6 ms·

This is a severe problem for me with my 15" MBP. Long meetings (heck, even short) with colleagues make it extremely hot to the touch (keyboard and frame) and de

This is a severe problem for me with my 15" MBP. Long meetings (heck, even short) with colleagues make it extremely hot to the touch (keyboard and frame) and destroy the battery. Same with streaming netflix or youtube videos. Microphone seems fine but not great quality. It wasn't my decision to purchase this computer, it was my company's, but I'm very disappointed in its performance at simple two way audio video communication via hangouts and skype. I'll add that it can also get extremely hot just from running a simple local node.js server and mongo database. Not sure how normal that is but they seem like they should be fine considering i have no incoming or outgoing traffic, it's just keeping the port open.

LoSboccacc 11y ago
I guess it's what you get when all your customer focuses on your 'wireless battery duration' benchmark macbook temperature envelop has been optimized for idleness way to long, even on MBPs. Mine (2015 first retina) gets unbelievably hot, especially since we got steam on mac it's running floored most of the time, but so far hasn't died.
eropple 11y ago
I had the original rMBP, now the 2014 one, and don't see the same problem. A lot of it is in the persistent services that are running on the machine; I'd take a good look at Activity Monitor's "energy" pane. One thing I noticed: if you're using Chrome and have persistent pages open (cough, GMail, cough), this is probably a big part of your general heat issues. It made me go back to Firefox for a while, but Firefox's habit of occasionally just locking up because something crunchy is happening in a page was even worse.
- copperx 11y ago
  Safari handles those cases like a pro.
  - eropple 11y ago
    It does! Safari is much better at battery life. But, for my use cases, it's an unusably poor browser outside of its rendering engine. My extensions don't work within it, I can't easily find equivalents, and there's no easy, good way to sync between Safari and browsers on Windows (Xmarks hosed my bookmarks so badly that I haven't yet even fixed all of them).
    - justizin 11y ago
      Overwhelmingly, I find FireFox with AdBlock and click-to-enable Flash much better than Safari without them.
      - eropple 11y ago
        Firefox has the bad habit of jumping off into space and not coming back for a while, which makes it a non-starter for me.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  Open a video hangout in Safari. My early 2013 rMBP would go to 200 degrees per iStat and stay there for the duration of the call. Skype would keep it around 160.
fenomas 11y ago
I'm relatively new to Macs, but it seems like it's partially a cultural thing. When I first got a macbook for work, I found my fingertips got really uncomfortable from how hot the keyboard and mousepad got, and assumed there was a problem to be solved, but several Mac-centric colleagues said they just got used to it. I wound up downloading some random app that lets you control when the fans turn on - and voila, a cool(ish) keyboard. As near as I can tell, by default OSX intentionally just leaves the fans off until well after things get uncomfortable.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  I get extremely uncomfortable with any keyboard that's hotter than my fingers. Why do people put up with this? ThinkPads aren't great either, though a Broadwell CPU is fast enough that I can leave it throttled to 700MHz and day to day Visual Studio (except compiling) and Firefox usage is fine. This way it stays under skin temp.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  "You're holding it wrong!" Apple can do no wrong! /s
- hellbanner 11y ago
  I've gotten first degree burns from an old MBP that overheated. It's like they didn't test it..
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    They do test it, it's just that Apple values form over function. Because of this, they run their gear with a much slimmer thermal margin.
    - marincounty 11y ago
      I sometimes wonder if this form over function is a bad idea? Wouldn't the average consumer like a product that was easily serviceable? I have an old Toshiba Satellite Pro s25-S607. It big(17" and I don't care about the weight), but it has been basically running 5 hrs/day for more than a decade. It does gave three fans, but they are quiet. I can work on it! I think the first company that builds a laptop that's easy to work on, and can guarantee supply parts for, at least 7 years, might be able to win over guys like me--who want consistancy? I want to turn it on, and do work. I don't need the fastest chip. I do want to be able to work on the devise myself. I am older, but never understood this weight thing--make it out of metal(Aluminum is fine. Use the case to disperse the heat--great! I don't care, as long as I can take out the screws, and put them back in, and they don't strip.) I have seen so many products start out great, but get too fancy. So fancy, they don't work? And can't be repaired, reasonable priced, because of the Fancyness? (Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fanboy, but they are loosing me with every new upgrade, and model.)
sz4kerto 11y ago
That's the main reason I ended up buying a Zbook G2. During summer, the 2013 rMBP was unusable, basically.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Don't know about that, have a late 2013 rMBP and never had any problems. What exactly do you people do? Put the laptop on your bare (maybe even oiled) legs, while sunbathing?
  - Gigablah 11y ago
    No need to be condescending.
deanclatworthy 11y ago
My 15" Retina MBP gets extremely hot after just a few mins of waking up. I've checked the activity monitor and the CPU is barely active when this occurs. I just opened it a few minutes before writing this comment, and touching between the top of the keyboard and the screen is almost too hot to touch.
- Implicated 11y ago
  There's a handful of people in this thread reporting this experience. I'm on a late '13 15" rMBP and I don't run into these heat issues until I introduce video. Youtube, vimeo, gaming, basically anything video related and things start warming up quickly... but when I'm just browsing, no fans, no heat. (Ambient temp currently is 75f - MBP sitting on a table top, been using it for a few hours now, with a vagrant instances up. Almost zero heat from any piece of the body. But if I fire up a video... that will change to hand melting heat very quickly.) The inconsistency of the reports of heat issues makes me very wary of buying a new MBP, purely on the 'lottery' chance of getting the issues so commonly reported that I don't seem to run into. (I also don't have Wi-Fi issues that most mention, or issues running external displays and coming out of sleep.)
  - SalimoS 11y ago
    I have the same problem on my 2012 15" MBP (not retina) I don't remember when it started but only this year Always between 50° and 60° Celsius only the cpu (but nothing is opened)

