Cooking an egg on a MacBook

159!!!! great scott!!!, you could boil some water.

I think MacBook pancakes are what I’m eating during the next power outage!

I like the idea of putting the coffee on the power suppy!

“But it’s virus free! It’s a perfect system…” Fans cost what, $5?

Boiling water? Not really. Since water boils at 212, your Macbook would have to get at least that hot. But hey, theoretically speaking, if you’re cooking an egg, that means heat is leaving the computer and going to the egg, and the egg is essentially acting as a heat sink, so you’re actually helping cool the thing… :-p

/quote
159!!!! great scott!!!, you could boil some water.
/quote

…since water has a boiling point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and he clearly says that his MacBook reaches 159 Fahrenheit, not Centigrade.

“159!!!! great scott!!!, you could boil some water.”

I suppose you could be joking – or from one of the Celsius based parts of the world – but I’m pretty sure you’d have to be on top of Everest to boil at that heat!

maijc, water boils at 200 degrees Farenheit…

159 degrees is misleading. If you click through on the link you will see that that the proc temp was 159. It does not say anything about the external temp. So unless you plan on boiling that water directly on the proc your efforts might be sadly in vain.

wow cool….no need any fan

“159!!!! great scott!!!, you could boil some water.”

I sure hope you’re kidding. Water boils at 212 F. Thanks for playing.

Boil water? Isn’t that more like 212 degrees? Besides, you’d get everything wet.

The processor went to 159 degrees, not the case. The case is not even near that temperature.
I’d like you to see you cook an egg on your processor.

Ummm…wasn’t this a joke?

Maijic, Water boils at 202 Fahrenheit..

Lets call it CookBook instead..

> 159!!!! great scott!!!, you could boil some water.

Uh, no. Boiling point is 212 degrees F, 100 degree Celsius

id like to know what kind of work he was doing on the macbook to get it this hot. i got my ibook to 166 degrees last night after like 2 hours of switching back and forth from imovie and idvd, encoding, copying and editing. but if thats when the machine is idle? yeah, its freaking hot

“OMG st00pid water boils at 212 F LOL!”

Yeah, we heard it the first time. Read the other posts before commenting.

This freaks me out a little bit because I am planning on buying a Macbook this fall as my main machine. I haven’t used a Mac since my dual-floppy Mac SE days (which still runs btw!) but this temperature issue really concerns me. My crapy Dell notebook can get hot but is the Macbook really that bad? To me this is the only thing that might keep me from buying one of these laptops as aside from the heat issue it looks to be the perfect notebook for me.

It’s not a Mac problem per se, it’s the high-powered CPU’s that output tons and tons of heat. I’m writing this on a Fujitsu-Siemens that is also core duo-based and it gets plenty hot too. In the wintertime I’m sure I’ll enjoy the toasty warm keyboard, but in the middle of summer it gets a bit sweaty.

The people whining about the heat now would be whining about the fan noise if Apple had opted for high speed fans in the machine and let’em rip – and moving lots of air is required to cool these CPU’s. Moving a lot of air with tiny fans means incredibly annoying noise – personally I’ll go with silence and a hot computer over a luke-warm computer that sounds like a vacuum cleaner that has been crossed with a giant-sized mosquito.

Just for the record, water boils at 100c :P lol

Mark:

If you have an Apple store, go play with one. I have owned 3 PowerBooks in the past, and I can honestly say that I am very impressed with the MacBook. The value for me is that I can use Parallels to run other operating systems. I opted for the $1099 model and added 2GB RAM myself. Soon, I’ll bump up the HD to 120GB so I can add more Parallels images (Win2K, WinXP, Linux, etc.). Love it! Don’t misunderstand me–I spend 95% of my time on Mac OS X. It’s just nice to not have to boot up another machine.

I wish Apple would have included a DVI adapter, but I bought theirs for $20.

