Curse it all!!!

musicaleCA · Jul 8, 2009

My laptop is dead. It won't boot. Actually, it's probably that the G86 chipset finally fried (how many Apple users actually use their laptops for gaming, and PS/LR work too; I've been really heating up my GPU for two years now). Curse Nvidia for creating a defective product. </rant> (For the curious, I've had a MacBook Pro for 2 years now, and been using it steadily for gaming, video and audio editing, and now PS. I'm surprised that with the defects the G86 chips have that it lasted this long.)

One of my roommates has loaned me a laptop for a bit. At least I can still annoy you all with my posts. :lol:

SrBiscuit · Jul 9, 2009

boooo...
sorry to hear it....i would be lost without my laptop.

what are your plans for replacement?

musicaleCA · Jul 9, 2009

None. I shelled-out $100 today for Apple's "ProCare" service, and they had a new logic board on-hand, so it was repaired within hours. I do plan to get a Mac Pro in future though; at least then I'd have a proper computer to whip into submission with PS and LR (and the myriad of other programs I have); something that could take the pain a bit better. >.<

Jeffro · Jul 10, 2009

Got to love knowing you worked it hard enough to kill it.... That is how you get your money's worth!

musicaleCA · Jul 10, 2009

:lmao: Indeed.

kric2schaam626 · Jul 10, 2009

What are the recommendations for Apple, btw? I'm PC right now, but don't intend to stay for too much longer.

musicaleCA · Jul 10, 2009

The OS is sexy, and more intuitive than Windows, in my opinion. It's more visual, less textual. That said, don't let anyone try to sell you on the "security" of Macs; the only reason they aren't virus-ridden is because they represent a small market share compared to Windows. Mac OS X is, in reality, very, very unsecure, for a Unix/FreeBSD hybrid OS. That said, Apple is getting its act together slowly on security updates; eventually they might develop the support infrastructure like Microsoft to tackle security issues quickly (and hopefully beat MS in efficiency).

And hell, if you pay for ProCare, when you take the computer in for repair they treat you like royalty, and get it done as fast as humanly possible. That, and the integration of their software (iLife, iWork, Aperture, etc.) with their OS is great. And the OS itself is designed with the hardware in mind too, so it does tend to run with fewer (i.e. no) driver issues and stuff like that (which are far too commonplace for my comfort on Windows).

Oh, and you can run Windows on Macs too now, since they've been using Intel CPUs.

And the biggest downside: Macs are at least a few hundred, if not one thousand dollars more than a PC with equivalent specs (though, to be fair, such computers oft only come with a basic version of Windows; OS X doesn't have any such moronic versioning).

Oh, and Time Machine is pretty damn slick if you just want a simple backup scheme.

Yemme · Jul 10, 2009

Oh dear... sorry hun....:hug::

c.cloudwalker · Jul 10, 2009

musicaleCA said:
The OS is sexy, and more intuitive than Windows, in my opinion. It's more visual, less textual. That said, don't let anyone try to sell you on the "security" of Macs; the only reason they aren't virus-ridden is because they represent a small market share compared to Windows. Mac OS X is, in reality, very, very unsecure, for a Unix/FreeBSD hybrid OS. That said, Apple is getting its act together slowly on security updates; eventually they might develop the support infrastructure like Microsoft to tackle security issues quickly (and hopefully beat MS in efficiency).

And hell, if you pay for ProCare, when you take the computer in for repair they treat you like royalty, and get it done as fast as humanly possible. That, and the integration of their software (iLife, iWork, Aperture, etc.) with their OS is great. And the OS itself is designed with the hardware in mind too, so it does tend to run with fewer (i.e. no) driver issues and stuff like that (which are far too commonplace for my comfort on Windows).

Oh, and you can run Windows on Macs too now, since they've been using Intel CPUs.

And the biggest downside: Macs are at least a few hundred, if not one thousand dollars more than a PC with equivalent specs (though, to be fair, such computers oft only come with a basic version of Windows; OS X doesn't have any such moronic versioning).

Oh, and Time Machine is pretty damn slick if you just want a simple backup scheme.

Whatever the reason for the security of Mac, it is certainly a plus for me. Since my first one in 86, I have never owned a virus software and have never had a problem. :lol:

Yes, you can run Windows and it works fine but don't ever get on the web from the Windows side or you expose your computer to viruses, etc.

The main reason I got a Mac was that I had no choice. Way back then, it was the creative computer. Most high-end creative software did not exist for Windows and when they finally did come out with Windows versions, they didn't work quite the same.

Today, who knows? Since I do not own a Windows machine I can't tell for sure but I still see more Macs in the movie and graphic design industries for the creative work. There must be a reason.

Maybe it is as simple as mine for not even thinking about switching: I am used to Mac, none of my computers have crashed in I don't know how many years and I've never had to have one fixed. To me, the last two are reason enough to pay the higher price.

Cheers!

