Snow Leopard and heat on the MBA - Post your anecdotes here

[Jobsian]

So far I've been hearing only sparse and now conflicting reports about heat produced by MBA with Snow Leopard. Initially the reports were mainly that less heat was produced, but I'm now seeing one or two posts that it's made their MBA/MBP hotter.

To those who have or experienced an MBA with SL, please post whether:

A) MBA perceptibly cooler
B) MBA perceptibly warmer
C) No perceptible difference

to previous OS, thanks

 

[GeekGirl*]

definitely warmer.

 

[Jobsian]

Mr Ayeing, aka Brian the voice of reason and wisdom, had reported cooler temps iirc - still think it's perceptibly cooler?

 

[tsubikiddo]

So far I've been hearing only sparse and now conflicting reports about heat produced by MBA with Snow Leopard. Initially the reports were mainly that less heat was produced, but I'm now seeing one or two posts that it's made their MBA/MBP hotter.

To those who have or experienced an MBA with SL, please post whether:

A) MBA perceptibly cooler
B) MBA perceptibly warmer
C) No perceptible difference

to previous OS, thanks

B) MBA perceptibly warmer
SL 10A432
w/ Arctic Silver 5

My rev.B 1.6 HDD is cooler in idle (32C @1800rpm) but it heats up easier
I suspect the temperature sensor has become more sensitive albeit the fan is just as lay back and inactive.

 

[McGilli]

I installed build 432 last week when I got the dvd from Apple - and I can't say warmer or not since I use mine on a stand - but my fan is on MUCH more that it ever has been before.

This is with only Safari and Transmit FTP being used. No flash sites - Just Apple Seed forums.

I am guessing that any computer with a NVIDIA chipset will be warmer as more data is flowing through that processor now?

 

[ayeying]

Mr Ayeing, aka Brian the voice of reason and wisdom, had reported cooler temps iirc - still think it's perceptibly cooler?

i didn't post here yet... lol...

but anyways, I kinda notice an increase in fan going up and down, unlike in leopard where it just goes up and stays up for a while. temps are slightly cooler, nothing drastic (1-3 deg C max)

 

[Lounge Deluxe]

I just bought and installed SL on my rev. A 1.8 64GB ssd MBA that I purchased only 3 days ago for a bargain. The MBA ran pretty cool on 10.5.8 and the fan didn't spin up when no app was launched or even when only Safari was launched. But now with 10.6 the fan is almost always on under the aforementioned circumstances. One moment the fan isn't audible and the next moment it's at its max, then may slow down a bit to continue at half speed.

I installed the SL version of CoolBook and set it to 800Mhz@.900V and 1.6Ghz@0.900V (thus crippling the 1.8Ghz for the sake of a possibly cooler cpu and a more quiet MBA) when connected to AC, but it seems to make no difference. I will end up with 10.5.8 again if I can't fix this during the coming weekend, as 10.6 brings nothing that I really anticipate for my MBA.

Of course YMMV.

 

[ooo]

Anyone's machine staying at 6200 RPM even on idle? (Assuming no coolbook or tweak). I've been plagued by that issue for a while. And for those upgrading from 10.5.8 to 10.6 be aware that your iPhone may not show up in iTunes.

 

[tsubikiddo]

Anyone's machine staying at 6200 RPM even on idle? (Assuming no coolbook or tweak). I've been plagued by that issue for a while. And for those upgrading from 10.5.8 to 10.6 be aware that your iPhone may not show up in iTunes.

I am on the extreme opposite
Earlier on, the machine has heated up to 79C as the result of acrobat error and some looping occured
it was to my dismay that the revs never have spin up until I use smcFanCtrol to force it spinning at 6000rpm

there's just something really wrong with AAPL's temp management

 

[mykelala01]

Rev A Macbook Air 1.8 64 ssd and 10.6

So Far so good I install Coolbook I guess it run more cooler than 10.5.8 considering Summer heat Outside temp over 90F everything seems faster and no core shutdown so far

 

[slapguts]

My Rev.A went quite nuts upon initial install, but it turned out to be Spotlight running it's index. As soon as it finished, it's running cooler, faster, ad the fan seems to be idling more. Of course, I lost iStat Menus, so the numbers not being easily visible might be swaying my opinion.

 

[Lounge Deluxe]

Did anybody else notice the strange throttle behavior of the SL version of CoolBook? I noticed that it went back and forth to lots of frequencies that I hadn't set in CoolBook, as if the OS X throttle settings were still active and not 'overruled' by those of CoolBook.

 

[adamjackson]

Mine is certainly warmer.

