MacBook :: Idles Hot Even With No CPU Usage / Why Is This?
May 10, 2009
I've been trying and trying to get my 2007 Macbook C2D to run cooler. It idles at about 60-65 C even with no CPU usage (verified through Activity Monitor etc) and it used to get up to 95+ when playing any sort of video (Youtube etc) which would cause playback stuttering and other problems after 15-20 minutes.
I've tried a number of techniques to drop the temperature, most recently undervolting with Coolbook. Interesting, these have been relatively successful at lowering the *peak* temperature-- videos now only bump the CPU temp up to 70 C or so-- but it still idles at the exact same temperature it did before, around 60.
Does anyone have any theories why the idle temperature would remain high even after I've reduced the peak temperature, and even when CPU usage is hovering between 2 and 5 percent?
I have an iStat Menubar and it's constantly showing me 40% CPU usage. It also shows the same number in Activity Monitor. However, when I look at the processes running, they don't add up to 40. In fact, they only amount to around 6% or so. I did click "All Processes", but nothing was running that would cause it to be 40%.
I have a two week old MBP and I find that my battery performance is dismal.I'm only getting 2 hours per charge, and this is after Apple replaced my battery two days ago!I think it might be related to my CPU usage..Looking at Activity Monitor, my "% User" CPU usage is routinely above 26%, with only Safari running (no videos). Even with no programs open I run over 25%.
My MacbookPro is running way too hard and makes me think it's going to die any second,I just purchased it new from the apple store back in September the CPU my Java takes up is amazing. I've seen the number jump to 102+ which makes me wonder why my computer freaks out when I use java. I've included a picture of the CPU usage.
I have a MacBook Air Late 2010, and the fan over heats at around 30% CPU usage, I installed AppTamer to keep it down, but it is quite annoying to keep using it. Sometimes the fan will go at 18% when one application uses about 15%, but not 100% percent when its lots of other ones. App that generaly cause the fan to overheat are, obviously, high CPU ones, like Pixelmator, Photoshop, Xcode, but some times even low CPU usage, like YouTube or Video Content on Google Chrome, Safari and Google Chrome in general. Microsoft Office 2011, Pages, Numbers & Keynote. Even apps like Preview (viewing more than 5 photos ) can use alot of CPU. So what should I do? I have repairs under warranty till about September, but Apple charge £35.00 to chat online?!?! I have tried resetting the SMC which only works about half of the time. I read on the internet that it is a production issue or at least common Late 2010 MacBook Air's.
I'm debating between an air and a mbpro. I'll mostly use this for internet, excel, and iphoto. Is 4gb going to be enough for these uses? I have an iMac with 8gb and it really screams. How much better is the screen on the mba? I played with both at the apple store and I didn't really notice a difference? I do like the air since it was just updated. I figure if the mbpro's came out with something really cool i could sell and wouldn't be out that much money.
I've been monitoring the CPU temperatures on my 2 week old alu macbook frequently, and it always hovers at ~42 degrees celsius. However, today something odd happened, all of a sudden the computer was getting noticeable hotter (the fans remained off though), when I checked CPU temp it was up to 72 degrees. I checked with "Activity Monitor" and nothing was using up more than 2% CPU. Then I saw through iStatPro that system CPU usage was at 40%. What the hell? Its usually at 2-5%...i.e. always. After restarting, the system cpu usage was back down to 2% and the temperature slowly dropped back to its norm.
My MBA (Ver A 1.6) just started getting the "sluggish" symptoms. Started noticing that my CPU gets stuck at 90~100% after about 30 min of use, since about a week ago. I keep restarting the computer and after about 30 min, my MBA becomes very sluggish and iStat shows both CPU bars all the way to about 100%.
When this happens, the activity monitor shows the kernel_task at 125~130. This is too high, right? If it is, what's causing this? I can't imagine that any of the programs that I regularly use will cause this.
