MacBook Pro - gaming and heat issues

[Anorak]

I put Vista Business on my MacBook Pro, along with Team Fortress 2 and Portal - they both run great, but I'm a little worried about heat. I can hear the fans speed up, but I just want to be sure that nothing is "secretly frying" in the background.

Should I trust that the fans are behaving like they should? With that said, should I also worry about the fans that are constantly spinning at 6000rpm (possible damage)?

 

[tersono]

Most laptops have this problem - even the so-called 'gamer's laptops'.

In theory, it is putting a little extra strain on the machine and in the very long term, heat aging could become an issue, but provided the surface of the MBP itself isn't getting uncomfortably warm, you should be okay unless you're running games all night, every night

 

[MurphyM]

6000 rpm sounds like a lot. I don't play games but intense activities only drive the fans up to 3000 rpm or so.

I've had to replace both fans in my Macbook Pro over the last few months. One at a time. It's about a $150 repair if Apple does it. $60 if you do it yourself. It's hard to open the case without damaging it though, unless you're gifted in that sort of thing. The mouse button seems prone to problems after you open the case up, at least it was for the Genius people who tried to fix mine.

I know that's not really what you asked. But I'm pretty paranoid about heat in the MBP. I've had a hard drive die too. I think this thing runs a little too hot, plain and simple. I wouldn't want to have an all night gaming session on mine.

 

[RubberShoes]

if u can just get a laptop cooling pad, I didnt really think they did much until I realized how much heat they can take off of the machine...not only will it cool down the system (especially a MBP since the external case is also a heatspreader) but will also ease the internal fans on the laptop and allow the cooling pad to do the work...I used one on my laptop and after a year n a half the cooling fan finally broke, but the laptop always ran quieter, smoother, n nothing ever got close to frying!

 

[Dj-Grobe]

All Apple machines, cant handle correctly the heat when run windows !!
That is the sad reality!! and its really clear apple dont do nothing to fix the problem

I tested Vista and XP, on MAC MINI 1.66GHZ, IMAC 2.4 20INCH, MACBOOK 2.0GHZ, MACBOOK PRO 2.33 AND 2.4ghz

On all this machines all time you can listen the ugly sound of FANS (IMAC is the only one where fans work with no real big noise) , some times at maximum speed, and this happen when system on iddle, and machines have really non confortably heat, and aditonal to that no need have the BRAIN of Einstein for understand that affect the live of internal components.

Solution?

Yes, if want run windows confortably and safe of hardware demage.......i mean, no execive heat, no noise, no premeature HD die etc etc..... just buy PC, specially if you want GAME with your machine, or edit video, audio or run any windows applications make high usage of CPU/resources.


Apples team create machines for run OSX and they have long way to run to solve the heat issues when run windows.

I order yesterday nice DELL machine for run windows, and leave my apples just for OSX
I buyed the beast !! DELL XPS M1730, its a bulky machine, but is the best portable solution if you need lot (and when say lot this is really lot) of power without heat and related troubles..


This Dell XPS M1730 has the following configuration:

* System: Dell XPS M1730 (Smoke Color)
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 (2.8 GHz)
* Memory: 2GB @ 667MHz - 2 DIMM Slots (2 x 1GB) (Max Ram 4GB)
* Hard Drive: 2x200GB 7200 RPM running RAID 0
* Graphics Card: Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700M GT with 512MB total memory
* Physics Card: AGEIA PhysX 100M
* Screen: 17" WUXGA Truelife (1920 x 1200)
* Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW/+R) with Dual-Layer
* OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
* Wireless Card: Intel 4965 (802.11b/g/n)
* Battery: 9-cell lithium ion recharegable battery
* Ports / Slots: 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader, DVI-D, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 4 USB 2.0, Express Card slot, Modem,


http://www.hothardware.com/articles/Dell_XPS_M1730_Mobile_Gaming_Notebook/?page=3


NOTE:
here in my country apple its overpriced, the full version of DELL M1730 its 100U$ less expensive of MACBOOK PRO 2.4GHZ !!

 

[RubberShoes]

All Apple machines, cant handle correctly the heat when run windows !!
That is the sad reality!! and its really clear apple dont do nothing to fix the problem

I tested Vista and XP, on MAC MINI 1.66GHZ, IMAC 2.4 20INCH, MACBOOK 2.0GHZ, MACBOOK PRO 2.33 AND 2.4ghz

On all this machines all time you can listen the ugly sound of FANS (IMAC is the only one where fans work with no real big noise) , some times at maximum speed, and this happen when system on iddle, and machines have really non confortably heat, and aditonal to that no need have the BRAIN of Einstein for understand that affect the live of internal components.

Solution?

Yes, if want run windows confortably and safe of hardware demage.......i mean, no execive heat, no noise, no premeature HD die etc etc..... just buy PC, specially if you want GAME with your machine, or edit video, audio or run any windows applications make high usage of CPU/resources.


