10.5.3 Air is running cooler

[aussieinrome]

Maybe you're in just complete denial and truly belive that your macbook Pro is actually a macbook air.... did you read the Japanese properly when you checked out?

You mean I own the world's slimmed MacBook Pro? Wow! I thought the Japanese were pretty advanced, but for them to get an ultra slip-macbook pro months before the rest of the world, I mean - that's just amazing. I'm glad I got one.

Watashi no MacBook Pro wa totemo samui desu!!!!!
私のマクボクポロわとてもさむいです！！！

 

[applestew]

I was just reading the other thread about MBA temps. Then it gave me an idea.

I've updated to 10.5.3. The temps are down like everyone said. I have coolbook active and also managing the CPU throttling. I decided to leave coolbook to maintain the lowered voltages (I use 0.9V for all speedsteps), but I disable throttling by coolbook, so that Mac OS X can handle the throttling itself.

Guess what? The temps are down EVEN MORE. I think with 10.5.3, OS X is handling the throttling even better. Can anyone else try this and see if what I noticed is not a fluke?

 

[twist2b]

The macbook airs have had LESS overheating issues recently. But they have had less trouble since they have made the hardware work the with the OS better. I have a HP tablet aswell and it has HUGE heating troubles when connected to power, though unplugged running on battery its fine.

The program "coolbook" seems to be a fix for those that have more trouble then others. I suggest for some to try running on battery and see if its cooler, that should lower the amount of voltage.

 

[jont-fu]

I've updated to 10.5.3. The temps are down like everyone said. I have coolbook active and also managing the CPU throttling. I decided to leave coolbook to maintain the lowered voltages (I use 0.9V for all speedsteps), but I disable throttling by coolbook, so that Mac OS X can handle the throttling itself.

Guess what? The temps are down EVEN MORE. I think with 10.5.3, OS X is handling the throttling even better. Can anyone else try this and see if what I noticed is not a fluke?

The 10.5.3 update really makes the Air much cooler, but it is no magic. Apple has tightened their thermal throttling profile which results in the CPU running almost always at 800MHz, even under heavy load - at least in my case. After running idle for a long time and the case cooling down, it might run a few seconds in 1200MHz or 1600MHz mode.. But very soon it locks to 800MHz and about 65-70C CPU temp.

I did a test to confirm it: running CPUtest "big, 2 instances", took 4:41 with 10.5.3 default throttling. After that I turned Coolbook's throttling on, limit at 85C and the same test completed almost in half time, 2:33. I think you can emulate the new "cool" 10.5.3 behavior by lowering the throttle temp limit to 65C in Coolbook. Can you try that out?

 

[Scott6666]

The 10.5.3 update really makes the Air much cooler, but it is no magic. Apple has tightened their thermal throttling profile which results in the CPU running almost always at 800MHz, even under heavy load - at least in my case. After running idle for a long time and the case cooling down, it might run a few seconds in 1200MHz or 1600MHz mode.. But very soon it locks to 800MHz and about 65-70C CPU temp.

I did a test to confirm it: running CPUtest "big, 2 instances", took 4:41 with 10.5.3 default throttling. After that I turned Coolbook's throttling on, limit at 85C and the same test completed almost in half time, 2:33. I think you can emulate the new "cool" 10.5.3 behavior by lowering the throttle temp limit to 65C in Coolbook. Can you try that out?

Maybe this means that Apple with go to the 10W ULV processors next time around. What's the good of higher speeds if they don't use them. I hope they don't let the marketing spin of promoting 1.6 and 1.8 speeds trump reality.

What am I saying, of course the marketing guys will demand the better specs! Or is there integrity still left anywhere in corporate America?

 

[ayeying]

Well, ever since 10.5.3, i got core shutdowns now under heavy load..

 

[mungopark]

The same here after installing 10.5.3 everything became worse - I have core shutdowns even when running only one movie - the temp is at 60C - what is this ?

 

[MarkF44]

I have switched from MBA to MBP because IMHO, mac air is too young, fan issue, battery issue.

I really enjoy my MBP, everything is just perfect...even the screen is amazing...

yes, 1 more kg, the only drawback, otherwise, the penryn is powerfull, fans still à 2000 rpm running smoother than MBA...no hissing (my MBA has hissing)
huge HDD, superdrive...One USB on the left and another on the right...
etc.
etc.

yes not the same goals, but with a bit of jogging, I will lost one or two kilos of fats

 

[dudup]

The same here after installing 10.5.3 everything became worse - I have core shutdowns even when running only one movie - the temp is at 60C - what is this ?

