

The article makes a pretty big call. Surely that is based on something tangible, and not just “an idea”? Or no?

My two cents: I haven’t got one of these, but a friend does. It seems to work. The OS seems to work. I wouldn’t get one, cause they are for show ponies, but it works.

I mean, wake me when someone buys an Apple product and it doesn’t work. Even if it is a bit hot, or sparks fly out of it or whatever, as long as it works.

Right?

How come when I pick up a MacBook Air at the Apple store (which has them running almost 24 hrs a day 7 days a week) they don’t seem to be hot at all? This is in Pennsylvania where it is still winter so don’t be crediting the building AC for that.

It’s one thing to post negative information that some people don’t like. It’s another thing to post something negative information that is purposely misleading and spun (and that’s inaccurate to boot) and expect everybody to pat you on the back.

PED - why did you add this:

“The broader problem, one suspects, is that Apple has once again put design considerations ahead of performance and pushed the new machine’s heat tolerance just a bit too far.”

Next time try, “The broader problem, I suspect is that….”

Even though that kind of editorializing really has no place in journalism at all, unless it’s clearly marked as editorial, using the first-person at least makes it obvious to the reader that it is YOUR opinion.

These are the comments that anger people about your writing. Why couldn’t you just write about the reports of the heat problem? There’s potentially good information in there, especially for Apple Consultants like myself who are trying to stay ahead of possible issues for our customers. But when you add that kind of backhanded remark in the last paragraph, you undermine any actual journalistic value you might have built up in the rest of the article. I find myself questioning the validity of the entire report when I read something so blatantly biased in it.

You write as if you actually knew anything about what you are writing about.
As if…

What a load of poppycock! Is that what you call journalism?

I’ll preface this by admitting I do own Apple stock and several Apple computers, Apple TV, iPods etc…

But seriously, come on? We all read the forums…but that doesn’t translate to any particular % of users having those problems… In fact I read those very posts you claim make a story - before I then jumped and bought a Macbook Air!

My read was there were so few actual original people posting around the heating/freezing issue that it was not a ‘design problem’ as you insinuate…rather most likely a few machines that ‘failed’.

Anyway, that said, I can confirm I’m another VERY pleased customer of a Macbook Air - that almost 2 weeks in has had no overheating or freezing issues to post about - quite the opposite!

What a wonderful - never want to ‘go back’ - machine.

Sincerely,

DeWITT=HOT AIR

The broader problem, one suspects, is that Fortune has once again put their anti-Apple biases ahead of responsible journalism.

(BTW, note that 6 weeks after shipping, there is still a 5-7 day delay in ordering one of these “lap warmers”).

Steve, Chapel Hill NC :

I dont consider myself a fanboy - but are you one of the “haters”. This might turn out to be a serious problem - but do you really think 41 posts (5 people with problems, 36 posts with suggestions to help) warrant a blog on Fortune? The fact he lists the number of views (3135 OMG!!) but doesnt list the number of posts related to the problem makes me question his motives.

I came here just to read the insane ramblings of the Apple Fanboys. Thank god they didn’t disappoint.

The last sentence of this article makes it difficult to believe that it was not designed to manipulate the stock price. Writing an informative piece about concerns with overheating and fan speeds across a percentage of users is a bit different than declaring that the company consistently puts “design” ahead of “function” thus leading one to believe that this journalist has a general agenda of portraying the entire company in a negative light. Cliché.

What a stupid report. I dont own any apple computers - but a read the boards sometimes because a own a small amount of stock. I went to the link posted above. 3135 Views!!!!! OMG. - it has a total of 41 posts. Looks like 4-5 people posted with problems or complaints and about 35 - 37 posts of people trying to help or give suggestions.

“The broader problem, one suspects, is that Apple has once again put design considerations ahead of performance and pushed the new machine’s heat tolerance just a bit too far.”

Your comment above is so ridiculous and ignorant.

Apple has one of the lowest (if not the lowest) failure rate in the industry, and to top it off it’s customer service is always rated #1 , that alone proves Apple does not put design before functionality .
The Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba forums are full of people complaining about issues like this or worse (forget about Sony you need a week to read them all)

scouting support forums to find issues is like this one is dumb…
that’s like going into a foreign country and walk into an hospital and say these people are all sick .. their health system is not good.. right?

I got more information out of the comments that I did the article.

Did you read the posts through? It seems quite clear that this is a build quality issue relating the CPU having inadequate contact with the heat sink — easily fixable by Apple in repair and easily solvable in the manufacturing process. It’s an easy bet that this problem will fade from the radar within just a few weeks.

I would agree that higher tolerances are required with such a design, thus increasing the chance of problems due to below grade assembly. Even so, I’ll take the design over the certainty of perfection in early production runs.

cheers

nonsense all laptops are hot .. here write about the thinkpad that are too hot
lenovo community : ThinkPads : T Series ThinkPads : T43 running hot. CPU spiking to100% - WinXP Pro
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=T_Series_Thinkpads&thread.id=39

or what about people bitching about noisy fans??
plenty of those on the lenovo community board
lenovo community : Lenovo 3000 Systems : Lenovo 3000 Notebooks : Noisy fan on Lenovo 3000 N200

First off, all of Apple discussion boards get huge number of views…seems everyone is very interested in everything Apple does. This does not mean the viewers are having the same problem, just interested to read about it.

My MacBook Air runs as cool as my girlfriends’ MacBook Pro(with duo 2 processor), which runs much cooler than my old Powerbook G4.

The truth is, new products almost always have a glitch for some users. Apple almost always works out the kinks. This is as predictable as the sun rising and is not news.

The statement” the broader problem, one suspects, is that Apple has once again put design considerations ahead of performance…” is so biased. Anyone that actually uses Apple products knows that it is the design
and performance 1-2 punch that makes Apple’s products the best and is resulting in dramatic market share gains…and that is not some lame opinion..its a fact that is verifiable by all the companies that keep track of such things.

You suck at copying & pasting. You suck even more when writing your own articles.

“The problem is the Mac Air.”

Really? Problem is the Mac Air?

ex ped: Come again? Looks like you’re having your own cut and paste problems.

I hope the sec investigates your blatant stock price manipulation attempts

ex ped: Not everything, dear Chase, is about stock prices. Sometimes it’s about fan speeds and overheating.

Bash. Put this right up there with old sparking iPods.