Tag: macbook pro

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Warm MacBook

coffee and laptop
Image by Free Photos from Pixabay

I am still having issues with my MacBook doing “something” having closed the lid and placed in my bag. It seems to be still running even the lid is closed.

In the past when I shut the lid of the MacBook Pro it would sleep and when I opened the lid it would wake.

I have noticed that on too many occasions when retrieving my MacBook from my luggage or my backpack that it is warm. It is also doing “something” as it is also running down the battery. This is annoying as the battery is quite old and it doesn’t have the battery life it use to have when I first got it five years ago.

I am wondering if it could be Bluetooth, though a lot of things are better with Bluetooth, I am not sure in this case it is. Could it be my wireless headset? Could it be AirDrop?

The only solution appears to be turning it off, which to be honest is no hardship when you are putting it in the bag in the back of the car. But sometimes you want to be quick, lift the lid and do something and then put it back in the bag.

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Trackpad not clicking

I got my MacBook Pro out and was looking at a few websites and I realised that my trackpad was no longer ‘clicking’.

The tap to click was working fine, but the click had stopped working.

It was a bit disconcerting, but the MacBook was still usable.

I thought was my trackpad broken.

However…

When I did a restart I couldn’t click on my name to log into the MacBook Pro as tap to click didn’t work on the user login screen.

I had to get a mouse out to log in.

I did wonder if I would need to get it fixed, but first I did a Google search.

One possible resolution was to reset the SMC.

The system management controller (SMC) controls how a Mac manages power.

      1. Shut down your Mac.
      2. On your built-in keyboard, press and hold all of these keys:

Shift  on the left side of your keyboard
Control  on the left side of your keyboard
Option (Alt)  on the left side of your keyboard

      1. While holding all three keys, press and hold the power button as well.
      2. Keep holding all four keys for 10 seconds.
      3. Release all keys, then press the power button to turn on your Mac.

I did this and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the trackpad was working again.

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Hot, hot, hot…

Mojave

I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro to Mojave 10.14 mainly as Outlook had stopped working properly, and I needed to upgrade the Mac OS X so that I could install the latest version. Generally no real issues except one.

In the past when I shut the lid of the MacBook Pro it would sleep and when I opened the lid it would wake.

However on a couple of occasions now I have noticed as I reached into my rucksack that my MacBook was hot, really hot. 

What appears to be happening is that the MacBook is not going to sleep when the lid is shut. It keeps “working” and as it shut (and in a bag) it just gets warmer and warmer. The fans kick in, but even then it can’t cool down properly (with the lid shut and in a bag).

Of course I don’t think this can be good for it, so will need to check if the MacBook is in fact asleep or shut it down properly before putting it in the bag.

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Not updating yet…

high sierra

So Apple have released their latest operating system, well actually they did it a few weeks ago.

I still have yet to update my iMac (and my MacBook) to the new operating system. The main reason is not that I really like Sierra and don’t want the new features of High Sierra. Nor is it because I have really slow internet and it would take days to download the update, on the contracts, now I have fibre, my download speeds are respectable and it now takes minutes rather than hours or days to download large updates, such an operating system upgrade. It’s just that I have had my fingers burnt before when applications I use on a regular basis suddenly stop working on the new operating system.

The main culprit for my is usually Adobe’s Creative Cloud, however I am hoping now that they have moved to a subscription model that my regular Apps will be updated automatically and quickly. I also heard people were having problems with Microsoft Office, but I have also heard that Microsoft have released updates for these programs as well.

Sometimes it is the smaller software houses and struggle, but part of the issue is me! If a piece of software is working for me, and there is an application upgrade, I really need to justify paying for the upgrade.

So the following packages stopped working for me in the past following operating system upgrades, Screenflow and Parallels. So if I upgrade the operating system, which is free, I then need to spend real money upgrading certain applications. I am expecting Comic Life 2 to stop working with this upgrade, so then needing to upgrade to Comic Life 3.

So having waited a few weeks I think I may do the upgrade soon.

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Happy Birthday Mac

Today is the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Apple Mac, so Happy Birthday Mac.

My first Mac was in 2002, and it was a Titanium G4 PowerBook. I was Director of the Western Colleges Consortium in Avon, and one of the partner colleges was not happy about the support they were getting in using the shared VLE and online learning content on their Macs they used. They were using G4 PowerMacs, so in order to support them better I decided to order the “cheapest” G4 Mac I could and that was the Titanium G4 PowerBook.