I don't know much about RAM and how it really works but here's my question: (i have new unibody 13" MBP w/ 4GB RAM) When i do a fresh restart i have anywhere up to 2.5-3GB free with basically NO applications open. But as time passes, web browsing, sleep, etc the amount of free RAM available goes down to <2GB even when i exit all apps...
1. Is this typical? What's the explanation for RAM being eaten up over time? Is it advisable to do a fresh restart every couple days or so just to free up RAM again?
2. Is it even common with 4GB of RAM for half (2GB) of it to be used all the time? (I'm guessing yes, but just wondering what's the explanation) For those who only have 2GB of RAM, do they always have 1GB being used? Or would even those 2GB's always be taken up?
After owning many computers i approached macs buying last generation of 15' powerboks and found my best user experience.
Then i made the mistake of buying an Imac24. It's another great machine but i found out that i'm one of those who like to have all in one computer, less problems you don't need to install the same apps in two places or sync itunes etc.
So after reading Waiting for arrandale thread i'm here wainting the delivery of a glossy HiRes 8gb ram MBP '15 i5 2,4ghz.
I've noticed that my macbook pro has been using a lot of RAM. I haven't really witnessed a slowdown on my computer b/c of any sort of shortage of RAM but I was just curious if this was typical (since this is my first mac). I have 4 GB of RAM and I often find myself with around 1-1.5 GB of free + inactive RAM. I had a linux system with 3 GB RAM before and it used between 1-1.8 GB of RAM and it seems like this system is using around 2.5-3 GB (active + wired). However, various OS X laptops in the past have functioned really well in the past with 2 GB and even 1 GB of RAM right? Is OS X just putting more processes in my RAM to speed up my system because more RAM is available OR does snow leopard just have high memory consumption?
I have to run a C program on terminal as fast as possible. However, there seems to be a cpu usage limit for the terminal, the program supose to run around 15 seconds on a linux machine with similar configuration where cpu usage is at 85-95%. But, it runs one minute on my macbook pro with cpu usage less than 15%. Finally, my question is, how do I utilize all of the 85% idle cpu for this program or at least most of the idle cpu?
My load average is often ridiculous. For example, when I wake from sleep it's usually 45 or so. Even when I'm doing nothing with the machine (CPU is about 10% in each core) I still see load averages of 1.2 to 1.6 or so.Is there a way to figure out what is causing the load?
I believe there might be something wrong with my MacBook Pro-It's a late 2008 one, mid configuration. Intel C2D 2.4 Ghz, 2 graphics card, 2GB RAM, ... (Using SL)
I usually find myself using up most of the RAM, with 96MB of RAM left right now, and sometimes when using Photoshop, up to 15MB. My CPU usage is quite high, with Chrome using 17% + other Chrome processes.
I'm only opening up 13 active tabs with 12 pinned and disabled tabs; Is the CPU usage too high?
I've been trying to keep track of how my 2ghz unibody Macbook uses its RAM, and I've been curious as to why after some time it reports that I have as little as 30 MB of free RAM left. It obviously reports that the rest is in use, but the numbers just don't add up to 1.9GB of used up RAM. What is my computer doing that is not being reported, and how do I get it to stop? It has made my machine noticeably slower. I've posted a screen shot to illustrate. It may help to know that I had been a Windows user for years. In Windows we can launch msconfig.exe to manage which programs get to run in the background and at start up, and from there we could decide to shut down programs that check, for example, for RealPlayer updates and other completely unnecessary executables. Can someone give me a run down of what I can safely eliminate from my processes in my Macbook, and therefore keep more RAM free at all times?
The HD crashed about 2 years ago, and since the replacement (TOSHIBA MK6034GSX 60GB) the CPU will go very hot 80+C and the fan going to 6200rpm if visiting some internet pages. Normally a problem if (when) the kids are playing free online games or visiting youtube or similar. Made a screenshot, notice CPU usage around 112%, smartfan showing 70C and 6200rpm. I have taken the mac physically apart and cleaned the cooling duct and applyed new thermal paste. Didn't help. It drives me crazy, I hate noisy computers.
