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Problems with MacBook?

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AndrewL

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I've been thinking about getting a MacBook since it was announced. After scouring many of the Mac websites and discussion forums, I've come across problems pertaining to the following:

+ thermal issues
+ very active fan
+ imperfect sleeping
+ apps using rosetta slow down the system
+ slight separation near the crease of the chassis
+ battery issues

Just seeing this makes me want to wait for a post-Rev. A implementation.

However, I want to start becoming Mac literate (I've been postponing for too long). So I am tempted to get a Mac Mini for now.

I realize that with these websites and forums one will see mostly complaints. Before I go forward and purchase the Mac Mini, I would be curious to find out if there are any Mac Mini owners on this forum who are quite satisfied and whether or not if you've experienced any of the problems mentioned above.

Thanks in advance,

Andrew
 
AndrewL said:
+ thermal issues
+ very active fan
+ imperfect sleeping
+ apps using rosetta slow down the system
+ slight separation near the crease of the chassis
+ battery issues
Click to expand...
I bought 2 (a black and a white). So far I have yet to experience any of these issues. I haven't really tested rosetta that much. I think you will find that to get the max out of rosetta you need RAM. Loads of it. I've maxed out my white one and it seemed fine, even though I haven't pushed it yet. I'm still waiting for the RAM upgrades for my black MB.

Nico
 
AndrewL said:
I've been thinking about getting a MacBook since it was announced.
After scouring many of the Mac websites and discussion forums, I've
come across problems pertaining to the following:

+ thermal issues
+ very active fan
Click to expand...
These two issues are seen very often on forums, but only a small percentage of macbook (pro) owners actually experience these problems. I have several friends who use macbooks and macbook pros and they are yet to experience any of these problems....
AndrewL said:
+ imperfect sleeping
+ apps using rosetta slow down the system
Click to expand...
Apps using rosetta of course slow down the system. It's common sense. Even photoshp slows down the system because it uses part of the CPU to process its tasks. But apps running under rosetta just happens to be more CPU intensive...so they consume more CPU power. This is not an issue.....just a misunderstanding
AndrewL said:
+ slight separation near the crease of the chassis
+ battery issues
Click to expand...
Haven't heard of these
AndrewL said:
Just seeing this makes me want to wait for a post-Rev. A
implementation.

However, I want to start becoming Mac literate (I've been
postponing for too long). So I am tempted to get a Mac Mini for
now.

I realize that with these websites and forums one will see mostly
complaints. Before I go forward and purchase the Mac Mini, I would
be curious to find out if there are any Mac Mini owners on this
forum who are quite satisfied and whether or not if you've
experienced any of the problems mentioned above.

Thanks in advance,

Andrew
Click to expand...
Don't worry, buy your macbook. If it's a defective unit, then Apple will surely replace the defective one with a new one.......There's nothing to lose, only good things to gain from using a mac!

Good luck!

--
You can now boot both Windows XP and Mac OS X on a single machine without a
hack!
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

And check this out! The coolest keyboard I've ever seen!
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
 
i have also scoured the apple forums, to an embarassing extent. i have found some of these problems. but these problems are the very very small percentage of owners. i know many people who are thrilled with their macbook. its just not exciting to post "mine is perfect, and faster than i ever imagined"
rosetta can usually be sped up with a RAM upgrade

--
Blake Peterson
http://www.BlakePetersonPhoto.com
 
Yes, I've also been following that forum at apple, and if you watch for a while, it's mostly the same people posting over and over again about the problems. I think it's mostly pretty good, really. Also, I get a strong sense that most people there are very young windows folks, who think that every problem they have must be a hardware failure.
 
I've had a BlackBook for a couple of weeks, great machine. Very fast. Amazing wireless range.

Gets a bit hot, but all modern laptops get hot.

I've had a few Kernel Panics when disconnecting head phones, but it hasn't happened for about a week, so I gave up worrying about it.

--

Graphic Design + Web Design + Photography

http://www.molecule.com.au
 
AndrewL said:
I've been thinking about getting a MacBook since it was announced.
After scouring many of the Mac websites and discussion forums, I've
come across problems pertaining to the following:

+ thermal issues
+ very active fan
+ imperfect sleeping
+ apps using rosetta slow down the system
+ slight separation near the crease of the chassis
+ battery issues

Just seeing this makes me want to wait for a post-Rev. A
implementation.

