logobosslunch

You see, a little while after I started using my new MacBook Pro (as in a few hours after I unboxed it and started using it), its fan started working. And it was loud. Not a clicky-ti-click-somehing’s-stuck-there noisy, but just a higher volume than what I’m used to with my $599 Asus laptop. A day later, when one of our designers sat with me in my very quiet office, the fan went on, she noticed it, and looked at me puzzled.

1. Rodstar Theta

I told her “yeah, apparently MacBooks have a loud fan”. She said “it can’t be right, there must be something wrong with this specific machine. Did you get it tested?” I said “No, I just think it has a loud fan, some machines just do.”.

But don’t you see Matic, that’s the point of the entire article.You believe that PCs are inherrently inferior. Thus a loud fan (despite being built in the same factory by the same people) in a Mac is a rarity and unfathomable, but in a PC should be expected.As someone who owns a loud 2011 MBP with 8 gigs of ram, they happen. But I don’t lie to myself or try to play it off as a sign that my previous computers were inferior.I bet if you ask the average Jaguar driver how long they let the check engine light go unchecked, you find the same behavior.“It must be something I did”Last words of an apologist.

What you are pointing out is called poor tech support. Not really something to do with the reputation of a system (AND I have personally experienced several doctors who prescribe meds without a definitive diagnoses in the hope that it will clear it up when they don’t know what to do).

The tech obviously didn’t do their job and were guessing, I have seen the same thing happen at Apple Stores and iCare centers on college campuses.I had a MBP that got sent back to Apple 3 times due to hardware issues (HDD, then two times for a Mobo issue). Needless to say this combined with working a tech support job through college was where I had my realization that the ‘reputation’ of Apple’s superiority was all just PR and that users just ignore some of the issues with Apple due to this reputation.A high end PC is built just as well as a low end Mac, PC just has offerings that don’t break the bank. person tried to diagnose a problem computer by restarting it, replacing the power supply, replacing the RAM,But if this happened at an Apple store and they solved the problem (failures do happen to mac products, a friend of mine had every components of their MBP replaced except for the case after numerous HDD failures and a battery burnt out killing the screen and the keyboard) then you would be screaming that the genius at the mac store knows more than any other computer tech support and they should rewarded.

Wow, first off I read nothing about brain washing, I read something about good marketing, not quite the same thing. He’s saying that Apple has made themselves a brand of such quality some of the less tech savvy people, instead of wondering and looking to see if it’s a problem with them OR their mac, assume it was something they did to break it. They don’t check it or do any tests on it, they just think they broke it, cause it’s an Apple, so they had to have been the one to break it.

That’s just the consumer’s trust they have for the company they support. While it’s a bit of a blind and somewhat, naive, trust, I have seen it in action myself. I’ve seen it with other things as well, and at times they were right they did screw it up, other times they didn’t do anything wrong at all.The point however is that the first route they took in finding the cause of the problem was to think they were the cause, not the fact that Mac’s, like any other product, can come with a flaw. (Note I say CAN not DO this is not me bashing, simply stating that it is not possible to make something perfect). Yeah but you know, not anyone has 2000 euros to spend on a computer, so what apple is doing is basically selecting people which can use a mac and people which can’t. Instead, you can find good pc laptop for just 300 E and do the same things you do with a mac, if you are willing to lose some time to understand and learn things.also, i think that a skilled user can install osx core (which is being relased with an open source license) on a pc and use an open source gui and have a fully functional mac osx system.

Due to the fact that the writer here didn’t really go into detail into the whole thing, he’s merely hitting the tip of the iceberg. I feel that its due to the fact that its such an expensive machine, and so highly praised by the public and oh-so-vocal mac fanboys that people begin to deny the truth that this really expensive piece of technology might actually have faults in it. I see what the author’s trying to get at, but I think he’s really trying his best not to start an all out flame war against the apple fans. He did good in that sense I guess. It is quite possible that you have an unusually loud fan, but also it is not very common to have it spin up at all. I usually notice the fan when the machine (macbook pro) heats over 70°C, which is a somewhat high sustained load (usually happens at over 70% CPU load for more than half a minute).

