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gperks · Feb 22, 2006, 12:38 AM

My 1.25Ghz AlBook can get a little too warm for my legs... especially under the RAM and along the rear edge below the hinge. This with "normal" usage. Crank up some 3D game and the thing gets toasty all over.

How's the MPB in comparison?

aplmd · Feb 22, 2006, 12:49 AM

Well, I am currently typing on my new MBP 2.16. Warm... Yes, very. I have been putting it through a lot of processing -- downloading files, transferring files, installing software, etc. The warmest area is by the hinges. I haven't tried "normal" usage yet.

ruttopia · Feb 22, 2006, 08:08 AM

Just doing some web browsing, emailing and photoboothing last night for about 1 hour caused mine to get "warm". Not as hot as my 15" 1.5ghz PB gets when doing the same thing ... but still gets very warm. I could definitely put it on my lap and not shriek in pain.

cambro · Feb 22, 2006, 10:08 AM

I guess, then, the next question is is it staying cool by running fans? Can ya hear 'em? Are they running but silent?

Voch · Feb 22, 2006, 10:14 AM

I noticed from this OWC disassembly image that the hard drive is now under the left palmrest like the 12" PowerBook G4, whereas it's under my trackpad on my TiBook. Has that area been getting particularly warm?

ruttopia · Feb 22, 2006, 11:02 AM

I didn't even notice if the palmrests were warm - so I would say there's not significant warmth there. Of course, I should try playing Doom 3 or something to see how it gets after a few minutes... I didn't notice the fans running either during use ...

As a side note, I'm really impressed with this machine!

Voch · Feb 22, 2006, 11:08 AM

In my mornin' browsing I found this flickr.com photo of MacBook Pro heat. Looks like it's got a good design as I'd like the hot spots, if any, to be in the back of the machine a-la my TiBook.

iobuffa · Feb 22, 2006, 12:28 PM

In my mornin' browsing I found this flickr.com photo of MacBook Pro heat. Looks like it's got a good design as I'd like the hot spots, if any, to be in the back of the machine a-la my TiBook.

Yeah, those are my images. I can confirm it gets pretty hot near the screen (close to the hinges) After running a few benchmarks and heavy all day usage, I felt the bottom of the unit and I could not keep my hand there for more than 2 seconds before I had to draw it away. I never owned an AlBook so I can't compare to that, but this thing can get pretty hot.

gperks · Feb 22, 2006, 12:36 PM

> I felt the bottom of the unit and I could not keep my hand there for more than 2 seconds before I had to draw it away

Yikes. So no-go on the lap then. Sounds like the Al-book can get, although that is kinda the slow burn than you only feel once it's too late. Like cooking a frog - heat too fast and the frog jumps out, heat slow and frog is cooked!

iobuffa · Feb 22, 2006, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by gperks

> I felt the bottom of the unit and I could not keep my hand there for more than 2 seconds before I had to draw it away

Yikes. So no-go on the lap then. Sounds like the Al-book can get, although that is kinda the slow burn than you only feel once it's too late. Like cooking a frog - heat too fast and the frog jumps out, heat slow and frog is cooked!

I failed to mention that I felt the bottom of the unit near the hinges. So if anything will burn on your lap, it'll be your knees and not your.... pelvic region. That's important to note!

jamil5454 · Feb 22, 2006, 12:49 PM

Summary of component locations:

Core Duo in upper left corner by speaker
ATI X1600 in upper right corner by speaker
Hard drive snug in lower left corner (sucks if you're left-handed)
SuperDrive in lower right corner (obviously)
Both RAM slots on underside next to battery compartment
Appears to be the ambient light sensor under right speaker (round green object)
Video cable goes to display on the right side

It looks like they just removed the top case and keyboard (maybe the shield too?) and everything is right there. Here's to hoping the MBP is easier to disassemble than the iBook!