However, I want to start becoming Mac literate (I've been
postponing for too long). So I am tempted to get a Mac Mini for
now.

I realize that with these websites and forums one will see mostly
complaints. Before I go forward and purchase the Mac Mini, I would
be curious to find out if there are any Mac Mini owners on this
forum who are quite satisfied and whether or not if you've
experienced any of the problems mentioned above.

Thanks in advance,

Andrew
Click to expand...
If you dont need the portability, the Mac Mini is tried and tested over a longer time.
Laptops are inherently more fragile than a desktop.
Get a nice display.
Just my take.
--
Rudi

It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby. - Elliott Erwitt
 
AndrewL said:
+ thermal issues
+ very active fan
+ imperfect sleeping
+ apps using rosetta slow down the system
+ slight separation near the crease of the chassis
+ battery issues
Click to expand...
Thermal Issues, this is probably the most widespread problem reported and it seems the MBs run between 50 and 70c doing light work. Some Macbooks seem to lean on the cool side while others are down right toasty. My was running around 60's to 70s (celsius) before I opted to reapply the thermal paste on the cpu, now its in the 50s.

Very active fan & imperfect sleep

Never heard these issues, I'm usually on the apple discussion forum, macnn and macword.

Rosetta slows the system down.

This makes sense since Rosetta is an emulation technology allowing powerpc applications to run on the intel macs. emualtions always runs slower then hardware. This will be less of an issue ans vendor's start releasing Universal Binary versions of their apps.

Slight separation near the crease of the chassis
Easy fix, tighten the screws in the battery bay

Battery issues

None and i've not heard of any, my battery lasts longer then my powerbook's battery ever did - even when new.

Conclusion and my $.02

The MB has some heat issues but apple says its running under spec (CPU rated for 100c), overall I'm very happy with my MB and the majority of problems you have posted are not widespread and/or easily fixed.

For the price I think the MB is an excellent deal, especially now if your a student because they've brought back the buy a MB and get a Nano program.

Regards
Mike
 
Mike_V said:
Gets a bit hot, but all modern laptops get hot.
Click to expand...
No they don't, yes some PC laptops are just as hot, but not all modern (or new) laptops run this hot. My HP laptop I use at work barely gets into the 40s and even then I have to artificially bost the cpu usage to generate the heat. Normal operations my laptop is very cool.

My laptop is not unusual in this factor, we have ibm thinkpads here also and no heat problems AFAIK

Bottom line apple screwed up. Just look at the posts about people saying the thermal paste was improperly applied to the MBs and MBPs.

I myself can confirm this issue. I disassembled my MB, cleaned off the thermal grease off the cpu, GMA95 and the heat sink. I applied a thin layer of Artic Silver 5 and now my MB is 10c cooler.

By the way the stuff that apple put on was gooped all over the place on my MB and thermal paste is used to facilitate the heat transfer from the cpu to the heat sink too much of the stuff actually acts as an insulator and causes temperatures to go up.
 
Probably in order to reduce the thickness, apple uses the aluminium casing partly as a heatsink. So it can get hotter than other notebooks.

I use 15" MacBook Pro. Hot, but extremely good. I can dual boot the machine either into OSX or Windows XP. It's so convenient and I love the screen. Never regret paying for it.

I still have an al G4 PowerBook 1.67, and have not turned it on since I bought this MacBook Pro.

It seems that both the white and black MacBooks are good as well.
 
I've had several Macbook Pros and returned them all for various reasons, but heat was a constant problem. They not only get hot on the bottom but also very warm on top which to me is unacceptable. When running Aperture, for example, I consistently reached CPU temps of 76C and HDD temps of 55C. These don't really matter much if it weren't for the fact that the outer case also gets incredibly warm and hot.

I 'downgraded' to a macbook and am totally satisfied. It's really the perfect size, has a great screen, is built like brick with everything extremely solid, is super powerful and, and and...I love it! I have had powerbooks since 1994 and besides the Pismo powerbook G3, this is by far the best one I've had. In fact, it's the only one that makes me smile! Finally a worthy successor to the beloved Pismo!