The fan is audible (you can hear it without putting your ear to the machine, probably the airflow more than the actual fan itself), but can’t say it’s unusually loud. In normal operation the fan keeps at 2000rpm, which is completely inaudible.That said, in most daily-usage cases (i.e. Not doing anything heavy that I know will load the machine) when the fan spins up, it happens either due to a heavy flash in pages, or a runaway javascript somewhere.

Both cases are easy to overlook and just think “my machine is just loud”.The mac hangs from time to time. There are background processes that sometimes do not behave politely and make the machine unusable for some time (beachball everywhere, nothing usable, not just a single hung application). This happens rarely, and usually resolves itself in a minute, but sometimes I just reboot it. The platform is far from perfect and flawless. But still if you just tell me that your machine is “just loud”, I would suspect that it is something you did — possibly unknowingly, as I described above — could be you’ve just opened a page that loads the CPU.If your fan is truly louder than usual when you compare it with another macbook pro under similar load (not similar usage), then the case really might be that you just have an unusally loud fan.

But in this case I would exercise my warranty and ask that the fan is replaced. It is not a question of fanboy attitude, it is just a customer demanding the high quality expected from an expensive product. The fans on a Mac are hard workers. It is true they are rarely loud and in the rare occasion they are it’s usually due to high CPU activity.

In my day-to-day experience, legitimate sources of high CPU activity are intense Photoshop work and watching high-resolution videos. Once I had mine at max RPM and checking Activity Monitor reveals a Safari process consuming 99% CPU. I found the offending tab left open for too long with a Flash video player. If you do a lot of web browsing, loud fans are usually caused by Flash in websites. Not just the obvious ones like video but also the obscure ones like banner ads. If it happened only in the first few hours, I’d say that was simply Spotlight doing it’s initial indexing (look for mds and mdworker processes).Since it seems to have continued and there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it, grab smcFanControl and turn up the minimum fan speeds until it gets to be loud.

Take it to the Genius Bar and let them listen to it – if it’s hardware related, they’ll replace it on the spot (at least that’s been my experience with faulty hard drives).You could also try the old fashioned phone call to Apple support directly. You may have been turned away from this in the PC world, but give it a try in the Apple world. Perhaps there is another explanation for mac users to seemingly be willing to tolerate some bad aspects of their products. Perhaps if the overall experience is great, the ‘bad’ things just don’t seem so bad.It reminds me of a story about the first elevators in skyscrapers. In the early days there was a great deal of frustration waiting for them to arrive (this being a relatively new thing to have to get used to).

There was no obvious solution until someone suggested putting mirrors next to the elevator doors on each floor. Now, while people waited they had something to do/look at – something to distract them. The wait no longer seemed so bad. It was the perceived time passing that was important, not the actual time.Maybe something similar happens when Mac users tolerate long waits for some apps to load or similarthe overall experience has been so great and the product looks so darn fine that you just don’t notice the lags so much.you are in a more receptive frame of mind and you just don’t perceive the odd bump in the experience to be so bad. Whereas with Windows machines perhaps the overall experience is so uninspiring and frustrating that any little frustration seems yet another bad thing to deal with leading to heightened levels of anger/frustration/swearingJust a thought,Stu. I agree Stu your bang on in my opinion. I have a Macbook pro late 2013 model purchased in February 2014 and it is amazing.

It is much better than the Windows machines I have owned over the years. I say that as a guy who is tech neutral and not a fanboy. Though I must admit there are some slight bumps in the road as it were but I put up with them because the Macbook is so much better overall than I have been used to with Windows.