FWIW, I do use a pad if it is on my lap. I use a thin children’s book with a little $9 plastic fold-out notebook stand from CompUSA. It will run hotter if you are charging it while you use it. Also, these things have a 1-year warranty so I’m not concerned. I will get AppleCare before my year is up though.

Good luck with your decision-making process!

One last item. Coming from PowerBooks, I am very impressed with the battery life. I can normally squeeze more than 3 hours from my typical duty cycle. I remember I had to buy an extra battery for my last PowerBook to get this much life.

Hey, who cares if you can boil water on it?

I know the powersupply for my powerbook is very nice for keeping my coffee warm:) but I dont think I’d try cooking on it yet… could be annoying getting egg inside the damn thing.. (and a 12″ powerbook doesnt get that hot…)

anyway. its cheaper to buy a hotplate and a fryingpan that to repair your powerbook after getting it full of egg.. (dont thing the warranty covers eggdamage..)

Are you getting the cold weather package from Apple?

This article is completely misleading. 159 processor temperature is completely normal.

For example, Xeon in servers have failure threshold at 90C – or about 196 Fahrenheit. As long as the system can keep the CPU below that temperature, it will run fine.

All the components in Macbook are the same as in Dell, IBM or whatever, they will produce the same amount of heat for the same amount of work. If you don’t want the heat, get a cell phone instead of laptop. The heat will come out somewhere – whether it is the underside, the side, or trapped in the laptop and fry your motherboard. Where do you want it?

And I cannot believe there are so many clueless people blaming Apple for this.

If you’re at sea level water boils at 212 F, if you’re higher than that it boils at a lower temperature due to the change on the atmospheric pression,

Simple thermodinamics.

MacCook?

Lets get apple to make the next case out of tephlon so that it doesn’t stick!!!

I think the people saying that this post is blaming Apple for something are being a little over sensitive. I don’t think anyone is *blaming* apple. If you carefully and closely read the story you’ll just find that its says it gets hot enough to cook and egg. It says *nothing* about this being bad or that “Apple sucks for not having better cooling” or anything of that sort.

There are a lot of mac zealots out there who refuse to bear any sort of comment that might even be construed as a criticism of their beloved Apple. Someday I do hope they will wak up and realise that its just a damn computer – not a way of life.

Oh, and befomre someone says I don’t understand because I don’t use a mac – I’m writing this on my 12″ powerbook. Thanks for playing.

212 not 100! LolZ@teh Selciuses! Me toooz!
-brain dead aoler

while 159 may be a perfectly reasonable temperature for a processor J Huang it isn’t for the laptop housing the processor, especially when it’s sitting on your leg. Yes that heat must escape, but apple’s choice of diverting it to your legs isn’t really a good one.

i have one and it does not get over 100 F or 50 C

i meant its usually a little over 100 F, the most ive seen is 50 º when burning a dvd.

hey…i wonder if anyone can post what temp water boils at…man i sure wish i knew…

stop posting that people…once was enough. we get it already…one guy doesn’t know squat about science and the rest of you are condescending jackasses…sweet…keep perpetuating the generalization that mac owners think they’re better than everyone else…

[quote]Yes that heat must escape, but apple’s choice of diverting it to your legs isn’t really a good one.[/quote]
thats actually not even apple’s choice… their choice is the DESK as the computer is considered a PORTABLE computer, not a “laptop” — its going to get hot; wtf its not like you touch the hood of your car and expect it to not be hot right?

You know, Mac could have a great invention going here. The all new iCook! Surf the web while you cook breakfast. Multi-task.

May the egg be with you.

you americans are weird – you can’t even get your units right!

the sientific unit for temperature is deg. celsius – just forget about F!

wow…
can’t believe!!
I think maybe iBook G4 is better……

As much as I love apple, this is partially apple’s fault. They are putting WAY TOO MUCH thermal paste on their laptop’s components. too much paste acts as an insulator, sealing in the heat rather than transfering it to the heatsink. Google it, you’ll see what I mean.

