MacBook Pro 2.2 Heat Problems

[Aperus]

I have a MacBook Pro 2.2 machine and have been experiencing a lot of heat/fan problems. I'm running 10.5.8 and using Ableton Live as my DAW.

Exhibit 1: Spotlight and Bad Index
My first problem was that the MBP seemed to ramp up and down without explanation. I started watching activity monitor and traced the random ramp up and down to the tasks mds and mdworker which I then was able to trace to the spotlight application by googling. I downloaded the "spotless" application, cleared my spotlight index and let spotlight reindex the machine. This took about 10 to 15 minutes for it to reindex. No more random ramping up and down of the processor/fans due to mds, mdworker and spotlight.

Though, I am curious about this - how in the heck can activity monitor exceed 100% for a task - any ideas?




Exhibit 2: High Idle Speed?
I downloaded iState and Fan Control and started watching the temps on my machine while it did various tasks. On average, when my machine is nearly idle, it runs at 133F. Looking at this database of mac temps, this doesn't seem to be that far out of usual range:

Intel Mac Temperature Database

So, here's my machine not doing much of anything - running at 133F:




As an ongoing comparison, here's the computer supplied by my job, not doing much of anything. It's a MacBook Pro 2.4 machine and it seems to idle at about 115F.



Odd... A difference of about 15 degrees. Doesn't seem like a big deal right? Totally within range and what you might expect.


Exhibit 3: Increase the Load, Increase the Temp

Yes, it's obvious, increase the load, and you increase your temp and your fan speed.

Here's the MPB 2.2 running live with a few tracks and no audio interface - it's running at 162F:




Here's the MPB 2.4 doing the roughly the same thing - it's running at 120F:




Exhibit 4: Adding firewire audio interface increases the temp even more

So, now I hook the machine up to my RME FF800. After searching, i find it doesn't matter which firewire interface you use, it will increase your CPU temp. I'm not blaming RME on this one.

MPB 2.2 running a basic song through firewire - it's running at 200F and the fans are on full. This is what I have to endure working on a basic song:




Here's the MPB 2.4 doing running a basic song through firewire - running between 125F and 135F - a huge difference!:




Exhibit 5: High Intensity Operation

Here's the MBP 2.2 rendering a song - it's running at 211F.




Thoughts / Questions

1. Heat impacts musicians more than other users, though it's annoying to all users. Personally, I think manufacturers should strive for accuracy with their hardware temps just as they strive for clock speed since it does impact us. Imagine being in the graphic design world and the colors on your monitor could fluctuate 20 to 50% depending on the machine you had. That would be unacceptable. Why is this any more acceptable for people in the audio world?

2. How is it possible for CPU load to exceed 100% in activity monitor? Is this because it's a duo core machine?

3. I'm comparing two machines with temperatures vastly different between them. You can see lots of variance in the temperature database. But, is what I'm experiencing on the 2.2g machine normal?

4. Since I find this machine unusable due to loud fan noise recording and mastering on my own and in other studios where live recordings are sometimes being made, I'm wondering if there's a model that is proven to be cooler and thus quieter. How about the Macbooks, MacMini's, iMacs, or the new MacBook Pros?

5. Can anyone shed light on their experiences moving from the earlier MacBook Pro's to the newer unibody MacBook Pros?

Thanks for reading and any comments.

Brian