The battery life of a laptop
is a major marketing tool for manufacturers.
When laptops are designed, makers probably use every technique possible
to maximize battery life. The cooling
fans fitted to laptops are probably set to cut in and run at speeds which meet
both the competing requirements of adequate heat removal and maximum battery
life. The designed in fan cut in
temperature and fan speeds are thus probably the result of a compromise that works ok when the
laptop is young and when it is used only within certain environmental conditions.
Many people over the years
have expressed the view that laptops would last longer if heat removal was
improved by one means or another. For Mac computers and particularly Mac
laptops, there is a program that allows the user to dial in a lower than
standard fan cut in temperature and higher than standard fan speeds.
The program is called SMC Fan
Control and is available here: http://www.eidac.de/
I use it all the time. SMC Fan Control displays a temperature read
out on the upper task bar. Even if you keep the fan cut in and speeds standard,
you can see how hot your Mac is running.
People discuss their hot Macs
in this forum thread: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=433732
While the Intel CPU is
protected by a thermal cut out, the constant heat inside a laptop case impacts
on the life of other components. Especially, in my opinion, the tiny capacitors which pepper the circuit
boards. As the fluid inside modern capacitors may be mildly corrosive, the life of these capacitors is greatly
shortened by hot environments. But that’s just my opinion.
Some suggestions for reducing
the temperature of the Macbook are discussed here: http://timemanagement.cgpgrey.com/5-ways-to-cool-down-your-hot-macbook/
The Macbook is a plastic
bodied machine. The components inside
the Macbook, including the logic board and heat sink, are attached to the
plastic base by screws threaded into metal inserts inside plastic mounts.
When plastic, even
polycarbonate, gets hot, it becomes less rigid and more flexible. Proper heat removal from the CPU depends upon
the proper mounting of the heat to the CPU. Thermal grease, applied to the top
of the CPU conducts heat from the CPU to the heat sink. Briefly, the airflow caused by the fan is supposed to adequately remove the heat
from the heat sink.
If the heat sink is loose or
if the thermal grease is old and inefficient, a macbook will run hot. And
sometimes it will cut out. Its life span is being reduced by poor heat removal.
If you
have the Apple Macbook take apart and service manual you will be able to read
the specified manner in which new thermal is applied. You
will also see the specific manner in which the heat sink is secured to mounts
and thus clamped to the top of the CPU.
Apple does not release its
service manuals to the public. They can be found at a few sites on the internet
however. Too much thermal grease is as
bad as not enough. You must use the right sort of thermal grease.
Here is IFixit’s guide to
replacing thermal grease:
Please research this whole
issue further before deciding on taking any action on your MacBook. If your
heat sink is not loose and if the SMC temperature read out shows an idle temp
of 40 – 50 degrees Celcius in a room temperature of about 25 degrees Celcius, I
would do nothing. But that is just my belief.
Capacitors
Wikipedia reports the
infamous period during which bad capacitors flooded the electronics supply
chain in, particularly in years past:
“The capacitor plague
(also known as bad capacitors or "bad caps")[1][2] is a
problem with a large number of premature failures of aluminum electrolytic
capacitors with non-solid or liquid electrolyte of certain brands,
especially from some Taiwanese manufacturers.[3][4][5]
The first flawed capacitors
were reported in 1999, but most of the affected capacitors failed in the early
to mid 2000s. High failure rates occurred in various electronics equipment,
particularly motherboards,
video cards, compact fluorescent
lamp ballasts, LCD monitors,
and power supplies of personal
computers. News of the failures (usually after a few years of use) forced
many equipment manufacturers to repair the defects. The problem seems to be
ongoing; faults were still being reported as of 2010.[6]…..
Problems with "bad caps" have
affected equipment manufactured up to at least 2007 and beyond.[9]
Many well-known motherboard companies have unknowingly assembled and sold
boards with faulty capacitors sourced from other manufacturers. Major vendors
such as IBM, Intel, Dell, HP, Samsung, and Apple Inc. were affected.[7][10] Circa
2005, Dell spent some US$150 million replacing motherboards outright and
another US$150 million on the logistics of determining whether a system was in
need of replacement. HP reportedly purged its product line in 2004. The
motherboards and power supplies in the Apple iMac G5[11] and
some eMacs[12] were
also affected.