:P u could boil liquer on it :D

Several \”Quick\” Comments:

1.) If anyone bothered to go to the original web site where the original photo and comments are posted, you will see that the comments end with the disclaimer, \”P.S. This is a joke…\” Of course, no one has the reading skills or attention span to get that far.

2.) Think about how damn big and complicated PowerMac G5 has to be to keep two (or four) processors cool yet quiet. Despite these efforts, most PowerMac G5s throw off enough heat to warm a small room. Try sitting with one of those on your lap. Not only is it heavy, but its warm. No chance in hell ever getting that thing into a notebook case

3.) Consider the Core Duo based MacBooks and MacBook Pros. These machines perform as well as–if not better than–dual PowerMac G5s on many tasks. You\’ve got the computational power of a dual processor PowerMac G5 in a small, mobile form factor!!

4.) The Core Duo gives you the performance of a dual G5 using less power and generating less heat. (Did you know that the current dual core PowerMac G5s ship with a 1000 watt power supply?) That does not mean the Core Duo is going to be as cool as or cooler than a G4. This does mean it is going to be more efficient and cooler than a G5.

5.) Apple packs the computational performance of their behemoth PowerMac G5 into an iBook sized case. No matter what chip you use, that much processing power is going to generate a heat. Intel chips allow Apple to do what IBM/Freescale could not and all people can do is bitch about the warm cases.

6.) People love to bitch about anything. Assuming that a change in fan performance kept the MacBooks and MacBook Pros cooler, people would complain about the fans being on too much, the fans being too loud, the decreased battery performance, all of the above and then some.

7.) While some will defend Apple to their last breath and believe the company can do no wrong, others will chastise and castigate the company and believe it can do no right. Apple could build a laptop/desktop/iPod that fit their very wettest wet dream and these people would still find something wrong with the device and complain that Apple had a defective product.

8.) I wonder how many of these people claiming Apple uses too much thermal paste have PhDs in thermodynamics and/or electrical engineering. I wonder how many years of experience they have designing, building and testing hardware from scratch. I don\’t know, but maybe Apple with all of their PhDs, Master\’s Degrees, and 30 years of experience might know more than these schmucks?

9.) Most people who claim the amount of thermal grease Apple is using is too much have screwed up re-assembly of their machines and neglected to connect one or more thermal sensors. As a result, the unit\’s fans are ALWAYS on. When the fans are always running you will naturally have a lower temperature.

Water does actually boil at 159 degrees farenhei!

You only need to be heigh enough over sealevel.

Well I think that about wraps it up. Thanks for tunning in. Till next time…Goodbye.

This roundtable has been brought to you by:

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and were out.

great show everyone

Whatever… I was always under the impression that excessive heat shortens the lifespan and or damages electrical components. Any laptop is likely to be a significant investment for most people and they would expect it to last for two or three years at a minimum. Who really cares about boiling water or frying eggs? It makes me hungry just thinking about it. The issue at hand is the manufacturers not doing whatever it takes to dissipate the excess heat in a way that is both safe for the consumer and preserves the lifespan of the device. Apple is at fault for failure to provide adequate cooling (along with many other manufacturers). I believe this is caused by:

1. Haste to bring new products to market so as to not disappoint “Wall Street�.
2. Consumers who are generally unwilling to pay for proper heat sinking and ventilation and instead are demanding unrealistically low prices and compact size.
3. It’s what everyone else is doing, if Macbooks were larger or heavier or more expensive it would be detrimental to market share.

I would expect these trends to continue, bad press to plague the best know players and a more than a few surprised and disappointed consumers. The PC buyers will switch brands and the Apple folks will justify replacing their cooked McBook with a newer model.

All is well with the world……
My Dell desktop wishes you all peace and love.

