MacBook

GeeZa · Post by **GeeZa** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:52 am 0

I hate horror stories like that from any bit of tech, so frustrating given how expensive these things are. Apparently some of the early MacBooks had poor fans, firmware, and also a faulty heat-sink sensor. The combination also caused the random shutdowns as the sensor reports overheating when it isn't. Mine's earlyish and I can hand-on-heart say I've not had any issues with it at all. Probably lucky. But yeah, all those issues have reportedly been fixed. Shit happens. Have you tried to get yours fixed/replaced?

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:21 am 0

It's usually not a good idea to buy the 1st gen of a new Apple product. They have a history of quality problems that get worked out usually by the 2nd minor release.

I'm probably going to get one of these 15.4 inchers (the 17 is tempting, but it's HUGE to lug around). Finally I get get a box with Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X, and Gentoo all on the same 64-bit system.

How much video RAM is needed for Vista? 128MB or 256MB? Am I not going to notice a difference unless I'm playing high-end 3D games?

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:38 am 0

Answered part of my own question. The following is from Wikipedia. You need 128MB minimum video RAM to run Vista in Aero-UI mode:

Microsoft has listed the following requirements for what they call a Vista Premium Ready PC. A PC that meets or exceeds these requirements will be able to use the new Aero technologies. [3]

* a 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1 gigabyte of system memory
* a DirectX 9 compatible graphics processor, with a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver, and a minimum of 128 MB of Video RAM
* 40 GB hard drive with 15 GB free space
* DVD-ROM Drive
* audio output and Internet access

The minimum requirements for graphics cards from the major vendors include the Radeon 9500 from ATI Technologies and the GeForce FX from NVIDIA. [4]

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:40 am 0

I can't remember if it was the MacBook or MacBook Pro but Apple
has made changes to one of them, I saw pictures on the internets
last week that showed the changes. If I see them again I'll post
them here.

gravy · Post by **gravy** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:13 am 0

@Snakey

Have you tried this on your macbook? It may enable you to have a cooler machine for a bit more fan noise.

tufty · Post by **tufty** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:47 am 0

Dave wrote:It's usually not a good idea to buy the 1st gen of a new Apple product. They have a history of quality problems that get worked out usually by the 2nd minor release.

Maybe I'm lucky, but my last - ummm - 5 apple machines have been "revision A" hardware, and the only issue I've had is the lousy IDE firmware on the G3 desktop not allowing slave drives.

And yet I'm still wary of buying an intel until they have been through a few revisions. Go figure.

Simon

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:30 am 0

Well I've had my MB Pro Core 2 Duo for a day now, and am liking it quite a bit. Parallels with Virtue (fix your damn website) is ace! Basically, Windows XP Pro, Mac OS X, and soon Gentoo Linux all running at once with easy hot-key action to switch between them. Secretly I want VMWare to release their beta soon, as I'd rather pay for that than Parallels (keep all VM's in the one popular format).

After firing up the Office 2004 demo, I remembered why I hated it so much and deleted it. Office 2003 Pro on XP it is.

Parallels is shit for 3D stuff though (bootcamp is the way to go if you want to play Windows games). It did have a memory leak once for me and nearly crashed the system (also ate up both cores 100%). I was able to force-quit in time though.

The lappy is fairly quite, unless I power up the Halo demo in OS X. Then the fans start cranking as the CPU and GPU are being pushed. Otherwise it's real quite. No wine issues from MB Pro version 1.0 at all. No dead pixels.

Being 64-bit ready is a plus too with EM64T.

Post by **Snakey** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:09 am 0

Dave wrote:Well I've had my MB Pro Core 2 Duo for a day now, and am liking it quite a bit. Parallels with Virtue (fix your damn website) is ace! Basically, Windows XP Pro, Mac OS X, and soon Gentoo Linux all running at once with easy hot-key action to switch between them. Secretly I want VMWare to release their beta soon, as I'd rather pay for that than Parallels (keep all VM's in the one popular format).

After firing up the Office 2004 demo, I remembered why I hated it so much and deleted it. Office 2003 Pro on XP it is.

Parallels is shit for 3D stuff though (bootcamp is the way to go if you want to play Windows games). It did have a memory leak once for me and nearly crashed the system (also ate up both cores 100%). I was able to force-quit in time though.

The lappy is fairly quite, unless I power up the Halo demo in OS X. Then the fans start cranking as the CPU and GPU are being pushed. Otherwise it's real quite. No wine issues from MB Pro version 1.0 at all. No dead pixels.

Being 64-bit ready is a plus too with EM64T.

Bollocks to all that, man, tell us what we need to know.

Does it get hot?

skip · Post by **skip** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:14 am 0

According to Jason O'Grady, no. http://powerpage.org

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:55 pm 0

Snakey wrote:Bollocks to all that, man, tell us what we need to know.

Does it get hot?

It does towards the back when intensive CPU stuff has been running. I haven't used it in "lap" mode. I'll give it a shot later today and see what it's like compared to my past laptops.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:01 pm 0

Dave wrote:Well I've had my MB Pro Core 2 Duo for a day now...

Bastard!

Mine's on the plane from Shanghai at the moment. Probably won't get it till next weekend.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:14 pm 0

Jon wrote:
Dave wrote:Well I've had my MB Pro Core 2 Duo for a day now...
Bastard!

Mine's on the plane from Shanghai at the moment. Probably won't get it till next weekend.

Mine went form Shanghai to Alaska to here rather quick. Then again, it was expedited shipping.

It's worth the wait though.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:40 pm 0

Snakey wrote:Does it get hot?

I just gave it a go at Halo. Yes, it gets warm when playing that on A/C. After going for about 20 minutes, I placed it on my legs (bare skin). It was hot, but not scorching, and it cooled down after the heat transfered into my body. It's on par, heat wise, with other higher-end laptops I've used before.

I literally exited Halo 1 minute ago, and the fans have quieted completely now. So it feels able to cool itself efficiently. The only time I've heard the fans going was with Halo, and once when Parellels crashed on me (sucked up all the CPU power). Other than that, it's quite and no warmer than your normal laptop.

If there are heat problems, they'll be all over digg/slashdot in two weeks, no doubt about it. I don't expect that to be the case, but time will tell.

EDIT: skip's post above mentioned this article.

I received my brand new MacBook Pro 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it runs much cooler than my previous MacBook Pro.

My Core Duo MacBook Pro 2.0GHz (2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive) would frequently reach temperatures of 162Â° Fahrenheit after running for more than an hour. It would become so hot that it required me to run Fan Control 1.1 if I needed to use my machine anywhere near my lap.

Oh god, this thing isn't even close to 162F. That's insane. I think it's a night-and-day comparison to these Macbook Pro's (Core 2 Duo) and the 1st gen ones (Core Duo).

Deckard · Post by **Deckard** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:42 pm 0

Apple store is down - could it be - More Core 2 Duo MacBook Rumblings..

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:53 pm 0

Deckard wrote:Apple store is down - could it be - More Core 2 Duo MacBook Rumblings..

Mac Mini with Core 2 would be nice too. Xmac for bonus points.