I was one of the few people who loved Windows 8 and yet due to no fault of my own I kept getting BSOD’s. I had all the drivers up to date, hardly any software installed. All settings where as they should be etc. Even when I reinstalled Windows 8 and set everything to default it still had BSOD. I used to be a computer engineer so I know what I am doing. It was the fault of Windows 8 pure and simple but due to the overall mass of faults with Windows 8 I was less tolerant and please people before some of you jump up and down to say how Windows 8 is great and how I am an Apple fan boy please read the start because I am no Fanboy and second I could be here all day listing problems with Windows 8 and it’s design process.I therefore totally agree with you StuNext I had a slight problem at one point with fan noise on my Macbook Pro but I soon figured out it was because I had put a setting on and forgot that it would cause issues for the machine. It was therefore my fault.

Since then it has been so quiet the only thing quieter is a church mouse who has lost his voice. – High CPU usage (and thus loud fan) can be caused by a few things, eg. Mail jumps to 100% CPU sometimes, while spotlight indexing, finder has thousands of files in one window, or something hangs.– I reckon it’s really simple. PCs come in a huge variety. Yes they can use almost identical components to macs, or better components. But often they are made out of the cheapest components as possible. So no wonder average people, who are attracted by the cheap prices, have bad experiences with PCs.

Half the time it’s just a shitty mouse that makes a PC horrible to use. Macs on the other hand usually (not always) use better quality components, come with a nice mouse and keyboard, and the systems are more carefully designed so all the bits work together better. You can actually expand your trick to “making it someone else’s fault”.

A few years ago, I attended a conference in Atlanta Ga at the Marriott, and in the conference rooms located in the bowels of the hotel, iPhones simply couldn’t place or receive calls or access data. There was much grousing about how lousy AT&T service was it is lousy, so there is some fire to go with this smoke but my phone, made by HTC was perfectly able to do both- and ran on the AT&T network. When confronted with this realty, denial was still in place, and I was told that I must be mistaken- I couldn’t be running on the same AT&T network. This scenario repeated itself several times over the course of 4 days. I had the same problem with the 3GS settings.

I was told that I had messed up the phone and I should try a factory reset. I was very unpopular, when I said that was on 2 different phones and both had had factory resets!The same goes for my 24″ iMac, it takes several minutes to boot under Lion and starting Safari or DVD Player takes an age. Running Safari and DVD Player at the same time grinds the machine to a halt, if there is any Flash content on the page Safari is showing.When I mention that, I’m told I’ve got something running in the background or I am lying. The iMac has iLife, Apeture and MS Office installed, nothing special, but it can’t be running slow, it must be my fault, “I’ve” done something. The issue with the fan isn’t so much “it’s the user’s fault” as “that’s odd — it shouldn’t be that loud because Steve Jobs hated fans”.

Apple machines have a long history of being quiet as a mouse and — as a result — overheating like crazy when they do need to cool down.I own an iPad 2 and a Macbook Air (which I run in Windows 7 continually — damn 3rd parties still haven’t made decent ultrabooks that compete yet). The iPad flat out won’t work when you leave it in the sun too long. It says “iPad needs to cool down”. Thing has no fan so you’re stuck. The Macbook Air holds up considerably better, but if I do heavy work on it — again, leaving it in the sunlight — the fan kicks in and whirs for an hour.

It’s quiet, but it’s obvious it’s not doing a great job because it runs so long.Point is: the fact that the fan.is. loud is odd, and it’s why people are asking you if stupid questions about what you were doing with the machine. I would take it in to an Apple Store, have them replace the fan and you should be good.

Add to the list of great illusions the list of Grandkids who tell Grandma to switch to a Mac after just getting used to her Windows machine for the last 10 years. And then dropping it in her lap for Xmas and then going back to where ever they came from to leave Grandma all confused. Then when I show Grandma that you still have to click an icon to launch mail, click another one to create a new message and click the send button to send it, she says to me How do I make those pictures stop jumping up and down?. So anyway there really is a problem with MBP and its fan control. I’ve got horrible problems with it and AFAICT its a hardware defect and not fixable. Its possible there is something that is broken/replaceable, but I haven’t figured it out yet. Get SMC Fan Control just so you see what the temp and fan speed is.