Simon · Feb 23, 2006, 06:03 AM

Originally Posted by jamil5454

Core Duo in upper left corner by speaker
ATI X1600 in upper right corner by speaker

Where are they actually located? On the upper side or on the bottom side of the PCB? The fans look like blow air from above to below - does that make sense?

Appears to be the ambient light sensor under right speaker (round green object)

No, I think the round green object is the power switch.

Troll · Feb 23, 2006, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by jamil5454

Summary of component locations:

Core Duo in upper left corner by speaker

Much better pics at ifixit.com. Here's one of the logic board. This is upside down, so the connectors on the left of the photo are those on the right of the computer.

The Core Duo is on the far right. The component marked Intel is the south bridge. That would mean that the Core Duo sits just to the left of the middle of the computer at the back (and just north of the memory location). Between it and the speaker is a fan. So, it's not really correct to say that the Core Duo is next to the speaker; there's actually quite a bit of distance between the two. It seems that the heat people are picking up is coming from the fans which means they're doing their job.

iobuffa · Feb 23, 2006, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by Troll

It seems that the heat people are picking up is coming from the fans which means they're doing their job.

Wow, thanks for the clarification. This adds a lot of clarity to the "touch" method and it all makes sense.

gperks · Feb 23, 2006, 07:00 PM

It doesn't matter if it's hot above the fans, nobody is touching there. What matters is the handrest and underneath, the area touching your legs. The bottom side seems to be hotter than disired - the fans are not doing their job!

Necrocool · Feb 23, 2006, 09:55 PM

I played with one today finally. Side by side with the last generation 17" and 15" ... the MBP is quite hot indeed. It heats up on the speaker grills and on the bottom. Where the 17" is barely warm to the touch.

Screen is much nicer though...

Troll · Feb 24, 2006, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by gperks

It doesn't matter if it's hot above the fans, nobody is touching there. What matters is the handrest and underneath, the area touching your legs. The bottom side seems to be hotter than disired - the fans are not doing their job!

Is the handrest hot? That would be strange. The fans are not cooling anything that's under your wrists.

gperks · Feb 24, 2006, 01:23 PM

No, the handrest was comfortable. It was underneath, where your legs go, that was hot.

Not sure why apparently idle machines in an Apple Store would be hot.

aristotles · Feb 24, 2006, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by gperks

No, the handrest was comfortable. It was underneath, where your legs go, that was hot.

Not sure why apparently idle machines in an Apple Store would be hot.

Do you think it might have something to do with people before you trying out the machines and putting them through their paces or are you the only customer in that location allowed to touch them?

gperks · Feb 24, 2006, 03:44 PM

> are you the only customer in that location allowed to touch them?

Someone else touching *my* demo machines!!! Next you'll be suggesting other people drive on *my* roads! Though this is the most likely explanation. They were lucky I didn't catch them with their greasy paws on my machines.

The store wasn't very busy and both demo machines were a similar temperature. I checked Activity Monitor and not much was burning up CPU - but did notice the Apple Store menu software is a PPC-only binary :-) It wasn't using much CPU but who knows, maybe it burns up the GPU.

GPU usage should be added to Activity Monitor.

iobuffa · Feb 24, 2006, 03:54 PM

I should mention that ambient temperature played a greater role in this than I first thought. Last night I had the A/C cranked in my house (it gets hot in Florida) and the MBP was not as hot as before when my A/C was on normal settings. I also had an oscillating fan going last night. So the people who are not experiencing hgiher heat may be operating in a lower ambient temperature. Just a hypothesis.

amazing · Feb 25, 2006, 12:19 AM

Yep, room temp plays a huge role in temp measurements--and the oscillating fan is an even bigger factor. When you've got A/C, the whole room is a heat-sink and then you've got the wind-chill from the fan!

When the first gen 12" AlPB came out, the early reports were filled with a huge controversy about whether it was too hot, just like this one. The left palm rest was judged especially hot. When things settled down after a couple months, and with reviews filtering in, turns out they did run hot. They almost acquired the nickname "Firebook." The next rev seemed to take care of that, with some software fixes (the fans came on at lower temps on all models) and some hardware remedies.

