Thar Shaddin

So, I've got a MacBook (my wife begged and I'm a pushover...whole different topic) and it gets really hot really quickly. The underside (where the battery is) gets really warm; so hot that you can't really have it in your lap. We tried putting it on a chair that is made of strips so air can flow under it, and that helps some. But what happens is once the computer is hot it slows way down. For example...right now...it has been on less than an hour and every time I click a link or it has to think or I try to scroll down the little "wait beach ball thing" pops up. This is seriously annoying. Like I want to use this thing to set off the landmines in my yard (relates to a different post) does anyone have any advice or know of an issue similar? I can't even do my regular post without wanting to break something (anger issues...another whole different topic, seperate from the different topic mentioned above).

Standard with notebooks of all descriptions is that they will run hotter and run slower whilst trying to power off battery...

You can puchase a neat little handle-bar specifically designed for mac notebooks. The key to the handle is that when you're not using it to carry your notebook (actually most people feel uncomfortable carrying $1000 + on a handle like that) you fold the handle down so that when the notebook rests on a table, it is propped up about 1 inch from the surface of the table on the back end. It improves airflow and stops it from burning your lap.

These quickertek guys make one, but I think there's more than one brand on the market. The picture makes it clear:

http://www.quickertek.com/MacBookPro_Handle.php

I saw a pad thing you could put on the bottom of laptops that had fans in it to cool it down... But I've only seen it at the computer show thus far. Perhaps you could try to find one those, too. I have the same heat-up problem with my Dell.

Type 'Laptop cooler' in google and theres a load of sites which sell or show pads with inbuilt fans that you put your laptop on to heep it cool.

sweet, thanks for all the assistance. Damn them for making computers invaluable and then having the gall to allow flaws and downsides!! Damn Them!!!! But yeah, thanks for the tips...

Yes, damn them for allowing such wonderful labour saving devices to cause me a lot more labour in my daily life.

Damn them for allowing desktop PC's, mainly, to have so many faults we have to have service engineers who get paid a fair bit of cash... hang on, we may have stumbled upon something big here...

I declare it to be a conspiracy between Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and all other computer manufacturers, and the service engineers of the world, to keep each other in work!!

Hey, desktop PCs are easy to fix by hand. Don't need no service people.

Yes... desktops are easy to fix by hand.

FOR PEOPLE WITH HALF AN OUNCE OF COMMON FUCKING SENSE!!!

(which, BTW is NOT everyone...)

I know, though... when I first started helping my friends out with their PC's I was so surprised anyone could be so dumb as to ask why the PC wouldn't switch on when the power lead was CLEARLY not plugged into the PC. (By clearly, I mean it was in a DIFFERENT ROOM)

See?

Yeah, I know. I worked at a cyber cafe. I've seen everything from people who don't know what words like software and hardware mean, to people who don't know where to put the CD. Sometimes it's just ignorance and not their fault, like the CD guy, who must have come out of a cave. Sometimes they're just generally retarded.

It's not just common sense though. It takes some effort and the willingness to tinker and read manuals. It also takes some guts. Lot of people think computers are so fragile they break if you breathe on them too hard.

You can always tell when someone has experience because they treat the computer itself more roughly. Like when you have to install memory. It can take some forceful ramming (no pun intended).

Very true. It's down to knowledge, experience, and a good sense of what will break a computer.

Breathing on it, no, no that won't do it...

Booting the crap out of it with my size 13 um... boots? Yeah, that'll crack my motherboard and hard drive and set me back £70. moral to the story...?

Well, maybe it is common sense, but if you've never been trained (or haven't taken the time to teach yourself) then doing something that may seem simple can be a major undertaking. Many things are like that, for instance, tuning a car is relatively easy, but if you've never done it before it is often easier to just pay a mechanic to do it. I like to shoot and there are lots of things that are very easy about it but if someone has never even held a handgun, rifle, or shotgun then they are going to probably have a rough time with it, even if it is common sense.

Just thought I'd play devils advocate for the non-tech crowd. I understand a good rant at stupidity is often useful and valid...please continue

For the record, I was able to take some shareware off line and use it to adjust the fan speed of my mac and I haven't been having anywhere near the problem that I did.

It's true. But no less annoying when someone can't understand that to READ THE HARD DRIVE the hard drive needs to actually be CONNECTED TO THE MOTHERBOARD

Or, perhaps, someone I know who didn't know MSN used the internet to work... now that's just dense.