Even without CPU usage and with temp below 60C I sometimes get the fan up at 6kYou can reset your PRAM and this will reset the fan/temp thing for a while, but it will come back. I have discovered that if I pull the battery out then the fan goes down to normal! With the battery in it goes back to high. This is not correlated to temp which is under 60C, and its nothing to do with energy settings because with battery in or out you are still using power adapter. There is a double standard out there for sure.

Problems with a PC = blame Windows. Problems with a Mac = blame user. Invariably when I look at that problem PC I find two basic areas of responsibility: a) OEM installed bloatware, and b) system configurations, file organization, and software installs that stem directly from user practices and/or ignorance. How many times have you heard someone say their brand new Windows machine worked great for the first couple months then slowed down to a crawl after that – but they take no personal responsibility for why it may be doing that?

Rodstar Theta

Then you go troubleshoot it and find 3-4 browser toolbars running, 2-3 antivirus programs running (with at least one doing a complete scan at any given time), 3-4 utility programs running at startup, the hard disk has not been defragmented in months, the temporary internet files are at 4+ GB in size, the desktop has 15-20 shortcuts on it with more appearing each time the user hastily installs some new peripheral or program, PLUS they save most of their documents on the desktop as well because they don’t know how to save them anywhere else!! Add to that are the 15 extra OEM installed bloatware programs (I’m looking at you HP and Sony) that run at startup too! Then when you point this out the user says “I don’t know how all those things got there!” (Let’s not even get into what happens because of all the bit torrent and porn sites they visit) So all this is the fault of Windows?! I doubt it. Obviously you have upset the fan boys.

None of which seem to understand your point. Why so defensive? I could never understand why a simple act like suggesting a potential flaw draws such a call to arms. It just comes off as extremely bitter and pretentious. That is just like my opinion, man. I am bracing myself for the unending flaming to come.

You are brave for publicly stating what may be perceived as a negative opinion about Apuhl (intentional error after reading post from another contributor) products. I think this article really belongs on Reddit. It seems a little like some of the thoughtless posts put on there when a user wants to put down another crowd of people (in this case, mac users). The main problem with this is generalization. You’re telling us that because we have macs, we all believe when something goes wrong its OUR faults.

But the fact is, I’ve never thought that, and i’m sure A LOT of other mac users don’t feel that way.One part of this article that particularly struck me was the third paragraph. “I went to a couple more smart people ” The author then goes on to say that these people basically blame him for the problems he has encountered.

WELL, SMART PEOPLE, have told him this. Not Apple store employees at the genius bar.Every time I have been to the genius bar (twice in my 7 years of “fanboiness”), the very first thing they do is take the device, hook it up, and run a diagnostics test. Both times I’ve been (once for iphone, once for mac), they’ve taken the machine to replace it within a couple of days, or given me a new device (in the case of the iphone).Now, it really is obvious that the author of this post has harbored the disdain that so many other pc users have harbored for mac, but in this article, he does a poor job at getting his “apple trick you stupid mac users” point across.BTW, I have a mac, the fans not loud. I think you’re taking some of the comments on Reddit and putting them in my mouth. I do not disrespect Mac users, I do not think all Mac users are blind to flaws in their devices, and I don’t think Apple make bad products.

All I’m pointing out to is that it’s very difficult for many people to accept that Apple products can be flawed. You may not be such a person, and maybe no one around you is such a person, but i do know such people.

And again, I consider it an amazing thing Apple did, partly by delivering superb products, partly by branding themselves the right way, and partly (in my opinion) by directly trying to create a perception of flawlessness. I hope that helps clarify my opinion. I’ve had my own macbook for about 4 years now (likely one of the few people to own a macbook for longer than it takes for the newer one to be out, but I digress), and while there are things I like about it, there are also things I don’t like. But foremost, the one thing that made me decide that this macbook was my first and last one was when I had an issue with the battery. I found one day that the battery had swollen up, and was I was no longer able to close the battery door on the bottom of the macbook. Puzzled, I took it to the Apple Store.The first thing the ‘genius’ did was blame me. “you must have left the macbook in the car or some other hot place.” No, the laptop stays at home comfortably on my coffee table–I rarely take it anywhere, and when I do, it’s safely in a bag, and I’ve never left it in a car.

