Over heating issue, is it because of OSX?? (windows works fine)

[al82]

I have had 3 MBAs and ALL have had the issue of over heating. Videos stutter and tasks such as closing a program or moving the mouse cursor across the screen even lag.

I read people saying elevate it or leave the back of the laptop off the edge of the table to get better ventilation......COME ON PEOPLE WE ARE PAYING £1200 WHY SHOULD WE NOT BE ABLE TO USE IT LIKE A £299 LAPTOP.

I read on the apple forums that someone tried running the exact same youtube videos for 2 hours using osx leopard and after 20 mins or so it started stuttering and frame rate dropped, something i have experienced a lot.

Here is the thing, they installed XP using bootcamp and the EXACT SAME VIDEOS ran for 2 HOURS WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS WHAT SO EVER.

Surely if this is true that means that OSX is the culprit and not the hardware, which gives hope that a firmware update can fix our problems.

I was hoping someone has installed XP that can try this out. That can leave a movie running, then go onto youtube and run 30 mins worth of movies on OSX and then on the XP partition and see if it indeed does run much better on XP.

Has anyone here got XP installed to see if the stuttering of videos occurs on XP also???

This would really help in determining if the problem is software or hardware based, meaning we can decide if to refund and wait a couple of months or wait for a firmware update.

I just hope apple do not ignore this problem.

 

[clayj]

I certainly hope no one is surprised at the possibility that programs running under different operating systems might use the CPU differently... especially considering that we already know that Leopard has issues with wireless network connectivity (i.e., frequent inability to get or remain connected to a wireless network).

Apple definitely needs to get their collective butts in gear and address these issues. The MBA is an excellent computer, but it does seem that many of the issues that have been mentioned are caused by software.

 

[al82]

There is NO reason why a 1.6 dual core should stutter when playing a 200mg episode of simpsons on avi. It must because its overheating, but why from a task my mobile phone can perform.

Apple are aware of the issue cause its on their forums :

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1415343&tstart=15

 

[Phil A.]

There is NO reason why a 1.6 dual core should stutter when playing a 200mg episode of simpsons on avi. It must because its overheating, but why from a task my mobile phone can perform.

As you say, it's because it's overheating. Take it back to Apple and get them to sort it out because it shouldn't overheat (mine doesn't)

 

[Sesshi]

The MBA is an excellent computer

It is? News to me. It's very pretty but there's little about the hardware that outright impresses.

To the OP, it could be due to the X3100 heating up and causing the CPU to go into a protected state - and similar problems may occur with Vista + Aero Glass as with Leopard. Both of the more modern OS's hit the GPU heavier under normal use. XP is very lightweight in that regard. Speculation of course - I can't comment as I haven't had many issues with heating, apart from when the notebook crashes before sleep once it's bagged. This isn't unique to OS X though. I've had similar problems in XP, although never in Vista - at least, not on a non-Apple.

Some of the issues - for me, power and wireless for starters - as well as obvious ommissions given its competition are clearly hardware compromises borne of inadequate engineering, that being sacrificed to meet a marketing or stylistic goal - something that is very typical of Apple. It wouldn't surprise me that Apple has screwed up on cooling yet again. However, I'm not having heat problems with the notebook - likely because I don't use it as my main machine and all I really do on it is Citrix/RDP, web, Word and Entourage.

If you continue having problems with it despite returns and you want some usable all-round performance without having to baby it, perhaps it's time for a subnotebook that's designed as a workhorse and not as a trinket - from the likes of Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba et al. As far as cooling is concerned, they will be noisier in everyday use for the most part as the fans are going almost all the time as opposed to the MBA, but when being pushed you'll notice that the non-Apples don't ramp up to the level of the MBA.

As I bought it mainly for how it looks to use in meetings and other public engagements it's liveable with for me - but if you actually want to get stuff done on something that's well under the weight of a Macbook / Pro as your main machine, perhaps it's worth considering other (non-Apple) options.