While the capacitor plague
has affected large numbers of desktop computers, the problem is by no means
limited to that category. Bad capacitors can also be found in external power
supply adaptors, network switches, audio equipment, flat panel displays,
and a wide range of other devices. "Bad caps" can cause a simple
failure to turn on, or a wide range of bizarre (often intermittent) behavior of
afflicted electronic equipment……”
“Visual symptoms
Direct
visual inspection is a common method of identifying capacitors which have
failed because of bad electrolyte. Failed capacitors may show one or more of
these visible symptoms:[8]
Bulging or cracking of the
vent on top of the capacitor. (The "vent" is shaped by an impression
stamped into the top of the can, forming the seams of the vent. It is designed
so that if the capacitor becomes pressurized it will split at the vent's seams,
relieving the pressure rather than exploding.)
Capacitor casing sitting
crooked on the circuit board, as the bottom rubber plug is pushed out
Electrolyte leaked onto the
motherboard from the base of the capacitor or vented from the top, visible as
crusty rust-like brown deposits. The petroleum-based adhesive that is sometimes
used to secure the capacitors to the board can be confused with leaked
electrolyte; electrolyte is usually wet, adhesive is dry. The glue is a thick
elastic covering usually of a sandy yellow color, which darkens (towards black)
with heat. A dark brown crust up the side of a capacitor is invariably
glue, not electrolyte. The glue is itself sometimes harmful, and can corrode
leads and tracks covered by it, causing leakage current or an open circuit; it
is not required and can safely be removed. The presence of black-colored glue
is a reliable sign that the capacitor has overheated, due either to internal
failure or to inadequate ventilation.
Detached or missing capacitor
casing. Sometimes a failed capacitor will literally explode, ejecting its
contents violently and shooting the casing off the circuit board. Grayish aluminum
foil and shredded paper (the remnants of the capacitor internals) may still be
attached to the circuit board, or scattered in the vicinity.
Surface Mount
Device (SMD) packaging is used for
ultra-compact electrolytic capacitors instead of traditional metal cans, for
components soldered directly to printed circuit
boards. Because these devices are so small, a magnifying glass is
useful for visual inspection. The only visible clue to failure may be a small
leakage of electrolyte from the package, but often a defective SMD device
cannot be identified by its external appearance.
Sometimes,
electrolytic capacitors fail without any visible changes in appearance of the
external SMD or metal can package. Since the electrical characteristics of
capacitors are the reason for their use, these parameters must be tested with
instruments to definitively decide if the devices have failed.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
I
believe I’m lucky if a modern capacitor in any of the electrical devices I own
last more than 5 years. But that’s just
my belief. To what extent Apple had
solved the problem of bad capacitors in the period 2006 – 2009 (the production
life of the A1181 MacBook) I do not know. The problem is industry wide. That
means, the whole electronics industry, not just computers.
I’ll
give Wikipedia the last say:
Quote:
“Computer symptoms
Some
common behavioral symptoms of "bad caps" seen in computer systems
are:
Intermittent
failure to turn on, requiring user to press reset or try turning the computer
on repeatedly
Instabilities
(hangs, occurrences of the "Blue Screen of Death",
kernel panics, etc.),
especially when symptoms get progressively more frequent over time
Memory
errors, especially ones that get more frequent with time
Spontaneous restarts
or resets
In
on-board or add-on video cards, unstable image in some video modes
Failure
to complete the Power-On
Self Test ("POST"), or spontaneous rebooting before it is
completed
Failure
to even start the POST; fans spin but the system appears dead….” End quote. Source: : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
Sound Familiar? See
my previous post.
Next: Recording TV, audio and video on a budget.
Next: Recording TV, audio and video on a budget.
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