Titanium G4 PowerBook

I remember thinking that if I was going to really understand the needs of the users of these strange devices I had better use it as my main device for a few weeks.

Within a week, it had become my main computer and I soon upgraded it with an Airport 802.11b wireless card so it was more useful. I remember how much I liked the fact that you shut the lid, and when you opened it, it came back on almost immediately.

It was a dual boot machine running OS 9 and OS X 10.1 Puma. It had a 500MHz G4 chip, a 10GB hard disk drive, 128MB of RAM and a DVD Drive.

It was a very different experience to the Windows 2000 PCs I was use to, and the user interface was in many ways a combination of “easy” and “challenging”. It took me a few months to work out how to drag and drop.

It lasted a few years and was eventually replaced with an Aluminium G4 Powerbook a few years later.

Since then I have had and used many Macs, including the G5 PowerMac which was an amazing computer, very powerful, various incarnations of the iMac, most recently a 27” model. With the move to Intel, I used a range of MacBooks, I really liked the MacBook Pro Retina and I am currently typing this article on an 11” MacBook Air.

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MacBook Pro 13.3″

Saw the new 13” MacBook Pro complete with SD card slot in the Apple Store.

I was well impressed and am starting to really like this laptop, certainly bigger than a netbook, but more powerful as well (and a lot more expensive too).

Seriously thinking about getting one as a computer for travelling with. The lack of removable battery seems less of an issue these days, what with power sockets on trains and more conference organisers adding power sockets too.

It has Firewire which means moving files (large video files that is) will be easier.

Not too heavy, well heavier than a netbook, but lighter than a 15” MacBook Pro.

Big issue is the price, what with 4GB of RAM and a large HDD, we’re looking at over £1,100…

Thinking about it!

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Changing the battery

On my old G4 PowerBook, changing the battery was a piece of cake. Shut the lid, wait until the light glowed, then remove the flat battery and replace it with a fully charged battery, lift the lid and back to work…

With the MacBook Pro you can’t do this… in theory it is suppose to suspend the computer and save the current state if you remove and replace the battery in the same way as I use to with the G4 Powerbook. However from my experience it is very much a 50/50 chance that what will actually happen is that replacing the battery will result in needing to boot the MacBook Pro. Of course this means that any unsaved work is not saved.

Annoying.

The problem is that (as far as I am aware) there is not a way to set the state of suspension manually, you have to let the computer do it.

As a result I do like the hibernation mode that you find on Windows laptops, very easy to replace the battery then, though it can take an age to resume from hibernation.

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You’re noisy

So here I am moving photographs from my iMac to my MacBook Pro over the wireless network, and can you believe the noise the MacBook Pro is making?

It’s horrendous!

I am not doing anything else on the MBP, all it is doing is importing photographs via iPhoto. I am using the iMac, but it’s dead quiet in comparison.

Ah well, good thing I am not doing any audio recordings!

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Fans Flashback

This evening using my MacBook Pro I had a fans flashback to the days when I had a G5 PowerMac.

I really liked the G5 PowerMac, it was a huge beasty, but a very powerful beasty.

Though now and again it would do a jumbo jet impression and try and to set the fans going so fast that it sounded like it was trying to take off!

I believe that this was a bug caused by the PowerMac failing to realise how hot it was and setting the fans to maximum to try and ensure that it didn’t overheat.

Quite a few updates were sent out by Apple to try and fix it, but as I recall not all those fixes worked.

I have been finding that if I push my MacBook Pro I can make it get very hot quite quickly. Even quicker if I have the battery in and even faster than that if I am charging the battery at the same time.

This evening I was using the MacBook Pro and was watching a video whilst doing some simple web browsing, when the fans kicked in. Now the battery was fully charged so I was quite surprised. Charging the battery and using the MacBook Pro is a simple way of getting the fans going. However this time the battery was fully charged!

The fans just got louder and louder…

Eventually I decided enough was enough. I shut the lid, turned the MacBook Pro over and waited until the fans stopped (nearly 30 seconds or thereabouts). I then removed the battery and turned back over. Opened the lid and continued where I left off.

No fans, but still quite warm.