The next thing he did was say “Ok, well just buy a new macbook”. Buy a new laptop because the BATTERY on an otherwise perfectly functional device has failed? That’s no solution.

There are more things like that, but they get a bit nerdy–for example, their HUGELY false claim that OSX machines never need to be defragged or have their filesystems checked. (their solution, straight from the support page, is to backup the computer, wipe the drive, and restore. Yes, really.)Don’t even get me started on the practice they’ve developed of soldering in the RAM so that it can’t be upgraded and using proprietary connectors for the hard drives to try to make users buy new machines instead of upgrading their existing ones. But again, I digress. I was in the first viability test run in 1983 for the Macintosh Personal Computer 0.97, or PC for short (so yes Macintosh’s (Mac’s) are also PC’s.) The coolest part about them then was the rainbow colored ribbon that connected the monitor to the desk box. They would be integrated for commercial release. I have been using both Mac PC’s and Window based PC’s ever since.

They both have issues-one gets a viruses the other has system bombs. They both have their pluses but the differences are become fewer and fewer every day.But by far the worst thing about Mac or iStuff are the self loathing hipsters that;1) Think they are superior because the use a Mac2) Think they are more creative because they use a Mac3) Think the reason every one dislikes them so intently is because they are cool forusing a Mac and iStuff.A generalization of a concept is an extension of the concept to less specific criteria. It is a foundational element of logic and human reasoning. It is the posit existence of domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteristics shared by those elements.

As such, it is the essential basis of all validdeuctive inferences. In other words there exist a patter that supports the concept for the generalization.

As and it admin I’ve seen many many issues with macs. They are NOT USED in large corporations as they are not easily adminstrated by AD.Dell optiplex and latitude laptops comw with 3 year Next buisnessday pro support. All their pro support techs are a+ certified and troubleshoot the hardware first.Quick support calls and knowledgable tech that show up on site.Macs have lot of issue but most mac users seem to ignore it our find it acceptable that in order to upgrade to newer os or cs5 u need to to buy new hardware. “As and it admin I’ve seen many many issues with macs. They are NOT USED in large corporations as they are not easily adminstrated by AD.”Yet major universities and research institutes don’t seem to have much trouble administrating thousands of them.The biggest problem I had administering macs was that they wouldn’t die.

My old lab has equipment (HPLCs and mass spectrometers) that still run off of a Mac II and a Mac Quadra, which meant trying to network OS 5, 7, and X together. Software licenses and interface cards to replace the old Macs would have cost many times more than new PCs, so we just kept them.

Its okay to ask what you are doing? That is a prerequisite to start solving your problem. Its not related to apple or pc. Why do you assume its what you did WRONG question. Put mac/pc flames out of the equation and proceed to understanding the root cause of your issue without taking the apple or pc mind and life will be much easier. You will find out, that maybe safari is not the best browser for doing google docs or you have a loud fan.sorry the non loud ones were out of stock in the factory when they build yours:).

Since a few weeks I started using a second-hand iMac next to my beloved Windows pc’s. I have build a few pc’s, and with good quality parts they can be really silent. My iMac’s fan is indeed quite noisy. It was fully cleaned, checked and reinstalled by an official Apple service centre and they did a great job, however the fan noise is by design. I love the Apple, it seems to need less maintenance regarding updates, upgrades, drivers and other soft.

Open it up and you will see a lot of well known common pc parts. So: The experience is great, however it is only a computer.I see it this way: The design, fame and marketing are so specific and well done that people are very proud of their Apple and therefore tend to blame YOU instead of their beloved computer/phone/tablet. They feel a bit like you are talking about THEIR AppleSo: Not a trick, but an exemplary design and marketing achievement, which makes Apple synonym for quality in the heads of people. Apparently it is considered as something beautiful that they are proud to own, like a high quality car, handbag, watch or musical instrument.

