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Chrispy

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 27, 2004
2,270
524
Indiana
In light of all the threads going on right now bashing Dell and Windows, I am left wondering... how are macbooks these days. It seems like it keeps getting suggested to people in those threads so I was wondering if they got better lately or if they still have issues. Last time I really did any research was after I had one with problems back in May. Are they still whining, mooing, overheating and shutting down randomly? Just curious how things are going for people now?
 

jamone80

macrumors regular
Sep 22, 2006
109
0
So Cal
i've had my macbook, 2ghz stock-white, since early august and its never "randomly shutdown" on me. not sure about the "mooing" sound...it only gets hot when i dont have the ceiling fan on in my room, cuz my room is an oven, and it'll get a little sluggish. i've heard about all the problems from other users but everyone uses their macbook for different things.

i'm a student and i use it all day when i'm sitting through lectures (ichat, word, powerpoint, itunes, firefox running) and i've had no problems. half the time, i leave it on all night and start the cycle all over again. maybe i'm just lucky? hope this helps.
 

aznfreak

macrumors newbie
Sep 28, 2006
11
0
I've had my macbook now for about all of 3 days. And although it hasnt been that long, I've had no problems with the macbook. The macbook runs cooler than I expected, regularly at 35 degrees celcius. Sometimes it will go up to 50 degrees. The display model I played around with was noticably hotter than my macbook. They probably havent dont any updates.

However, my friend that got his on the same day already has a noticable whine he says and he wil be contacting apple about his problems. Hopefully my macbook will stay trouble free for years to come.
 

wako

macrumors 65816
Jun 6, 2005
1,404
1
i wish my macbook moo'd now...


now at around 60 degrees celcius the damn fans turn on at full blast.... damnit...
 

saga

macrumors regular
May 19, 2006
159
0
My macbook has been healthy from the beginning. I think that people tend to notice the negative posts rather than the lack of good ones. There will always be some sour apples, but the book is cool.
 

Chrispy

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 27, 2004
2,270
524
Indiana
Another question for you all. A friend of mine has a MB (with the whine) and she is thinking about getting a 20" monitor to hook up to it. Can you hook up an external, close the lid of the MB and run the external as the main and only monitor? Will it run well? I have no exerience with the integrated video on the MB or how it behaves with an external display. Thanks!
 

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
wako said:
now at around 60 degrees celcius the damn fans turn on at full blast.... damnit...
Mine started to do that a few weeks ago. I reset the PRAM and it hasn't done it since.

Chrispy said:
Another question for you all. A friend of mine has a MB (with the whine) and she is thinking about getting a 20" monitor to hook up to it. Can you hook up an external, close the lid of the MB and run the external as the main and only monitor? Will it run well? I have no exerience with the integrated video on the MB or how it behaves with an external display. Thanks!
I've had no problems doing that. Just make sure that the MacBook is hooked up to external power and that an external keyboard and mouse is attached. Apple has a support document about how to do this somewhere on their site.
 

CHINAdeals

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2006
25
0
i'm getting some sort of moo/whine..when opening multiple or single 'videos' online / on the computer (like vid clips..break.com etc.) the fan goes nuts..

pretty noticeable and loud.but bearable i 'guess'..i'm trying to fix it now..

besides that..im'loving every minute of my macbook..

ppl say updates are 'on the way'..if you can wait..wait.but if you need it now.why not..go for it..i just got tired of waiting :X

was a pc user..dont' think i'll go back anytime soon..macs are just nicer.. :D
 

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
Yeah, the fan will go pretty fast when you're doing something CPU intensive (which makes more heat), like watching a video or something.

Weird about the moo (where the fan comes on and then goes right back off). After the SMC firmware update, the moo went away for most folks. :confused:

Glad you like your MacBook overall!! :)
 

jamone80

macrumors regular
Sep 22, 2006
109
0
So Cal
aristobrat said:
Yeah, the fan will go pretty fast when you're doing something CPU intensive (which makes more heat), like watching a video or something.

yup, especially when encoding video to make dvd's. on mine, the fan will kick for about 2-3 minutes, until it cools down a bit. it does that throughout the encoding process. but if you let it run while your sleeping then its no biggie
 

CHINAdeals

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2006
25
0
aristobrat said:
Yeah, the fan will go pretty fast when you're doing something CPU intensive (which makes more heat), like watching a video or something.

Weird about the moo (where the fan comes on and then goes right back off). After the SMC firmware update, the moo went away for most folks. :confused:

Glad you like your MacBook overall!! :)

so i guess that's normal? maybe i'm confusing a loud fan (max power) for a 'moo'..

it just gets pretty loud SOMEtimes..when i watch a vid online or something (streaming / buffering etc.)

think i should bring it into a store?
 

Chrispy

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 27, 2004
2,270
524
Indiana
I almost forgot about this thread. I'm curious... Apple is now saying all macbook created have the new heatsinks that keep them from having the random shutdowns. Does anyone know which week build this started on?
 

Donz0r

macrumors 6502a
Jun 29, 2006
903
23
Chrispy said:
I almost forgot about this thread. I'm curious... Apple is now saying all macbook created have the new heatsinks that keep them from having the random shutdowns. Does anyone know which week build this started on?


Can't say what week it is, but can't say that it's helping either!

Mine is week 20 and had the random shutdowns over the summer. Huge pain in the ass. Well I sent it in and it took way too long, about 2 weeks to get back. They said that they replaced the heatsink.

About a month ago it started randomly shutting down again, that's about a month After I got it back from them!! I've been ignorning it because it would happnen like twice per week, but within the past 15 minutes just now it's randomly shut down about 8 times. It's horrible and even if the majority of MB owners don't experience it's still a Huge problem with the macbooks. Apple needs to get their **** straight on this one, about 30% of people at my campus own macbooks, most of them are switchers, and I know when their apple starts to **** out on them they'll have their doubts.

I'm going to call AppleCare (again) the only problem is that the Stock Ram is back at home, and i'm at school with my 3rd party 2gb. I hope they'll take it like that and leave the ram in it, I'll verify with the phone person taht they'll do that.

*Sigh* oh apple, i just want a laptop that is Useable!
 

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
Chrispy said:
Does anyone know which week build this started on?
Would appear to be week 35 according to this ThinkSecret article.
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0908macmini.html

Donz0r said:
Apple needs to get their **** straight on this one
Their ****, at least for the people having had theirs repaired recently, appears to finally be straight. If you got yours back a month ago, that was right on the cusp of when Apple notified its service providers about the new heatsink. The second week of September or something like that. Are you near an Apple store? A lot of Genius Bars are able to fix it the same day.

Donz0r said:
I hope they'll take it like that and leave the ram in it, I'll verify with the phone person taht they'll do that.
FWIW, they took mine in with 2 1GB sticks of non-stock RAM and a non-stock HD with no problems!
 
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