As for the Macbook's heat. Yes, it does get hot underneath, but it remains comfortable and not even warm on top. I would say that for such a small, thin notebook, it is extremely well-designed in terms of heat distribution. On top, the only place that can get warm is in the upper left corner, otherwise cool and comfortable. Underneath, it gets hot toward the back and more to the left than right. If you think about the design, the actual logicboard is in the upper left quarter. The upper right is the superdrive, the lower right is the hard drive and lower left is the battery. Unlike the MBP which had a HDD sensor that frequently went up to 55C under Aperture, the hard drive sensor on this one never goes beyond 35C, which means longer hard drive life. Same thing for the battery area -never gets warm at all.

Other things: whines, mooing, case separation. The whine, in my view, is a non-issue unless you put your ear up to the computer: it's that low. The mooing only happens at a certain temperature and only for a little while until the temp rises or goes down. I think there will be a firmware upgrade for the mooing as that happened with the MBP and it solved it. As for case separation, I noticed that on the left and right sides there is a a very very slight uneveness in how the upper plastic sits - i.e. a few mm difference from fron to back. Again, I'm very particular, but as long as I don't feel the case moving, I think this is fine. If it becomes worse, I'll send it in and Apple will fix it. I might even open it all myself and see what's up, but it really is not noticable unless you look for it - which I did after my experience with the sloppily assembled MBPs I had. No sleeping issue for me or any other issue besides the above.

to sum up: this is a GREAT notebook computer and I would recommend it to anybody. Feels great, is super powerful, has a nice bright display, is able to power an external display for photo work and has a great, light touch solid keyboard. You'll love it!
 
I work in it for a company that has received about 30 macbook pro's this year. The first revisions seemed to run a bit hotter then the later ones, but all of them (can) run hot. I don't have problems keeping mine on my bare legs, but only if I'm not doing anything too intence. I find this to be more silent then the 4 centrino notebooks I've had during the last 2 years, but it is a tad bit louder then my previous 15" 1.67ghz G4 (and bucketloads faster). I put the heat to the aluminium covers which transfer it efficiently to your feet (and the top side).

The first shipments of mbp's we received where louder then the last ones, mainly emitting strange buzzing or bad bearing sounds at random occasions. This seems to be a problem only with the first manufacturing batches.

My notebook has mainly had problems with build quality of the keyboard and mouse. The space key is far too damped, and two other keys are crooked. The mouse button is also a bit lower on the other side. It's all mainly cosmetic (apart from teh space which requires hitting a bit harder) so I have'nt bothered to send it in for repairs. I will next time I don't need a computer for a week.
 
i have never seen anything like that before. not even in the busy apple stores where people use them constantly.

that person must have dipped their hands in a bucket of rusty water before using it.

as far as getting the black. the situation is worse. the black trackpad is a magnet for smudges and finger prints. i havent seen any skin oil or dirt on my white macbook except for the occasional fingerprint smudge on the screen or glossy back side. for this i use iKlear and it works great with one wipe

as for the macbook pro. i wouldnt base your 1000 dollar upgrade on smudges (especially smudges that dont exist on normally clean people, just dont use your white laptop at a construction site)
--
Blake Peterson
http://www.BlakePetersonPhoto.com
 
I have a confession, i am extremly anal....

I have had two macbooks

First one:
Separation on casing, anoying.....
Slight scratch on glossy display.....
Mouse button did not work one side

Second One
Keyboard key F stuck
Scratch on the display

Macbookpro
Wifi is less powefull then macbook, slight slower
Screen is better, keyboard is softer

(2ghz, 512 mg ram, Ati x1600 128mB
 
This is making the rounds in the various Mac forums, and as a MacBook owner, I'm more concerned about this then the heat issue.

So far my white MB is stain free, but now I'm going to be down right paranoid. So far the people who have complained to apple about this have gotten responses such as cosmetic issues are not covered under warranty - not what I wanted to hear.

I chose a white MB because of reports that the black MB's finish may not wear to well - Plus the increased cost. For the record people are reporting that some black Macbooks are getting "shiny' with usage, i.e., the finish is wearing.
 
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