Screw CPU, what about heat? MacBook Pros that run hot!
3 September, 2007 – 5:03 pmI’ve been using a MacBook Pro for about 12 months now, and whilst I love this machine and its capabilities, it does tend to run at high temperatures. I use my laptop as a desktop replacement mostly, and whilst on my desk, I pretty much run parallels (virtual machines) all day long. This sees a constant use of CPU around 10:20%+ for usr:sys …
Most notably is the collection of heat around the power supply and leading edge of the keyboard on the thin strip before the monitor. Now I don’t sit here willingly burning my hands on these hot spots, but the heat is noticeable and can be uncomfortable to work with all day. Traveling on the train gets worse, as the heat tends to cook my left thigh…
The solution was to run a simple program called Fan Control 1.1. You can download this program from here.
Fan Control adjusts the minimum fan speed depending on the current CPU temperature. For safety, it leaves the original automatic fan speed control intact.
Since running this great little program, I’ve noticed around 6-8 degrees difference in running temperature (if you can trust the screen shot), and the added noise of the tiny fans blends in nicely with the white noise at the office. Great solution for those tired of working with hot mbps.