Things you only buy a few times in your life. I KNOW I can build a Windows pc with better specs, however nobody will look at it as something special, just another pc. It has no flair, it is not chic. I guess nothing is perfect. I have a macbook pro and i love it.

However, 4 months ago, the lower right corner of the screen got broken for no apparent reason. I researched about it online and i found out that this was a common occurrence for the 2008 mbp’s so that there was a program to replace the screen for free.

The people at apple didn’t know that, i had to be the one to tell them and send them the link. Problem solved but they said they had to replace the trackpad.

So ok, they did. When i got it back, it was working fine–with a 90-day warranty.after 2 months, the trackpad was going crazy. I sent it back knowing that it’s still covered by the warranty. And yes, the person who checked it said that maybe i pressed it too hard while using it. The old trackpad i used for more than 2 years and yet this one that they replaced it with i used only for 2 months. I got the same fingers man!and then they said that there is a problem with the logic board, they need to replace it with a new one which will cost me around $800!

I said, ‘i don’t think that’s my fault. Can you check if there is a recall for that?’ the person said that if there was, they would have been advised by apple.

I told her, “you didn’t now about the free screen replacement before, i was the one who informed you about it.” lo and behold, when i researched online for it, there is a recall.now, i am asking myself if it is really worth it that i got this mbp. It is still with apple right now and i am using my brother’s acer laptop.

And what’s with the apple ‘geniuses’ who are don’t know anything?!. Oh my god I almost just fainted. Are you serious, two “there hasn’t been a recall” responses? Wow, kudos for making it through to the other end.

I would have gone completely insane at “you pressed too hard”. My computer would have been whacked repeatedly against a desk corner, and for what I would have said on the phone, I’d be forever blacklisted by Apple. Which, come to think of it, is probably not such a bad thing.I am so sorry for your troubles.

But I have to tell you, that makes for a pretty funny read. You should grow it into a short story, no lie.

Seriously, I know what you are talking aboutHave one Macbook air and it gets SO CRAZY HOT ridiculous I’ve had Vaio, Dell, and the any other that gets this HOT is HP, that it’s even hotter.We bought one Ipod Touch, it keep closing APPs, even the first time we turned it on and without any app started, only opening the safari, it did close by itselfSeriously? Apple have big issues and they should start to come down from upstairs to see what users are suffering downstairs. This issue with Ipod comes since the first ipod touch, and still they have same issues to me, non-sense is to come up with new version of some product that still have same problems as the older ones hadLove Mac system, love mac design, love mac speed for processing things, but I’m not blind, deaf or cripple to ignore the shit problems that their products have. The fan on my MacBook Pro is positively neurotic. As soon as a process heads towards 40-50% CPU it spins like its on crack, it’s like it wants to get out and live an independent life.I work in an open office that is fairly quiet so I have now taken to offloading the heavy lifting to my works Lenovo T400, a significantly lower spec machine but the fan barely gets above a whisper no matter what you throw at it.

The i7, 8GB Mac sounds like a crashing spaceship if you so much as threaten it with work, it has now been relegated to word processing and mild web surfing. With the caveat that site doesn’t have any Silverlight or Flash content, show the Mac video, of any nature, and it spins the fan like it’s churning butter, to the point where I can hear the fan spinning even if i am wearing headphones.

That, is ridiculous.I think it’s quite telling that the new macs have newfangled fan-ness, this is definitely to combat the absolutely stupid fan situation on MacBooks. I have been emailing Apple for ages now to try and get some sort of fix after the guy in the Apple shop told me it was just a ‘feature’ of MacBooks, and yes, he did say feature.I have recently bought a Lenovo T420s, and it is BRILLIANT, much cheaper, faster and most importantly quieter than the MacBook. It is currently running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V as a test lab, however, I am seriously considering ebaying the Mac and using the Lenovo as my full time client.Anyway, great article, as an iPhone, iPod, iPad, Macbook Pro 13″ (for the wife), Macbook Pro 15″ and iMac owner I wholeheartedly agree, MacBooks are not what they are cracked up to be.