LoSboccacc 11y ago

I guess it's what you get when all your customer focuses on your 'wireless battery duration' benchmark macbook temperature envelop has been optimized for idleness way to long, even on MBPs. Mine (2015 first retina) gets unbelievably hot, especially since we got steam on mac it's running floored most of the time, but so far hasn't died.

eropple 11y ago

I had the original rMBP, now the 2014 one, and don't see the same problem. A lot of it is in the persistent services that are running on the machine; I'd take a good look at Activity Monitor's "energy" pane. One thing I noticed: if you're using Chrome and have persistent pages open (cough, GMail, cough), this is probably a big part of your general heat issues. It made me go back to Firefox for a while, but Firefox's habit of occasionally just locking up because something crunchy is happening in a page was even worse.

copperx 11y ago
Safari handles those cases like a pro.
- eropple 11y ago
  It does! Safari is much better at battery life. But, for my use cases, it's an unusably poor browser outside of its rendering engine. My extensions don't work within it, I can't easily find equivalents, and there's no easy, good way to sync between Safari and browsers on Windows (Xmarks hosed my bookmarks so badly that I haven't yet even fixed all of them).
  - justizin 11y ago
    Overwhelmingly, I find FireFox with AdBlock and click-to-enable Flash much better than Safari without them.
    - eropple 11y ago
      Firefox has the bad habit of jumping off into space and not coming back for a while, which makes it a non-starter for me.
FireBeyond 11y ago
Open a video hangout in Safari. My early 2013 rMBP would go to 200 degrees per iStat and stay there for the duration of the call. Skype would keep it around 160.

fenomas 11y ago

I'm relatively new to Macs, but it seems like it's partially a cultural thing. When I first got a macbook for work, I found my fingertips got really uncomfortable from how hot the keyboard and mousepad got, and assumed there was a problem to be solved, but several Mac-centric colleagues said they just got used to it. I wound up downloading some random app that lets you control when the fans turn on - and voila, a cool(ish) keyboard. As near as I can tell, by default OSX intentionally just leaves the fans off until well after things get uncomfortable.

MichaelGG 11y ago
I get extremely uncomfortable with any keyboard that's hotter than my fingers. Why do people put up with this? ThinkPads aren't great either, though a Broadwell CPU is fast enough that I can leave it throttled to 700MHz and day to day Visual Studio (except compiling) and Firefox usage is fine. This way it stays under skin temp.
marcoperaza 11y ago
"You're holding it wrong!" Apple can do no wrong! /s
hellbanner 11y ago
I've gotten first degree burns from an old MBP that overheated. It's like they didn't test it..
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  They do test it, it's just that Apple values form over function. Because of this, they run their gear with a much slimmer thermal margin.
  - marincounty 11y ago
    I sometimes wonder if this form over function is a bad idea? Wouldn't the average consumer like a product that was easily serviceable? I have an old Toshiba Satellite Pro s25-S607. It big(17" and I don't care about the weight), but it has been basically running 5 hrs/day for more than a decade. It does gave three fans, but they are quiet. I can work on it! I think the first company that builds a laptop that's easy to work on, and can guarantee supply parts for, at least 7 years, might be able to win over guys like me--who want consistancy? I want to turn it on, and do work. I don't need the fastest chip. I do want to be able to work on the devise myself. I am older, but never understood this weight thing--make it out of metal(Aluminum is fine. Use the case to disperse the heat--great! I don't care, as long as I can take out the screws, and put them back in, and they don't strip.) I have seen so many products start out great, but get too fancy. So fancy, they don't work? And can't be repaired, reasonable priced, because of the Fancyness? (Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fanboy, but they are loosing me with every new upgrade, and model.)

sz4kerto 11y ago

That's the main reason I ended up buying a Zbook G2. During summer, the 2013 rMBP was unusable, basically.

coldtea 11y ago
Don't know about that, have a late 2013 rMBP and never had any problems. What exactly do you people do? Put the laptop on your bare (maybe even oiled) legs, while sunbathing?
- Gigablah 11y ago
  No need to be condescending.

deanclatworthy 11y ago

My 15" Retina MBP gets extremely hot after just a few mins of waking up. I've checked the activity monitor and the CPU is barely active when this occurs. I just opened it a few minutes before writing this comment, and touching between the top of the keyboard and the screen is almost too hot to touch.

Implicated 11y ago
There's a handful of people in this thread reporting this experience. I'm on a late '13 15" rMBP and I don't run into these heat issues until I introduce video. Youtube, vimeo, gaming, basically anything video related and things start warming up quickly... but when I'm just browsing, no fans, no heat. (Ambient temp currently is 75f - MBP sitting on a table top, been using it for a few hours now, with a vagrant instances up. Almost zero heat from any piece of the body. But if I fire up a video... that will change to hand melting heat very quickly.) The inconsistency of the reports of heat issues makes me very wary of buying a new MBP, purely on the 'lottery' chance of getting the issues so commonly reported that I don't seem to run into. (I also don't have Wi-Fi issues that most mention, or issues running external displays and coming out of sleep.)
- SalimoS 11y ago
  I have the same problem on my 2012 15" MBP (not retina) I don't remember when it started but only this year Always between 50° and 60° Celsius only the cpu (but nothing is opened)