Actully, the entire world (aside from America) is on Celcius. It’s only you nutty Americans who insist on using archaic measurement systems that make no logical sense. I mean, why would the boiling point of water be set at 212 degrees farenheit? Why would zero farenheit be set at an arbitrary abount? Crazyness, pure crazyness.

Gimmie Metric any day, where everything is powers of 10, and you can instantly tell how many millimetres are in a kilometer without having to pull out a calculator or do ten minutes of mental calculations.

@geekbomb “I suppose you could be joking – or from one of the Celsius based parts of the world”

Do Americans know that United States, Liberia and Myanmar are the only countries that have not officially switched to the metric system ?

Dear Rene Kabis, Is this post about the macbook temperature or about the Celsius vs Fahrenheit issue? If you have any issues regarding the superiority of each I think this is not the right forum to address your criticism. Besides, dumbass, do you realize that in America the metric system is indeed used in every field (science, medicine, etc). I guess you don’t! And besides, America is ONE of the (if not THE) most technologically advanced nation in the world regardless of which system we use. Can you say that about where you are from?

Now to the issue at hand. Yes, they do get a little hot! Yes, I wish they didn’t. No, I wouldn’t change my mac for any other computer!

Define “excessive heat”.

According to Intel’s specs, the Core Duo chip can operate at temperatures up to 100 degrees Celsius and will shut down if temperatures exceed 125 degrees. MacBook Pros tend to operate at 40-50 degrees Celsius under “normal load” and at 75-85 degrees Celsius at “full load”.

So where is the excessive heat?

the sientific unit for temperature is deg. celsius – just forget about F!

Uhm, no.

The scientific unit for temperature is Kelvin (K).

lol, you morons, water boils at 100C, not 200.

get a clue you dumbasses

Taiwan says there is no problem….. See? Denial is not just a river in Egypt

Article here:
http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20060714VL203.html

There is a really great app called Liquid Coolant that freezes up the processor and you supposedly don’t even need a fan
Link here:
http://www.lytron.com/standard/cold_plates.asp

I am a PC gal, so I am not sure if it will work for a Mac. I also got a cool app with the motherboard that is called Speed Fan and it shows the drive and processor temps – cool:
http://www.download.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10540297.html?tag=lst-0-2
However, it is a windows based app.

GL

“René Kabis
13 hours, 2 minutes ago

Actully, the entire world (aside from America) is on Celcius. It’s only you nutty Americans who insist on using archaic measurement systems that make no logical sense. I mean, why would the boiling point of water be set at 212 degrees farenheit? Why would zero farenheit be set at an arbitrary abount? Crazyness, pure crazyness.

Gimmie Metric any day, where everything is powers of 10, and you can instantly tell how many millimetres are in a kilometer without having to pull out a calculator or do ten minutes of mental calculations.
”

Yeah, well it is a big rock, but it is our big rock, and we just spend a lot of time on fractions in school. Plus, if you are a cook, like me, you have always worked with cups, pints, and not litres. Sorry bud, we will not change this system, not matter how stupid it is! We are Americans! *lol*

Anders resents the mispelling of his name ;-)

We’re not just nutty Americans, we have GWB, a fooking idiot.

Next time you need to boil water on your way up Mt. Everest, just bring your macbook. At 27,000 ft elevation and the barametric pressure at 29.92 water boils at a cool 159 deg. F

check it out
http://www.biggreenegg.com/boilingPoint.htm?pressure=29.921&elevation=20000&bpf=

Who needs McDonalds? Finally I can get my Egg “Mac” Muffins anywhere on the go. The Macbook makes it so easy, even with Canadian bacon and cheese…well, hold the cheese please.

People, please READ, the 159 F is CPU speed! This is an absolutely normal CPU temperature for years after P3/G3 generation.

And no, the MacBook won’t run on Mt Everest. The processor have a MINIMUM allowable temperature too. Even if it runs, with outside temperature so low, it will never get more than 5C.