I don't honestly know why.

 

[prefabsprouter]

Mine runs *significantly* warmer with Snow Leopard.

Rev. B. SSD 128

 

[nintendude]

My rev A 1.6/80 runs a lot warmer and the fan is on more often than 10.5.8

 

[MBP653]

Snow Leopard Heat

I installed Snow Leopard (SL) on My MacBook Pro 13" / 2.53 Ghz / 4GB mem, and noticed that the temperatures are much lower. My app that I use to monitor the temp use to show about 170 degrees all the time and the fan would reach around 4k. After installing SL the temp is consistent around 108 - 110 degrees and the fan is averaging about 2,750 rpm. Now it is comfortable to have my mac on my lap! Really like the changes from SL. I also run Parallels using Windows XP and have same great results - runs cooler!

 

[wbarker]

Much Hotter

I thought my MBA Rev A was running much hotter now that I upgraded to Snow Leopard so I did a little test. I disabled Spotlight on my drive, turned off every application and left the unit running for two hours, lid open.

When I came back, smcFanControl was reporting 158 F with a fan speed of 6192 rpm.

In fact, just typing this post - with Mail open - has caused the temp to rise to 153 F @ 5855 rpm.

 

[mrgossett]

I just finished installing SL on my MBA Rev. 2 1.86 SSD. I had about 5 minutes or less of the fan speed maxing, but then it settled back down to where it had been before. It's running cool and quiet now.

 

[ayeying]

Update:

I seem to see my MBA running a lot cooler.

I'm idling, on cold boot around 35-40 deg C

When idle after a heavy load (HD Movies/TV Shows or Games or Windows 7), it is around 50-55 deg C

While running my virtual machine, temps rise to 70 deg C but the fans don't go above 3500 rpm, and if it does, it quickly returns back down to 2500.

I've only seen the fans hit 6200 when I was using it on the bed watching YouTube and playing games in Windows 7

So far, I'm impressed with SL's thermo management.

 

[nph]

Ok, now this makes me a little nervous about upgrading when I get my disk tomorrow hopefully (if USPS is on my side, Amazon estimate said already today...)
I have a rev B with SSD and it is growing on me except the temp, although not too bad I dont want it to be any hotter and it seems most rev B owners report higher temps after SL.

Was it worth it from speed or memory usage point?

 

[tsubikiddo]

Was it worth it from speed or memory usage point?

honestly, the biggest noticeable gain from Leopard to SL would prbly be the boot & shut down time
and the AAPL apps as well, they are really really quick

however, pretty much just about every other apps,
they run just as fast as they were in Leopard
(I can soooo feel Scott is coming in and start rebutting things now)

so I guess that brings up the Q, what do you use your MBA for ?

 

[dehory]

With general use (the only programs open are Firefox, Transmission, iTunes), I have found my MBA Rev B is running a few degrees cooler, and the fan is changing speed more frequently.

On a cold start in 10.5.8, the CPU would hit 61-63 deg C once I cranked up Transmission. Now it's more like 56-59 deg C. Before, the fan would jump between ~3k and ~6k, but now it goes up and down in the ~3k-4.5k region. This points to more sensible and active temperature control in SL, IMO.

 

[mulubinba]

I installed SL on my revA Macbook Air. As soon as I started using it I noticed the fans spinning up to 6200 and CPU temp up to 80 degrees C. Activity monitor revealed mds and java were both going crazy. After some trial and error I was able to figure out that Crashplan might be the culprit. I downloaded the installer from their website and ran the uninstall routine which instantly fixed the problem! I like Crashplan and have a paid subscription so I will install the latest version which I am told is okay. Might wait a few days though.

 

[AIRniloc]

after a clean install of SL on my rev B SSD MBAir, i had the fan issue...after re-setting the SMC it seemingly went away..

after testing some 1080 .mkv files I found that the fans would still stay peeked out around 6100ish..

i've found that putting my machine to sleep and then re-waking it corrects the issue..

i have a feeling there will be an update to fix this issue shortly..

 

[pilotError]

When I first installed SL, everything was fine.

Going on Day 2 (shutdown overnight), I had Safari open and was changing mass permissions on an external drive, and the fans kicked in. When that finished, I noticed everything cooling down, the fans started to slow, but then they kicked back into full blast again.

I'm not sure what the issue is, I've never had heat issues, or ever heard the fans kick in unless I was doing some heavy disk activity. Certainly never with just Safari open.

This is a Rev A 1.8 ssd version.

I may upgrade to the latest flash version, and see if that was the issue.