Of course, some folks were stuck with their early-adopters models, and after the January San Fran into, there came the summer temps to aggravate things.

Troll · Feb 25, 2006, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by gperks

No, the handrest was comfortable. It was underneath, where your legs go, that was hot.

Not sure why apparently idle machines in an Apple Store would be hot.

Underneath where? Near the hinge where the processor, gpu etc. are or near your lap where the hard disk, optical drive and battery are? Powerpage has measurements up showing the MBP to be cooler than the 15" PowerBook but not so much that it was noticeable.

With the disclaimer that this isn't at all scientific, I wanted to comment on the heat generated by the MacBook Pro, a frequent question. I tested the PowerBook G4 (1.5GHz, 2GB, 120GB) and a MacBook Pro (2.0GHz, 2GB, 120GB) running all night while sitting on a Podium Coolpad from RoadTools. The ambient temperature on the bottom rear middle of the PBG4 was about 112 degrees and the MBP was about 104 degrees Farenheit (as measured by a digital thermometer.)

In practice the MBP seems to get about as hot as my PowerBook G4,15-inch when used extensively on "Normal" power conservation, especially when plugged into AC power. I was hoping that it would run cooler than the PBG4 but so far it's about the same.

CyberPet · Feb 25, 2006, 12:07 PM

Isn't sense of heat very realative - some might think something is extremely hot, while others think it's just "warm"? I've been using my old TiBook (last gen) for 3+ years now and always had it on my lap. Sure, it gets hot sometimes, but never so I feel I'm burning - even when sitting in shorts. While others proably would say they will get a 1st degree burn from it.

I'm more curious about the fans - my fan kicks in fast on my old TiBook, and I would love to know how "bad" the MacBook does - I ask since I often spend time in hospital (not from 1st degree burns though

) and it's important to not have a fan making lots of noise when I'm surfing the web late at night while the room mates are trying to sleep.

one09jason · Feb 26, 2006, 08:47 AM

The MacBook is a toater.

I was in an Apple store last night, and felt the bottom sides of the 4 MacBooks they had on display. They were all nearly as warm as my PowerBook 1.67 after it has been going full out for an hour. In other word, very hot to the touch. I was actually quite surprised. I expected them to be hotter based on what I read here, but these were hot, and they were't doing anything. Noone was using them. Just sitting there, more or less idle, they were that hot.

I was surprised too, because I thought we were getting more power per Watt with the core duo. Which I gues means one of two things - either the core duo is not as power effecient as we were led to believe, or the Mac book really is that that much faster, requiring more powere and generating more heat, but delivering MUCH more speed. I hope it's the latter, but I think the battery size and the big 85 Watt power adapter tell the story pretty well.

I have been thinking about this heat problem in notebooks from an engineering standpoint. You've got a perfect heat sink in these AL notebooks: this giant piece of aluminum waving around in the air with lots of surface area that no one ever touches: the lid. I had read somewhere that IBM had developed a heat pipe hinge, so they could use the lid as a heat sink. I think Apple needs to follow suit here. Or, alternatively, perhaps they should put the cpu and logic board in the lid and leave the cooler parts in the bottom half that we have to touch, if that's possible. My 2cents.

Dave Hagan · Feb 26, 2006, 10:06 AM

I posted about the heat in another thread...the MacBook Pro is no hotter than the 1.67GHz 17-inch PowerBook from my tests in an Apple Store. Both were warm to the touch, not boiling hot. I checked several times during my 20 minutes playing around. BTW, the 1.67GHz got warmer than the MBP after I was comparing the playback of HD footage on both computers.

one09jason · 11:56 AM

Well, I'm sure that testing conditions vary - various CPU loads, environmental conditions. I was surprised that in an Apple store, where the conditions are completely under Apple's control, that the MacBooks were that hot.