Yes, same here. Core shutdowns, complete freezes, native apps hanging after a cold restart (safari, quick time, itunes, you name it), and even a kernel panic.

I'm anxious to get back to 10.5.2 + Coolbook, that was fine for me. Unfortunately 10.5.3 was a bad update for me, like 10.4.10.

Will wait for 10.5.4.

 

[mungopark]

I removed Perian, Flip4Mac and TheTube, reinstalled Coolbook and set all voltages to 0.9 - with Throttle high and the MBA runs on both cores again - I really cant say what it was and I dont want to reinstall even one of the programs because it took me half a day to fix this.

 

[Copperheed]

The one thing that have changed, is that once my fan reaches 6200 rpm (or 4000 as i've set it to), it will now stay at max speed until I close the lid or shut it down. Currently it's at 50 degrees C, and still at 6200. No core shutdowns though, but this is getting annoying... Had some annoying fan issues with 10.5.2 as well, but at least it did shut up from time to time, now it almost never does

Oh, running smcfancontrol, but no coolbook or reapplying of thermal paste.

 

[Sound Evolution]

Dear,

It is very strange, The first two days my machine worked flawless, I could skype for more then 3 hours, the fan hardly hit on. Now since the last two days I almost always have full screaming fan, and core shutdown. Only with just using yahoo messener and some serving on the internet, the machine start to freeze and one core shut out for a very long time... and then there is the never ending whinning fan I just don't get why this happend after two days... Well I still love my MBA though... I just keep thinking that there will be a solution for by Apple one day..

With kind regards,
Bas

 

[mac jones]

I installed this a couple days ago and my temps are down about 8C ( Coolbook is also running before and after).

I'm getting around 39C on average when browsing.

I wonder what they did as the fans aren't running any faster?

 

[sanPietro98]

For me, the 10.5.3 update was very successful in terms of cooling. So for those people who have had bad experiences with the MBA and 10.5.3, I wonder why.

Can certain coolbook settings be interfering with what the OS is trying to manage? Are there any other "hacks" or OS tweaks any of you are using?

This is my biggest fear in using CoolBook. As a professional software engineer (as many of you are too), I understand how much time & experimentation goes into optimizing a control algorithm for specific hardware and runtime configurations. Any outside "tweaking" can often de-optimize those algorithms unless you really know what you're doing.

So has anyone without CoolBook run into problems with 10.5.3?

 

[applenewcomer]

Hello there

I'm totally new to Mac... I've been having an MBA 1.8GHz 80HDD (updated to 10.5.3, sorry I cannot check it now but I guess so, I'm writing from an Ubuntu laptop while hardware checking the MBA) for a few days, and I'm fighting with it!
After reading quite a number of post, I have to say that sometimes my problems are EVEN WORSE than the average case here.

I had core shutdowns several times... my workmate pointed me to CoolBook, it seemed to work with some voltage settings for 1.8 which I took and modified from something I found about the 1.6.
The temperature limit was 75, throttling=medium.

I've been stressing the processors quite a lot by compiling macports stuff, including qt4.
Mainly non-graphic stuff, therefore.

At some point, during Spotlight indexing, I had kernel panic several times, probably because of the low voltage I set up.
Then I tried to tune it up.

But what I want to share with you guys:

- Coolbook limited to 75C, but the system didn't respect it at all.
During heavy computations, the cores were rarely down 80 degrees (according to coolbook), mostly around 90.
I even had a 100C at some point!

Since I read about 65 degrees as quite a high temperature, I wonder if I really should give up trying and take my MBA right back to Apple.
The external temperature here is super-high, but I guess this cannot be the only reason.

Thank you guys

Sorry for the long post, I tried to be as short as possible.
I'll be glad to give more details if you are willing

 

[glitch44]

Can't wait for Snow Leopard.


The reduced file sizes and code optimization should help the Air...

 

[trentiles]

I never really noticed any temp difference upon installing 10.5.3, I am also running Coolbook..but i never paid THAT much attention to it to know for certain.

If people are interested I am willing to do some temperature tests with Coolbook enable and disabled to see if there are any large difference in temp control.

Keep in mind though that I am using a full BSE skin so average temps could be a few Celsius above a non skinned MBA.

Any interest in this?

Also any requests in how you would like the tests conducted or if there are any specific things you would like to see tested?