Love the iPad, love the iPhone, not so much the MacBook.Finally, I find it strange that criticising Apple is such a taboo. Some of their stuff is seriously cool, I mean the iPhone created a whole new apps market that never existed before, how cool was that. However, some of their stuff is not cool, but that’s not just Apple, that’s just life. My favorite part of being a Mac user is the customer service that comes with it.

If I have a problem (and I have had a few) they are quick to diagnose, walk me through a solution and get it done quickly and without any attitude. I do not blame issues on myself. However, I do take inventory of my own actions before assuming product error (as with any product from any manufacturer). I love Apple and I adore their customer service.

They don’t make perfect products. There is not such thing.

However, they do the next best thing. They fix what is wrong quickly and with minimal pain and suffering. Your post is a broad and faulty generalization.

Out of the 76 Mac’s and 825 Window’s units I have bought in the past 5 years the only machines I have ever sent back, exchanged, or returned were 15 Mac’s.This idea that Window’s based PC’s (remember Mac’s are Personal Computers too not a majic box) are poorly made and inferior quality and that is why they cost less is the reasoning of a snob in denial. If this were the case Macintosh’s would be the computer you would find in every office cubicle accross the globe. But you don’t. Maybe because most Fortune 500 companies will not waste money on tools that don’t work or have a high price tag due to fancy packaging. Good observation. I have toggled between both Macs (1988) and PCs (1984).

I really only started noticing the “You must NOT be doing as Steve Jobs intended” meme in the last 10 years or so.There is a very real and scary contingent that seems to be hard-wired to think this way. And it seems to be growing. You would not believe the blowback I saw a few years ago when I was browsing for a solution to disable the friggin startup chime.As the Japanese say: “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Oh vey!. I had a MacBook Pro 17″ for about three years. Near the end of the time I had it the computer would turn off (crash) instantly, if I “pushed” it too hard, so I had to decrease the screen brightness and not work it hard, but I could still use it. It did not charge the batteries though, which really sucked, so I was using it plugged in only for a few months.

Luckily it was stolen out of a friend’s van, and my problem was solved. I had to get a new computer, but I didn’t have the money at the time, so I used an old 24″ iMac and was stuck at home more. That computer was truly amazing. In fact, I loved both. They were both much faster and better performers than the Windows machines I had used, and even the modern Windows machines that friends had seemed slow in comparison. I now have a 13″ MacBook Air, which I’ve had for about a year, and I love it, but recently I’ve been having problems with the keyboard.

It seems like a software problem, because different keys seem to not work on occasion. I thought the problem was only with the S key, but today the F2 key (for screen brightness increase) did not work at first. I was wondering if anyone else had such problems so I did a search. That’s how I came across this page. So what am I writing about?

Well, first. My fan is NOT loud at all.

In fact, I did not know that this computer even had a fan for a long time, and then one day I was exporting photos in.JPG format from raw files, and I felt hot air. I was surprised, and when I inspected the computer more closely I felt the air coming out and heard the fan/air. I was surprised, because this computer is so thin that I thought they had somehow figured out how to make these things with no fan, but when I discovered there is a fan in there I wondered how they could make such a small fan that would fit. My experience with Macintosh computers has been an overall very good one. I had to replace the power supply on the 24″ iMac (and the “Super Drive” – which had not been working to burn DVD discs for years, even though it worked to read DVD and CD discs and to burn CD-R discs). I upgraded the iMac to 4 GB of RAM, even though it only addressed 3 GB of that.

I can’t upgrade my MacBook Air, unfortunately, but 4 GB seems enough. The first Mac that I ever bought was a Mac Miini, and though that thing was a little slow, it worked great, and I never felt worried about browsing the Web or checking e-mail, because I felt safe from viruses and such. Now things are not so safe for Mac users, but I still prefer the Mac OS to anything from Microsoft. I built my own Windows machine a few years ago, before I got into Mac machines, and that thing was really good. It was SUPER stable, and pretty fast.

That was before Windows Vista and Windows 7. I HATE the new versions of Windows, though I do realize they are more powerful and more capable. Maybe one day I’ll build another Windows machine. They definitely are cheaper, and I like the fact that so many programs work on them.