In the end, it doesn't really matter exactly how hot they get - they're all to hot to use as "lap" tops if they get painful to the touch when working at full CPU load. What's the point in having a laptop that's "4x faster" (or whatever the advertised maximum speed is) if you can't realize that speed without risking burned legs? If you have to put it on the desk (or cooling stand) because it's too hot, then it's not a "laptop" anymore is it?

It's a widespread problem across many models, but it's a problem that Apple can bring their considerable engineering skills to bear on. I'm sure they'll solve it eventually, because they'll have to. If the current MacBook is not too hot for you, the next faster model will be. CPUs are only getting hotter as a trend.

cambro · Feb 26, 2006, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by one09jason

I have been thinking about this heat problem in notebooks from an engineering standpoint. You've got a perfect heat sink in these AL notebooks: this giant piece of aluminum waving around in the air with lots of surface area that no one ever touches: the lid.

Sounds good, but remember your thermal coefficient of expansion. If a large thin Al plate like the screen casing were your primary heat sink, you could get considerable warping without substantial reinforcement which would obviously be bad for the screen and could cause image distortion.

What we need is a radical revolution in processing to get over the performance-power dilema.

Anyway...back on topic, heat production in a notebook is a very important thing and it's too bad that the MBP isn't an improvement over the PB in that regard.

Barefoot Matt · Feb 26, 2006, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by one09jason

If you have to put it on the desk (or cooling stand) because it's too hot, then it's not a "laptop" anymore is it?

Not that I don't agree, but isn't that why Apple now calls them "Notebooks" and "Portables"?

one09jason · Feb 26, 2006, 12:14 PM

Probably. Although, I've never heard of and iBook owner complain that they couldn't use their "notebook" on the couch because it was too hot to handle.

fisherKing · Feb 26, 2006, 01:20 PM

as a 12" powerbook user, and a left-hander...i know all about heat.
i love my alubook, but the left of the trackpad gets ridiculous sometimes (more, btw, since i bumped the ram from 768 megs to 1.25g)

so i'm watching the heat issues closely (while i wait for whatever will replace the 12' g4...)

my first mac was a 2400c (10.4" powerbook!); i called apple when i got it, because the heat on the left was significant, and they sent me FREE an apple mouse...guess those days are over..

Kenstee · Feb 26, 2006, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by one09jason

I was surprised too, because I thought we were getting more power per Watt with the core duo. Which I gues means one of two things - either the core duo is not as power effecient as we were led to believe, or the Mac book really is that that much faster, requiring more powere and generating more heat, but delivering MUCH more speed.

Actually, the real benefits (power per watt and cooler running) should be delivered with the Memron chip later this year or early '07.

dndog · Feb 26, 2006, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by Kenstee

Memron chip later this year or early '07.

Its actually "Merom" chips.

Nonetheless, does that mean all of us with core duo's will have obsolete processors (ie. Intel won't manufactor yonah chips because Merom will now be their new flagship chip)

jimbosyn · Feb 26, 2006, 11:51 PM

I have a 1.5GHZ powerbook and a 2.16GHZ Macbook Pro. The powerbook is hotter than the macbook, but not by much. Neither are as hot as an old Dell inspiron 8600 I used for work a while ago. My wife's 12inch powerbook is hotter than both the 2.16 MBP and the 1.5GHZ powerbook. Hope this helps.

mduell · Feb 27, 2006, 01:35 AM

Originally Posted by Kenstee

Actually, the real benefits (power per watt and cooler running) should be delivered with the Memron chip later this year or early '07.

Although Merom is expected to increase performance per watt by 30%, it is also expected to have a 35W TDP, up 4W from the current Core Duos.

Originally Posted by dndog

Its actually "Merom" chips.

Nonetheless, does that mean all of us with core duo's will have obsolete processors (ie. Intel won't manufactor yonah chips because Merom will now be their new flagship chip)

Intel will continue to manufacture Yonah chips after the launch of Merom. Your Core Duo will be just as fast as it is today (and may feel faster when Merom launches because more software is compiled for Intel).