Has your Macbook Air overheating problems been solved?

Question

Hi All,
Has there been a solution to the Macbook Air overheating problem for you?
I'm considering selling my MBA but want to see first if there has been any new updates on this issue.
I have a Macbook Air with the specifications as follows:
Model: MacBook Air 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Production year: 2008
Production week: 15 (April)
OS X Version 10.5.7
Have had the computer for about a year now and it has been constantly overheating and becoming more or less unusable when doing so. Have been hoping upgrades to the software would solve this eventually but that does not seem to have happened.
As I'm writing this room temperature is about 20 degrees celcius. Laptop sits on a table with power cable plugged in. Not running any external screen. There is no video streaming or music playing. Only the Firefox browser and a few more idle apps are active such as Mail and Skype (in the background). Even under these conditions the fan is currently running loud at 6100rpm and the Macbook Air is very hot underneath.
CPU temperature is currently 54 degrees Celsius. Both cores seem to be active.
Now, as an experiment I will head over to YouTube to watch a video and open up Microsoft Word in the background, a perfectly normal usage for a computer this new. This is what happens:
The computer starts to become painfully slow. After for example clicking an item in the browser there is a 1-3 second delay before the click actually becomes effective. It's now so hot underneath that I would not want to keep it in my lap. It is hard to use the mouse pointer properly as it does not update in realtime, I have to assume where it will land based on my movements. When scrolling, the spinning wheel icon becomes active. Everything is now happening in slow motion.
Video is lagging heavily. I can only see probably 1 out of every 10 frames or less of the video. All applications running are very slow. CPU temperature is now 64 degrees celsius. Fan is at 6200. Computer is now unusable for me. When I scroll a page in the browser it takes about 2-3 seconds before anything happens. Changing tabs takes 5-6 seconds after I click them. I will have to shut it down before re-starting and resuming work. When room temperature is even higher on a hot day needless to say everything gets a lot worse quicker.
Is this normal for Macbook Air's? If that is the case they are more or less unusable for most types of normal 2009 year usage (video, audio, browsing, office work etc).
What solutions have you found? Coolbook? Software/Firmware updates? Hardware changes? Please let me know if you have been able to make your MBA not overheat under normal usage.

Answer 1

Hi Everybody,
Thanks for your replies to start with.
I have tried to install Coolbook now and has it running. When using 'throttling' and letting it change CPU speeds (I think..) the problem still remains. When watching a video or other demanding task the temperature goes way up. Running a CPUTest (small or big) gets CPU temperatures of up to 84-85 C. Fan of course at 6200rpm all the time.
Right now, I have Coolbook set to 800Mhz and 0.9V. Apps running are Firefox, Skype, Mail and iTunes with no audio playing. CPU temperature at 56 c and fan speed (as usual) at 6200rpm. I can use the computer now. It is still lagging and not very fast at all. Sometimes text appear 1-2 seconds after I have written it on the keyboard.
So Coolbook has made a difference for me, but only when putting the CPU speed down to 800MHz. I wouldn't call reducing the CPU speed to half a 'solution' though and will not keep that as a long term solution. Reducing voltages for higher CPU-speeds 0.9875V for 1600MHz does not work, it still heats up massively.
Have used the MBA for the whole day today and can't recall a single time the fan has not been around 6200rpm except right after boot.
Thanks for the tips on upgrading to 10.5.8. I will try that right away and let you know how it works out.
Have also considered buying some cooling device but just as you say that feels like a bit of a last thing to resort to.
I'm surprised Apple hasn't responded stronger to this. Had this happened in the car industry we would have seen thousands of cars being sent back to the garage to be fixed.
If this only has to do with some specific production weeks then the right thing to do would be for Apple to let those people have their computers either fixed or replaced.