MacBooks seem to be just better than other computers that are available though, and as powerful as notebook computers are, I really don’t see a need for desktop machines these days. If I was heavily into video editing, I’m sure I would disagree with that statement, but I’m not. One thing I do realize is how great the value is in some of the Windows machines. I still like the MacBooks better. They are lighter, feel like they are better quality, and I always seem to find all sorts of reasons why they are better.

Maybe I’ve become a “fanboi” of the Apple world. I DON’T think that it is my fault that the keyboard is giving me problems on my MacBook Air. I also don’t think it was my fault that my 17″ MacBook Pro had a problem. It DEFINITELY was not anyone’s fault that the 24″ iMac had problems (though it was years old when those issues it had appeared). Do I go around telling eveyone that Macs suck?

No, because Windows sucks worse than anything that has gone wrong with any Mac that I know of, and hurting the reputation of the underdog that is hopefully making Microsoft work harder is not the best idea. Maybe THAT is why Mac users don’t complain so much. Afterall, they are rooting for the underdog by buying Apple products. Of course, Apple is not so much the underdog these days, are they?. My Mac Air Fan was constantly running overtime, I installed a Fan tracker and clocked the RPM at 6500 where it should idle at 2000. I started to remove programs one by one and found that Google Drive was trying to sync and during that time it was killing my fan.

As a result th efan was on constantly and I was getting battery life of approx 20 minutes. Apple told me I needed a new battery. Google Drive deleted and the battery is fine. Back to 3 hours normal use and silent fan.

The only time its kicked in recently is during the 39 degree heatwave in the UK:).Pingback:. This started out sounding like a hatchet piece by a Mac hater and then finishes off as reasonable and even generous.Well played, sir.As it turns out, loud fans were solved by firmware updates for many, and an unlucky handful have battery issues that Apple wouldn’t cop to.

Other times, a downgrade to OS 10.7 Lion fixed it. (Red flag!)It’s not common, but Apple makes bad product sometimes and insistence on proper functioning from tech support (hopefully you live reasonably close to an apple store) is called for.They will make things right but the amount of effort could put off a computer owner if they are unlucky enough to have a true lemon and Apple forces them to jump through 6 sets of hoops. Often Apple does not even admit their hardware issues to their own techs. If the enthusiasts seem to think Macs are perfect, their techs are fed the same line so it’s a universal belief.The battery issue that made a lot of Mac OS 10.8 users miserable knocked Apple off of its pedestal for me.

They’re awfully good, but not perfect and DO have room for improvement. A dash of humility might be a good start.Then again, the false aura of infallibility is what makes some institutions survive. Ok I would like to start by saying, the size and complexity of the OS being a MAC or Windows base is so complex, that its unlikely in this fast paced industry that you would be able to produce a flawless product before its superseded by the competitor, that leaves the job of debbuging to you the user. This is the unfortunate state of things and applies to all software to some extent.In critical systems such as those used in the aircraft industry most are very dated, this is because they are reliable not because they are bad and updating such systems takes a long time because new systems need to be tested to death before peoples lives are put at stake. This being said I would still be using windows XP if only Microsoft had not ended the support, sure it was buggy as hell when it was first released but in time in became better, and I’m not bashing apple, my main reason for liking XP was because I knew it back to front. This could apply for any persons “personal preference”.

You know you own system well it will be productive for you. Another point I would like to make is that there is a significant (for my bank account balance) price difference between PCs and MACs, so I could never justify getting one. The only reason I know this article is completely true is because of this:I JUST NOW GOOGLED (Hello NSA, I see you and thank you for everything you do)Sorry, I just now googled “its so funny because my macbook runs at different speeds and they think i dont know.”and this page was the first link that popped up.Take everything you read on the internet with a Grain of Salt, but at the same time take it all with an entire salt mine.Except for this article.They are them, We are us.(Please type into google exactly what i typed the way I typed it, and you will see)HAHA. “I’d rather post as guest”.