The death of core shutdown on MacBook Air?
Hopefully YES, as Apple has released MacBook Air Software Update 1.0 which “addresses issues with video playback and processor core idling.”
I discovered the problem after playing YouTube videos (or any videos, really) or just using my computer on my bed, thus blocking the air vent on the bottom of the computer. Basically, one core out of the two would shut down to prevent overheating and as a result, my MBA would become super slow, as in unusable. To remedy this problem, I picked up CoolBook which undervolts the processor. I used Rob Randtoul’s (via Paul Stamatiou) settings to undervolt the MBA. Since that time, I’ve experienced no core shutdowns. Seems like Apple has fixed the problem, while also recommending the uninstallation of CoolBook. While not mentioning it by name, Apple does include this tasty morsel:
Third-party software that modifies processor operating characteristics such as frequency and voltage is not supported and should be removed before installing this update.
Normally, I love playing guinea pig and trying out these new updates, but since CoolBook has been so effective, I think I’m going to wait this one out and see what the other MBA owners have to say.
Andrew Paul Simmons said,
August 23, 2008 @ 10:23 am
The update does prevent core shutdown. However, it under-clocked my Air so much that I could not longer easily move the mouse across the doc at times and once this behavior set in it would not stop. I turned Cool Book back on and it works like a charm inspite of Apples silly warning.
Jason Snell said,
August 29, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
Same situation here. The update prevents core shutdown by slowing down your computer to the point of unusability. I’m back on CoolBook as well, and back to decent speeds. Unbelievable.
I’ve got a call into Apple PR on this one. We’ll see…