I will be running MS Excel, preview, firefox, and activity monitor. All of a sudden my Activity monitor says that there is about % User of 50% and the fan will start running. I cannot find what program is making it run this high. I quit every program and it gets stuck on this until I restart the computer. I have done this about 3 times and it always comes back. None of the programs are registering high CPU usage. My last computer had an overheating problem where the fan was always on and that was part of the reason I switched to Macs - really hoping that issues doesn't follow me from Windows to Mac.
I bought one of these: [URL] and decided to do an experiment, now on standby (Laptop cover closed) it consumes 1.432 per night (8 hours). Laptop on standby, Cover Open but Display in Sleep mode for 8 hours costs 4.731 per day. So that means per month on standby at night, my Macbook costs 44.392. This can't be right? Because if it is, I might have to turn it off at night from now on.
I just ordered a macbook pro 13" 2.26ghz for school, however this means i probably will not get an iMac until mid 2010. This means i will have to use my macbook pro as my main computer for a while. Does anyone else use the macbook pro 2.26 as their main machine and how good is it at managing general usage (word processing, watching vids, etc.
If you have a Hypermac battery in any capacity what are the actual usage times you get with it then? I'd rather not pay extra for time I don't need but I don't want to buy too little either.
My machine is 2.26 MBP 13" with 8 GB ram and x-25m 160gb so I'm guessing I might get a little more out of the internal battery. Hypermac tells me that the 100w is their most popular model.
So I finally went to the Apple Store and got my very first Mac, a MacBook Pro 13" .
Anyways, I got the baseline configuration that came with 4 GB of memory. Playing with the Activity Monitor, I noticed that after awhile of using the computer, the green "free" memory piece of the pie becomes progressively smaller until it's almost gone. Does that mean I have no more free memory left? But I'm not running a lot of programs at once. Just Safari and iTunes, maybe Pages too.
My new MBP is constantly either reading or writing to the disk. I had the problem before, reinstalled OS X, everything seemed better until it started again. Disk seems good, smart checked, tried to run diskwarrior but unfortunately not supported by this Mac.
It seems to heat up quite a bit too.
Activity monitor shows no cpu hogger and doesnt give info on the software writing / reading to disk
I just bought my first mac (2010 13 inch base model) and i was looking in Activity Monitor when i noticed that my free system memory is around 15-20mb. Is this normal? The only things i have running is chrome, itunes, and steam. Would these programs eat up memory? if this is a stupid question please forgive me!!!!
do you think the 17 macbook pro is too big for normal computer usage (not talking about professional usage they require the extra size like photographers and video) is it too big for the rest of us? Is the extra screen space and pixels not worth the compromise in size?
At the moment I'm only running iTunes, HelTweetica and Safari, but my memory/CPU graphs are really high and jumpy. Is it supposed to do this or am I just being too paranoid?
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro with an 2.66 GHz i7 processor, 8 G-Byte of RAM and a 500 G-Byte hard drive with plenty of free space and am running OS X 10.7.3 . Whenever I run a Windows 7 Pro virtual machine under Parallels 7, ~ 6 G-Byte of wired memory is used. I have allocated 4 G-Byte of memory to the virtual machine. I would expect plenty of free space and that used to be the case but no longer. I am tired of an unresponsive machine and spinning beach-balls.
Hey all, I'd like to know how to check the status of my hardware, particularly my RAM and graphics card. I remember partitioning some of each, along with some of my harddrive space, to an application a while back that has now been deleted. However, it seems as if my computer isn't running as quickly as it had been. Is there any way to redirect all hardware power to my harddrive, and delete all other partitions? I haven't messed around with it much, yet, but I'd like to get a lead from someone who has done it before.