This is bad journalism at its best – using buzz words to attract clueless eye balls.

By the way, I don’t even have a Mac. My last Mac was 8 years ago (a PM7200).

MacBook vs. Dell in a heat match

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/07/17/macbook-vs-dell-in-a-heat-match/

Strangely enough I was looking at the 2 gig black Macbook but now I am leaning towards the 1.8 white version instead. Seems to be a better bang for the buck.

Dear Rene Kabis, I see you are a great fan of the Centigrade system, or as you call it, ‘Celcius.’ I’m curious to know if you also use the Metric Calendar, with its convenient and sensible 10-day weeks, rather than the archaic Catholic/Celtic/Teutonic/Roman idiocy of the 7-day-week? (Why 7? Did some mutant primitive have 7 fingers on his hand? This I cannot understand.) I am sure you and all progressive-thinking citoyens will agree the Metric Calendar is the way to go. By the way, what are you doing for Thermidor?

That’s not bad, I have a IBM T41. I never use it on my lap because it’s considered “ok” at 130F. If I play a game or surf the web too much, it goes up to at leat 180, the heighest it’s been is 194F. Anyway, I blame Intel. I’m glad Apple is trying to be more versitle, but Intel? AMD would’ve been nice.

Margot I think I have a headache now ;) Your comment forced me to pull out a dictionary.

[...] I’ve read quite a few complaints about the Apple Macbooks and Macbook Pros heating up, but never thought it was hot enough to cook an egg. [...]

Maybe someone already mentioned this… I don’t know. I any case, some MacBooks have a clear plastic dust cover covering the rear fan vent. After removing the plastic, my macbook rarely gets above 104 degrees F.

Another thing: certain people have disassembled their macbooks and found too much thermal paste on the CPU and GPU. I haven’t tried it yet, but scraping off a bit of the paste would probably cool it down even more…

Go ahead and give it a shot, if you’re still having heat problems. Even if the intel processor is capable of running at such high temperatures, it will have a damaging effect on the circuitry… and god forbid you ever worked with the thing on your lap *imagines legs cooking instead of eggs.*

it’s interesting to hear people say that it was a tradeoff between heat and noise. have you heard a macbook when it’s fans get going? it’s embarasing to turn mine on in lectures for all the noise it makes.

There’s something definitely wrong with a MacBook that need the fans running during something light like taking notes during lecture.

I can’t beleive I read to the end of this. (LAME)

“Dear Rene Kabis, I see you are a great fan of the Centigrade system, or as you call it, ‘Celcius.’ ”

Actually celcius is the correct name for the scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius

I’m curious to know if you also use the Metric Calendar, with its convenient and sensible 10-day weeks, rather than the archaic Catholic/Celtic/Teutonic/Roman idiocy of the 7-day-week? (Why 7? Did some mutant primitive have 7 fingers on his hand? This I cannot understand.) I am sure you and all progressive-thinking citoyens will agree the Metric Calendar is the way to go.

There are 7 days in a week because of Genesis chapter 1! (The Bible)

Oh and to say it again the CPU temp does not equal the outer case temp whether it is in deg C or deg F!!!! Also this story was just a joke!!!!

water boils at 212 smartass

[...] I can personally attest to the overall performance difference. After running the MacBook with the update since its release, processor temperature has dropped significantly from the mid 70C – 80C average to 40C – 50C range. A great improvement for MacBook owners complaining that their notebooks were running a little too hot. No more complaints of MacBook’s cooking eggs right? [...]

[...] Here is a cool idea. Strike that, Here is a hot idea for a cool winter. You get the idea. If you are not fortunate to have a StoveTop Pro MacBook Pro this chilly winter, to warm you up – here is the next best thing. [...]

my macbook gets up to 87 degrees Celsius!
thats about 188 degrees fahrenheit

OMG, Since it hasnt been mentioned before, water boils at 212 degrees d00dz! ROFLCOPTER.