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  • what's wrong with my macbook pro?

hey everyone,
I have this second hand macbook pro (early 2008)
i have it for about 9 months now, it was working fine, sure it heated up everyone and then but as I read it is to be excepted,but it has been 2 days now that is heating beyond natural, to a point that I actually cannot touch it, plus it is becoming more and more laggy, and I'm afraid that it is going to fail me soon.
what's wrong? can you help me guys?
Blow air in the side vents so that it doesn't overheat.

Use compressed air or a leaf blower. If non are available just use your moms hair dryer :) (With the heat turned off)

Blow on the bottom fan and on the sides until the dust stops coming out. Shake the air a little so that stuck dust comes out aswell.
@Metalloy, Two things must be done and asap, first it should be disassembled and cleaned properly. Second giving the Cpu & Gpu “In case of dedicated Gpu” a Thermal Application.

Note: Blowing air is not efficient because it has been 9 months without proper cleaning that means bigger dust particles, thus in case of blowing them most probably they will stuck on the Gpu or Cpu area and that will make things much dramatics.

Edit: After those steps we can give it a proper conclusion but until this very moment those things must be done and asap.
never did this before, ill chek if their is a guide of some kind, if you have any recommendations please let me know.
thanks for the help.
My first thought is it might be a software problem. If not a misbehaving software, the OS itself might have a problem that would make it overuse the CPU. Reinstalling the OS should of course solve that.
Then of course it is important to make sure airflow and heat exchange is not impeded by dust or other things, so as others said, blow air. Some computer shops sell canned air just for that.
There are also steps to reset some on-board circuitry - it involves something like turning off the laptop, removing the battery and power, and pressing the power key for 5 seconds. I doubt this would be the origin of the problem but it is a possibility.
You did not specify where exactly the heat comes from. It is assumed it is the CPU, but might be something else. If it's the battery be very careful, these things can explode.
Oh, and backup your files.
i've dissassembled it to the point where i can see the board, it doesnt seem that dusty to me.
About the heat source, well im not really a computer expert but if i have to pinpoint in the board it is somwhere near chip called hynix HY5RS
I will re-assemble, i cleaned a little and blowed with a hairdryer, but i wouldnt really call it full of dust, it barely had dust.
i've reassembled and turned on, again it got hot fast, i do.have a software update that i will do but before i do i want to chek if the internet went off qould anything go wrong?
i did a.softaare update, disnt.notice.any improvment on the heating problem thought.
I can confirm that the is somehow uniform throughout the board, and the battery is not affected.
what else can i do?
@Metalloy: Frankly, Mate nothing can be done more thus, the 2007 – 2008 McBook Pro Models suffered serious issues either “Motherboards or Gpu’s” and Apple had a blow in the face with huge RMA numbers. My personal advice do not waste your time and money on it “Fixing a Mac is pricey and needs expertise” I can do it but you have to know there is a risk.

Note: Chances are 70 ~ 30.
What OS do you have? 10.5 or 10.6?
Metalloy wrotei did a.softaare update, disnt.notice.any improvment on the heating problem thought.
I can confirm that the is somehow uniform throughout the board, and the battery is not affected.
what else can i do?
How bout you read my post?
I did read it that's why I update my software, and for now it seems working better although I'm using it with very low brightness and nothing more then web browsing. I guess yesterday I didn't notice a difference because it was hot in the first place. I will keep you updated guys and hopefully the update made things better if not I'll check the other ideas you mentioned ( except blowing air, already did it).
And yea I won't be fixing it, I'll be using it for a year max ( finish me M.S degree) and then get a new laptop, maybe get back to windows (depend on windows 8) and get a good Asus or toshiba.
thanks guys.
yesterday I updated to 10.7
@Metealloy: Thumbs up, if you consider giving your Notebook a “Thermal Application” I will do it for you mate. As for the next purchase stick with ASUS, its headaches free ;).

Note: Proper cleaning every month is necessary, so keep it clean like this.
Metalloy wroteI did read it that's why I update my software, and for now it seems working better although I'm using it with very low brightness and nothing more then web browsing. I guess yesterday I didn't notice a difference because it was hot in the first place. I will keep you updated guys and hopefully the update made things better if not I'll check the other ideas you mentioned ( except blowing air, already did it).
And yea I won't be fixing it, I'll be using it for a year max ( finish me M.S degree) and then get a new laptop, maybe get back to windows (depend on windows 8) and get a good Asus or toshiba.
thanks guys.
yesterday I updated to 10.7
OK, sorry then, I guess you must have missed the part where I mention reinstalling the OS.
It can be a problem in the low-level code of the OS that is causing that. If you don't want to reinstall the OS without being sure, you could download Ubuntu and burn a live disk and boot your laptop using that. But note that Ubuntu is known to be power-inefficient especially on exotic hardware such as Mac, so it might run hot, although not abnormally hot and laggy as you described. That might help you in pinpointing the problem, if you don't want to risk reinstalling the OS for nothing.
I am no expert, but I believe that parts of the OS can get damaged, or some software might install low-level modules (or "drivers") or background services with no obvious way to disable them, and an update will not solve that.
Also, if the cooling fan doesn't seem to be doing it's job, try resetting the SMC (that's the thing I was talking about in my previous post), it controls the fan speeds:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
tarekelkhaledi wrote@Metealloy: Thumbs up, if you consider giving your Notebook a “Thermal Application” I will do it for you mate. As for the next purchase stick with ASUS, its headaches free ;).

Note: Proper cleaning every month is necessary, so keep it clean like this.
I agree about ASUS's quality. But even a 5 year ASUS is bound to have a problem or 2. Macs are generally on par quality wise.
ranibalaa wrote
tarekelkhaledi wrote@Metealloy: Thumbs up, if you consider giving your Notebook a “Thermal Application” I will do it for you mate. As for the next purchase stick with ASUS, its headaches free ;).

Note: Proper cleaning every month is necessary, so keep it clean like this.
I agree about ASUS's quality. But even a 5 year ASUS is bound to have a problem or 2. Macs are generally on par quality wise.
I have an ASUS. If I had a bigger budget I'd have bought a Mac, mostly for the OS. The problem with Macs - as far as I'm concerned - is that they're expensive, and despite their price they are still fragile and prone to defects and problems.
i never worked with ubuntu, and the way you're describing it seems like a task to be left for after the exams, and that is afyer cheking that the update did not do the result i'm seeking, i will keep you updated.
10 days later
Thermal Paste could help but usually thermal paste issues are not sudden, heat tends to increase slowly as time goes on.

For sudden overheating issues you should first check if your Fans are running at their normal RPM's
second and as mentioned earlier there are some services running on OSX that can cause CPU utilization to be maxed out at 100% this would explain the heat and the lag. (especially if you are using an old application on a newer OSX revision ie: citrix on OSX Lion will cause 100% Cpu power on startup of the service before you even lunch the app).

for this i recommend to run the windows task manager equivalent under OSX > Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor and look at the CPU % tab to find the offending task.

It is sometimes useful on Intel Macs to do an SMC reset (and Pram)
the procedure depends on your mac model (if the battery can be removed or not)

For the non removable batteries, you need to have your charger plugged into the AC and the Mac

while is mac is off you need to simultaneously press Shift + Control + Option + Power button for a few seconds and release, the mac will stay off, you will then be able to power it normally.

for Pram you should power on the mac and as soon as the grey screen is displayed before the apple logo appears you need to press simultaneously command+option and P+R

for more info on this subject check this page : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964