RTE Player frying my MacBook

silvine

I was watching the RTE player in Chrome on my MacBook when the fans kicked in. I checked the system temp and found the cpu was 85C! Is this normal?

Sad Professor

Pretty much. Any Flash video will do this. This is why Apple won't allow Flash on their iDevices.

ozt9vdujny3srf

If its a big issue for you, you could always boot into windows every time you want to view a flash video!

Sad Professor

Abel Jolly Science wrote: »

If its a big issue for you, you could always boot into windows every time you want to view a flash video!

Sure, but that's kinda like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. :pac:

snappieT

Flash on OSX just doesn't run well. This is one of the main reasons I've recently departed from Apple-land.

conor.hogan.2

On a side note - run a html5 video on youtube and check your activity monitor it also uses a lot of memory a tiny bit less than flash but not a huge deal.

That said I have flashblock on and only use it when i have to - just html5 video is not a unicorn.

AlanD

Could be about to change: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/15/adobes-flash-player-10-2-to-offer-up-to-ten-fold-improvement-in-cpu-efficiency/

cornbb

If you use Safari, try installing ClickToFlash. This will block any flash content until you click on it, so you will never have to run flash content unless you explicitly want to.

You can change your YouTube prefs to use HTML5 instead of flash, although I haven't found it to work very well.

Finally, if your machine is getting very hot make sure it is well ventilated, i.e. put it on a hard surface, not a cushion/duvet.

legomanx51v

go to..
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Download plug-in for 32-bit Mac OS X (DMG, 5.5 MB)

enjoy reduced cpu usage and a tempreture drop from 85C to about 60-70C :P

deflemonkid

Sad Professor wrote: »

Sure, but that's kinda like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. :pac:

Surely you mean from the ice box into the sun :P

(Looks both ways......MAybe no one saw anything )

Matt Bauer

I recommend Google Chrome, as it has a built in Flash player that is constantly and automatically updated in the background. Adobe is working on making Flash more efficient. Using Chrome will ensure that you always have the newest version, and it's also more secure as it runs Flash in a sandbox.

Hotblack Desiato

Sad Professor wrote: »

Pretty much. Any Flash video will do this. This is why Apple won't allow Flash on their iDevices.

Normal CPU temp on my Macbook is 45-50C going up to 55-60C when watching videos, but that's under Linux. It has noticeably worse performance under Tiger and the user interface is maddeningly awful.

Sad Professor

ninja900 wrote: »

Normal CPU temp on my Macbook is 45-50C going up to 55-60C when watching videos, but that's under Linux.

I assume you have the latest version of Flash installed, in which case I'm sure it does. Otherwise this certainly wouldn't jibe with what I used to hear from Linux users about Flash not so long. However, Adobe have been forced to start getting their act together recently. And I'm sure the Mac OS X version of Flash will start seeing big improvements before long as well.

Hotblack Desiato

Sad Professor wrote: »

I assume you have the latest version of Flash installed, in which case I'm sure it does. Otherwise this certainly wouldn't jibe with what I used to hear from Linux users about Flash not so long.

I keep Flash updated but no noticeable performace gains in the last couple of years. In an ideal world none of us would have it installed as it's a dog and a major source of security vulnerabilities, but in practical terms we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future. OTOH there are plenty of functional and safer alternatives to Acrobat Reader's bloated, bug-ridden code. TBH I doubt Adobe are capable of getting their act together as there has been a constant stream of issues with their products for years now.