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    MacBook Air 13' - Fan Noise?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Dilong03, Jun 12, 2011.

  1. Dilong03

    Dilong03 Newbie

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    Hey guys and girls,

    I'm going to be buying a new computer in the next few weeks and I'm strongly leaning towards the Macbook Air. I don't really care about the Sandy Bridge processor so I figure I can get a refurb 13 inch model with 4gb of RAM and the standard processor/SSD configuration and that'll do me for my computing needs (web browsing, document editing, HD video watching and the occasional old game).

    But I'm coming from a Dell XPS M1330 - the laptop that melts diamonds and is louder than a turbofan jet engine when it gets going. My main considerations are weight and noise.

    There are a few threads on the Apple discussion forums saying that the MBA 13's fan is very loud. If I had another laptop with a stupidly annoying fan, I think I'd jump off a building in frustration.

    So what's the experience of people that have owned or used the current gen of MBA? Obviously I don't mind if the fans spin up when there's fifty flash videos going in 51 tabs of a browser, but for me the biggest concerns are a) is it going all the time [like my current POS] and b) how loud is it under load?

    Thanks,

    Dilong
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 29, 2015
    Dilong03, Jun 12, 2011
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  2. Bog

    Bog Losing it...

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    Anecdotal impressions are pretty useless since everyone hears differently. I would recommend seeing a MBA in person in a quiet setting and listening to it yourself. Do you have an Apple store near your area?
     
    Bog, Jun 12, 2011
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  3. Dilong03

    Dilong03 Newbie

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    Haha, yeah, but it's hardly quiet. It's always full of people. I went to the Apple store in the CBD today and brought an HD mp4 file on a USB stick to play for a while, but it was so loud in there I could barely hear the sound, let alone the fan.

    I went to another Apple reseller which was (slightly) quieter and opened six tabs of HTML5 video from Vimeo. Not that I'd ever do that, but just to stress test it. I could definitely make out the fan over the noise of the store if I put my ear right up to it, but as to how audible it'd be in the quiet of my home or office, I have no idea.

    So basically my tests were useless
     
    Dilong03, Jun 12, 2011
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