AduNeButt · Jul 10, 2009

Out of curiosity, how much were you playing/what were you playing that was so heavy it fried your GPU? I have a black Macbook and use it for slight video/photo editing but I couldn't see my use of the laptop ever fry the GPU.

musicaleCA · Jul 10, 2009

If you don't have one of the first Nvidia GeForce 8400 or 8600 GPU's you should be fine. When I play games, they're usually quite graphics heavy; games like Crysis, Prototype, the Witcher (which is a freaking awesome game that should be played by any gamers here), Dead Space, Oblivion, or Fallout 3 all come to mind. They put a fair bit of strain on the system. (The fans have also died on this laptop. Yikes. :lol:

)

The problem is that even if I replaced all that with just PS/LR work, the end result would be essentially the same, if not worse. The problem is caused by consistent heating/cooling cycles of the GPU, and it's likely to go through more cooldowns while using PS when there are breaks in heavy processing.

cloudwalker: I think one of the big reasons Macs are used for media is their reliability. Hands-down, out-of-the-box, a Mac is way more reliable than any PC with Windows on the market. Period. Also, Macs have had the HFS+ (HFS Extended, Journaled) file system for a long time. The HFS+ file system is incredibly resiliant, and doesn't fragment easily at all (NTFS fragments so freaking fast its unbelievable), because it tries to place files in free space where they will remain contiguous. For people who work with large volumes of data, such as graphics designers, photographers shooting thousands of photos, or video editors, this resiance to fragmentation means that the computer has far less down-time (on a Windows machine a hard-working pro video editor would likely have to defrag very often, at least once every two weeks; HFS+ removes the issue altogether).

And Macs also come with just about every driver for every printer, controller, accessory, and thinamajig on the market that Apple can get their hands on. That really shortens set-up time when using different devices. OS X is truely plug-and-play, unlike Windows which just pretends to be much of the time. (It also handles MIDI controllers way, way better than Windows; speaking from experience using MIDI controllers and Reason, OS X has provided a much smoother experience.) </walloftext>

The benefit of Windows is still it's dominant market share, though that is slipping now. And with Google announcing an up-coming release of their own OS for laptop/desktop computers (Google OS will be completely removed from Android), things are really heating up for Microsoft.

JohnMF · Jul 10, 2009

My macbook pro has been getting really hot near the power adapter plug-in lately. Much more than usual. I honestly think i could fry an egg on it! It can give you a severe burn. I'm a bit worried about it.

musicaleCA · Jul 10, 2009

Technically, without the heatsinks, you could fry and egg on it; the CPU and GPU on MBP's regularly run at close to 100ºC (with the sinks). Sure, it would be slow frying, but it'd work. (Normally, when relatively idle, my MBP is at these temps, in ºC: CPU 65º - 70º, HD 40º, Airport Card 40º, Enclosure Base 35º, GPU Diode 75º, GPU Heatsink 60º, Heatsink A 60º, Heatsink B 50º, Fans at 2000RPM.) Get yourself iStat Pro and check your temps. If they're way hotter than the above, you should probably take it in.

If your display ever gets corrupted and your computer stops working completely, that means the fail safe switch on either the GPU or CPU was triggered because of critical overheating and it shut-down. (You can't actually fry the chips with those fail safes in place, because the chip will shut itself off immediately at a certain temp, before any serious damage can occur.)

Oh, and the power adaptor puts out a moderate amount of heat itself. You could try moving the adaptor away, but I doubt that'll solve your problem. Lastly, it could just be lots of dust; harder to clean on an MBP than a desktop computer, but you could try blasting the back opening where the fans are with a compressed gas duster. Falcon Air Duster's are pretty good for that kind of, just follow the safety precautions.

JohnMF · Jul 11, 2009

musicaleCA said:
Technically, without the heatsinks, you could fry and egg on it; the CPU and GPU on MBP's regularly run at close to 100ºC (with the sinks). Sure, it would be slow frying, but it'd work. (Normally, when relatively idle, my MBP is at these temps, in ºC: CPU 65º - 70º, HD 40º, Airport Card 40º, Enclosure Base 35º, GPU Diode 75º, GPU Heatsink 60º, Heatsink A 60º, Heatsink B 50º, Fans at 2000RPM.) Get yourself iStat Pro and check your temps. If they're way hotter than the above, you should probably take it in.

If your display ever gets corrupted and your computer stops working completely, that means the fail safe switch on either the GPU or CPU was triggered because of critical overheating and it shut-down. (You can't actually fry the chips with those fail safes in place, because the chip will shut itself off immediately at a certain temp, before any serious damage can occur.)

Oh, and the power adaptor puts out a moderate amount of heat itself. You could try moving the adaptor away, but I doubt that'll solve your problem. Lastly, it could just be lots of dust; harder to clean on an MBP than a desktop computer, but you could try blasting the back opening where the fans are with a compressed gas duster. Falcon Air Duster's are pretty good for that kind of, just follow the safety precautions.

Thanks for the tip. I will download that widget and report back, it looks good.

It only seems to get hot when the power adapter is plugged in and the battery is charging.