Impossibly hot – that was my proclamation right after I performed surgery on the MacBook Pro. It was uncomfortably hot around the area where the magsafe adapter plugs in, with temperatures ranging from 160-190 F (70C-90C for the metric minded) for the GPU Diode and similar for the CPU. Many fanbois claimed that this range was well within the tolerance limit, but how do you explain that to your palms while you work on the beautiful machine? I decided to get to the bottom of this CookBook phenomenon.

First thing I AppZapp‘d was Pathfinder. A very useful application, but the CPU spikes while using it, were unforgivable. Next down was Microsoft Office ’08. A useful suite, but easily supplanted by Open Office & Thunderbird (replacing Entourage). Another one down was Adobe Suite CS3 (PhotoShop). I installed Pixelmator to supplant this.

Things did seem marginally better, but nothing like what I had expected to see – disappointing to say the least. But then I AppZapp’d Little Snitch – (firewall for Mac), and lo and behold – at full load I average temperatures around 148-150F(~64C).

Back to reinstalling the cast-offs.