Macbook Pro Heat Problems

mathew

Did a quick search and it didnt turn up much.
Got my Macbook pro last October. Its been working fine since, up until about 2 days ago.
It now gets really hot. So hot its uncomfortable to have on my knee. I cant hold the back of my hand on the underside of it without it hurting!!
Since this has started happening the battery life has seriously deteriorated. It used to last about 4 hours using wifi in college. Today I got about an hour and a half out of it. Im running on battery now also. It was full when turned it on about 30 mins ago, and there is now under an hour left.

Anyone experienced the same problem or heard anything about it?

cornbb

It could be the case that there's a CPU-heavy process running now that wasn't running before, that would explain both the heat and the shorter battery life. Open up Activity Monitor (in Applications -> Utilities) and take a look at the processes/applications running, see if you can spot anything new/unusual that's eating a lot of CPU. Have you installed any new applications or started doing anything new with it?

If this is the case I guess its good news, if not you probably have hardware issues.

jtsuited

mathew wrote: »

Did a quick search and it didnt turn up much.

how quick was your search? google results

no need to worry too much. there's been a plethora of problem with overheating macbook pros since they came out. new firmware tends to fix it from what i have read. I've had a few kneeburners myself!!

mathew

cornbb wrote: »

It could be the case that there's a CPU-heavy process running now that wasn't running before, that would explain both the heat and the shorter battery life. Open up Activity Monitor (in Applications -> Utilities) and take a look at the processes/applications running, see if you can spot anything new/unusual that's eating a lot of CPU. Have you installed any new applications or started doing anything new with it?

If this is the case I guess its good news, if not you probably have hardware issues.

A process was the problem. Should have checked that before I posted! Pring Job Manager was using 99-100% of one of the cores!!!
Dont know why it was but it seems to be fixed now!!

Thanks!

cornbb

mathew wrote: »

A process was the problem. Should have checked that before I posted! Pring Job Manager was using 99-100% of one of the cores!!!
Dont know why it was but it seems to be fixed now!!

Thanks!

Sweet, you'll know what to look for if it happens again.

Dorsanty

mathew wrote: »

A process was the problem. Should have checked that before I posted! Pring Job Manager was using 99-100% of one of the cores!!!
Dont know why it was but it seems to be fixed now!!

Thanks!

Stupid multi-core technology. I remember when a run away process would grind your machine into the ground. So you knew what was the problem. How would you spot or notice a bad process on a 8 core Mac Pro?

iStat nano is a good dashboard app by the way, will give you a quick look at your temps, top processes, mem usage etc etc.

cornbb

Dorsanty wrote: »

How would you spot a bad process on a 8 core Mac Pro?

If you ctrl-click your Activity Monitor in the dock you can set the icon to display a bar graph for each core, like so:

whiterebel

Dorsanty wrote: »

iStat nano is a good dashboard app by the way, will give you a quick look at your temps, top processes, mem usage etc etc.

Nice spot Dorsanty - Looks like the best widget todate.

ZENER

cornbb wrote: »

If you ctrl-click your Activity Monitor in the dock you can set the icon to display a bar graph for each core, like so:

Sweet ! Ya learn something new every day I guess ! Thanks

ZEN

meep

I use smcFanControl to dynamically adjust fan speed and control temps. Works well (MacBookPro was overheating and crashing before I installed it).

http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/

However, have noted temps are up and battery life is down since I installed Leopard on my 15" MBP.

Peter