Apples team create machines for run OSX and they have long way to run to solve the heat issues when run windows.

I order yesterday nice DELL machine for run windows, and leave my apples just for OSX
I buyed the beast !! DELL XPS M1730, its a bulky machine, but is the best portable solution if you need lot (and when say lot this is really lot) of power without heat and related troubles..


This Dell XPS M1730 has the following configuration:

* System: Dell XPS M1730 (Smoke Color)
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 (2.8 GHz)
* Memory: 2GB @ 667MHz - 2 DIMM Slots (2 x 1GB) (Max Ram 4GB)
* Hard Drive: 2x200GB 7200 RPM running RAID 0
* Graphics Card: Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700M GT with 512MB total memory
* Physics Card: AGEIA PhysX 100M
* Screen: 17" WUXGA Truelife (1920 x 1200)
* Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW/+R) with Dual-Layer
* OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
* Wireless Card: Intel 4965 (802.11b/g/n)
* Battery: 9-cell lithium ion recharegable battery
* Ports / Slots: 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader, DVI-D, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 4 USB 2.0, Express Card slot, Modem,


http://www.hothardware.com/articles/Dell_XPS_M1730_Mobile_Gaming_Notebook/?page=3


NOTE:
here in my country apple its overpriced, the full version of DELL M1730 its 100U$ less expensive of MACBOOK PRO 2.4GHZ !!

Look buddy, some of us don't have endless wallets to buy more than one machine if the other can handle the same tasks, although that is a good deal on that dell, I wouldn't buy it because we put our money into one machine for a reason...

 

[MurphyM]

Hey Rubber Shoes -

Did you get a cooling pad that has fans in it or just one that acts like a heat sink extension to the MBP case? I wouldn't be too interested in one with fans that had to be connected. but something like a tray might be workable...

 

[wallaby]

Most laptops have this problem - even the so-called 'gamer's laptops'.

In theory, it is putting a little extra strain on the machine and in the very long term, heat aging could become an issue, but provided the surface of the MBP itself isn't getting uncomfortably warm, you should be okay unless you're running games all night, every night

Actually, you'd rather have your MBP get warm when you're gaming--that's how it dissipates heat.

I play TF2 and Battlefield 2142 on XP on my MBP, and it gets pretty warm/loud, but as long as the room isn't ridiculously warm or I'm not gaming for hours on end, I don't worry about it. The laptop's gotta do what it's gotta do to cope with intensive games.

 

[Dj-Grobe]

I not are reach, i plain buy macbook pro 2.4ghz.........but after see taht dell, i decide dell, i repeat, here the price of macbook pro ist really overpriced, dell is more cheap.

Anyway when the machine arrival, i make a objetive and honest post about this beats vs macbook pro.

 

[aiterum]

Generally I'm not one to complain about the way a laptop works, but on the link above with the dell, that thing might have the specifications, but it looks absolutely terrible from an aesthetic standpoint.

 

[Killyp]

That's normal.

Generally, a computer should be working as hard as it can when it comes to games, so you'd expect all the cooling systems etc... to work at max, also the casing on the MacBook Pro should get warm - it's designed to. The casing on the MBPs dissipates heat - part of the design.


I don't agree at all with what Dj-Grobe is saying. All laptops get hot, Macs and PCs alike. The first-generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros had major issues with heat, but that's what usually happens with first gen hardware...

 

[RubberShoes]

Hey Rubber Shoes -

Did you get a cooling pad that has fans in it or just one that acts like a heat sink extension to the MBP case? I wouldn't be too interested in one with fans that had to be connected. but something like a tray might be workable...

I think you could find heatsink type trays if you wanted, but I had a regular plastic cooling pad with 2 roughly 60mm fans that pulled the heat away from the underside of the laptop and out the back...so in a way it acted as a heatsink by dispersing heat.

I loved it and it really saved a lot of power and laptop's life since the fans didn't have to kick into high rpms...and it was powered by any USB port...so you didn't have to carry an extra AC adapter around...

 

[CJRhoades]

I have a Targus Chill Mat that I picked up for about $25 US. It has two 4" fans that blow heat onto the bottom if the case to keep it cool... It works great for my MBP and PB G4. When I have it running I never hear the fans come on.

 

[Justinerator]

Honestly, you can just buy any random cooling pad to circulate air flow under the comp. I used to use SMC Fan Control in osx, then boot into windows with the fans still running, but I realized that puts unnecessary strain on your mbp. So I just went out and bought a $15 targus cooling pad. Now it doesn't have any overheating issues.

HTH!

 

[Matiek]

I use the targus pad but I've tried the belkin cooling pad as well and have liked it. On some of the targus pads you can even get a usb hub belt in which is nice. If I'm doing anything that's going to really heat my machine up I've taken to using the pad while running a small fan over the keyboard. Doing this I've seen things that used to rev my MBP up to 5400 rpm run at 2000 rpm. I know that this is a bit excessive on my part but I just like the idea of trying to make my notebooks run as long as possible.