Warm up your MacBook (2019)

(z3ugma.github.io)

52 points | by kristianp 8 hours ago

20 comments

  • ralphc 40 minutes ago
    I still use a 2019 MacBook Pro, in 2026 I found the best way to warm it up was to use it daily and not blow the dust out of it for 7 years. After I opened it up and did that it's running a lot cooler.
  • dnnddidiej 6 hours ago
    For those without spacebar heating?
    • mrtksn 5 hours ago
      They broke that workflow in a recent update. Software these days is horrendous
  • kingjimmy 6 hours ago
    "This will start 6 threads that each peg your CPU... "

    they're doing what to my CPU????

    • crest 5 hours ago
      Bend over for big tech!
  • amomchilov 8 hours ago
    How big is the risk of condensation when you bring a cold laptop inside?

    All their spec sheets say they support up to x% _non-condensing_ humidity, which I’m guessing is about the dew point?

    • ericpauley 5 hours ago
      The uncomfortable fact about the mentioned Wisconsin winters is that inside dew point tends to be quite low.
  • mcfedr 18 minutes ago
    yes only writes y, not the whole word yes
    • fnord77 11 minutes ago
      unless you type

            yes yes
  • HDBaseT 6 hours ago
    For years at work I've been just using Cinebench as a hand warmer on various Macbooks.
    • hakkoru 5 hours ago
      I always enjoyed using the power brick to warm up
  • waterhouse 6 hours ago
    Multithreaded:

      seq 1 20 | xargs -Iqq -n1 -P0 yes >/dev/null
  • jvuygbbkuurx 8 hours ago
    I just need to build our monorepo
    • Onavo 7 hours ago
      I think any next.js project will do the trick
  • reboot81 7 hours ago
    Looking forward to the follow up: How to Quickly Cool Down Your MacBook
    • sunrunner 7 hours ago
      Just do the trick in reverse, surely?

        yes no > /dev/null
      • why_at 6 hours ago
        No you have to get the yesses back out

          cat /dev/null | yes
    • ge96 7 hours ago
      Strap a thermopile and a peltier on that bad boy
  • jerlam 4 hours ago
    I think my last Macbook was Wisconsin-locale instead of California. Closing the lid and putting it to sleep actually caused it to heat up (until the battery died).
  • splittydev 4 hours ago
    Alternatively, you could try compiling an Xcode project. That should do the trick as well.
  • Hobadee 5 hours ago
    I'm from California... What is this "cold" you speak of?
    • int0x29 4 hours ago
      The Donner Party begs to differ
  • kristianp 5 hours ago
    Or you could get a laptop that doesn't have an metal shell, like a thinkpad.
    • Cassell 5 hours ago
      they often have a magnesium bottom shell
  • daneel_w 6 hours ago

      while true; do openssl speed ecdsap384 -multi 2; done
  • mark242 6 hours ago
    npm install
  • Scubabear68 7 hours ago
    Needs 2019 in title, this is Intel MacBooks not Apple Silicon.
    • dunham 6 hours ago
      I've found that Baldur's Gate 3 will warm up my apple silicon (everyday tasks do not).
      • Analemma_ 5 hours ago
        Is that running on Rosetta 2? Rosetta 2 does (or did, maybe it's removed now) a fine job running x86 code on Apple Silicon, but boy was it cycle-hungry to do it.
        • dangus 5 hours ago
          Apple Silicon is not really the simultaneously silent and quiet and cool system it was in the M1 days.

          If you get a MacBook Air it will get quite toasty at throttling limits. After all, it has no fan.

          MacBook Pro models and Apple computers in general tend to favor quiet operation over keeping the laptop surface cool.

          Many PC gaming laptops go out of their way to keep warm air off the keyboard deck with a high willingness to use fan noise to accomplish that since the assumption is that you’re resting your hands on the computer for an extended period and you have headphones on for your game anyway.

    • ciupicri 6 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • rogerrogerr 6 hours ago
        The target market of the "Neo crap" doesn't care and/or isn't pushing workloads that come anywhere near saturating it. It's a laptop that doesn't bend, has a decent screen, has a decent battery, and isn't full of adware.
        • ciupicri 5 hours ago
          The article was about warming up a laptop. Neo can do it too.
          • rogerrogerr 5 hours ago
            And your comment was calling it crap for some reason. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d left that apparently superfluous word out of your comment.
      • inventor7777 4 hours ago
        How does the Neo getting to 100°C make it crap? By that logic, aren't all older Intel/x86 chips crap? If anything, I find it impressive that a small laptop CPU can do 100°C without a problem...my i7-7700T M710qs hit 75°C and throttle within a minute if I use a tool like y-cruncher or stress-ng. To be fair, totally different purpose.
        • wtallis 36 minutes ago
          For a very long time now, it has been the case that in the short term most processors will boost high enough for the die to reach around 100°C. When you see a reading substantially lower than that like your example of 75°C, either the system has throttled for a reason other than processor die temperature (eg. throttling to limit the temperature of the outer case of the machine) or the temperature reading you're seeing does not correspond to the hottest part of the chip and the throttling is based on the presumption that a different part of the chip that is not directly monitored will be much hotter.

          In the specific case of the i7-7700T, the "T" suffix for Intel CPUs usually means you have mainstream desktop silicon with arbitrarily reduced long-term turbo limits, intended to be used in small form factor PCs with limited cooling capacity. Its limitation to 35W sustained and official Tj max of 80°C are artificial and essentially fiction, and the same silicon will readily do 91W sustained with a Tj max of 100°C as seen on the i7-7700K.

          Processor temperature under load tells you almost nothing about the power draw or efficiency of the chip, because the temperature can be controlled to almost any value desired through a combination of varying cooling effort and varying clock speeds.

  • moralestapia 8 hours ago
    Won't work on M processors, (un)fortunately.
    • dajonker 7 hours ago
      I recently installed an app to manually activate the fans on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro as I've never been able to trigger them over the past 4+ years. Just to check whether the fans even work (they do).
      • amluto 6 hours ago
        You must be using only lame languages like C or Go or Python that aren’t optimized for laptop warming during compilation. Try using a Real Language with a Real Compiler, like C++ or Rust or Swift, and build decent-sized projects using all cores.

        (All joking aside, this is why I have a MacBook Pro. Compilation easily hits the Air’s thermal limits and the performance boost on the Pro with its fan is impressive.)

      • asdff 4 hours ago
        I get them going full blast in 2 minutes from cities skylines.
      • woozlewuzzle 5 hours ago
        You could also build Chromium from source. It makes my M1 Max's fans sing.
    • tom_ 4 hours ago
      I left my Mac Studio running at 100% CPU on all cores for 14 hours, and the case ended up noticeably warm to the touch. It is possible!
    • asdff 4 hours ago
      Try increasing to 10 cores. Works on my m3 pro.
    • mjmas 8 hours ago
      • nullbyte 8 hours ago
        sanest emacs user
      • RAZKOM 7 hours ago
        There really is an xkcd for everything
    • therein 8 hours ago
      Honestly m1 was very cool no matter what workload you threw at it but at this point m4 max does get pretty hot even with just web browsing.
      • gpm 8 hours ago
        I've definitely had my m1 air get uncomfortably hot to touch - particularly right above the keyboard. (While doing developery things)
        • inventor7777 4 hours ago
          Can't say I've ever thought of a word like "developery", but now that I've seen it I like it a lot :-)
  • 1e1a 8 hours ago
    Another (more useful) option is to render an animation in Blender, or run a local LLM.
  • ale 8 hours ago
    Honestly i prefer my macbook frosty
  • tithos 6 hours ago
    [dead]