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Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh

M

mrkgoo

Member
Speaking of SuperDrive, I understand macs without DVD drives don't instal DVD player.

What about if I plug in a new external apple SuperDrive? Do you have to go and install it?

Or does it magically install?
 
C

CrankyKong

Member
Really getting tired of waiting for the new retinas.
Would it be a bad idea to just get one of the new Airs?

I mostly want the retina for the screen, but the lower battery life and bulkier frame are a turn off
 
M

muddream

Banned
Getting a current retina would be a bad decision, but deciding between Air and Retina in general is something only you can answer.

Really hoping Apple continues their battery life obsession and gets rid of the dGPU in the 15"...or a quad-core 13". This '09 MBP is slow as molasses, but right now there's nothing in the lineup without a major flaw.
 
K

Ken Masters

Banned
muddream said:
Getting a current retina would be a bad decision, but deciding between Air and Retina in general is something only you can answer.

Really hoping Apple continues their battery life obsession and gets rid of the dGPU in the 15"...or a quad-core 13". This '09 MBP is slow as molasses, but right now there's nothing in the lineup without a major flaw.
Click to expand...

no retina announcement was sad, really need to upgrade my laptop
 
K

kaskade

Member
Man, this wait for them to ship my air is agonizing. I wanted the upgraded RAM so I opted for that. Probably won't end up getting here until the beginning of next week.
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
Greyface said:
Don't rush to buy a MBA just yet (unless you really really need one of course). Even if the MBP is out of your budget, you should consider waiting for Apple's Back to School promo which usually starts around this time of the year.





Did you setup your iMac with a time machine/superduper backup?
Click to expand...

Are you saying he may only have it because he got it from a backup?

I wouldn't put it past apple to actually have but install in all macs, but it just be invisible on those that gave no drives UNLESS you plug in a SuperDrive.

Don't think that's how it works, though. Apple support pages only say that the SuperDrive allows you to install new software.
 
C

CrudeDiatribe

Member
fireside said:
I don't have a SuperDrive either. I do have an external BluRay drive, but DVD Player was installed before I got it.
Click to expand...

I too have DVD Player on my MacBook Air. Started life at 10.7 and now runs 10.8. Have never plugged an Apple external optical disc into it (though have used both AirDisk and a 5.25" CD-RW drive connected by an IDE-USB adaptor).
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
Right, thanks guys.

Time to buy a mac!

(And possibly kick myself in the coming weeks for ignoring the rumours of possibly imminent haswell)
 
T

TUSR

Banned
mrkgoo said:
Right, thanks guys.

Time to buy a mac!

(And possibly kick myself in the coming weeks for ignoring the rumours of possibly imminent haswell)
Click to expand...

The new MBA is a beast. The screen resolution still makes me sad though. Anyone buying a laptop these days would be making a huge mistake not getting one of these over a "competitors"
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
TUSR said:
The new MBA is a beast. The screen resolution still makes me sad though. Anyone buying a laptop these days would be making a huge mistake not getting one of these over a "competitors"
Click to expand...
It's kind of tempting, but I think an iMac is better suited for what I do the most - aperture.
 
Z

zychi

Banned
TUSR said:
The new MBA is a beast. The screen resolution still makes me sad though. Anyone buying a laptop these days would be making a huge mistake not getting one of these over a "competitors"
Click to expand...

Mine hasn't even shipped yet :(

Had to get the 8gb ram from the website cuz my local apple store doesnt supply 8gb of ram
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
Greyface said:
Why not wait a bit?

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iMac
Click to expand...

How long is "wait a bit"? As they say, you never know. There's even a rumour that haswell chips are going to be in a silent update within the next couple months.

The thing is, I would normally wait. But my primary (and only) computer has died. Sure an iPhone 5 tides me over in day to day use, and while I'm not doing anything professional, I still feel a bit lacking without a computer.

Not sure what haswell can bring for an iMac that just got a big update 6 months ago. Maybe new pcie bus for SSD. Maybe drop in price for fusion or larger SSD for that.

There is a risk/reward for waiting, but the reward is not that great compared to the potential risk that an update might not come until October. I'm not sure i can even wait until the end of July. If I knew that an update was out next week, I'd wait.
 
M

muddream

Banned
If you're mostly buying it for the screen, why not. Haswell/rebranded GeForce 7xx isn't going to make a huge difference anyway. Personally, I can't imagine buying a non-SSD or Fusion drive machine and Apple's pricing policy for those options is just too shameless. Perhaps look for a refurb?
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
muddream said:
If you're mostly buying it for the screen, why not. Haswell/rebranded GeForce 7xx isn't going to make a huge difference anyway. Personally, I can't imagine buying a non-SSD or Fusion drive machine and Apple's pricing policy for those options is just too shameless. Perhaps look for a refurb?
Click to expand...

I can push my money to get one upgrade, and that will most likely be a fusion drive.

Refurb store in my country aren't very good. No iMacs until today, it's 2011 model for 10% less than the 2012 model.
 
N

ngower

Member
Just bought the highest configuration Macbook Air, minus the 512GB upgrade, through my employer. I already have one of the most recent iMacs, so I just needed something portable with enough storage for my documents and music.

MY BODY IS READY!
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
If I wasn't waiting for the Retina Pro's, that MacBook Air would be mine right now. And it would be the third Air generation in a row I've owned. Not going to say it's not really tempting. But gimmie dat Retina Pro, Apple! I have a feeling we'll have to wait until October. Maybe September. (The 13" Retina Pro was released last October along side the iPad mini. A month after the normal iOS device release event in September.) Hoping for earlier though. Maybe August? July? Tomorrow maybe? Gimmie gimmie gimmie!
 
B

Blackhead

Redarse
The Real Abed said:
If I wasn't waiting for the Retina Pro's, that MacBook Air would be mine right now. And it would be the third Air generation in a row I've owned. Not going to say it's not really tempting. But gimmie dat Retina Pro, Apple! I have a feeling we'll have to wait until October. Maybe September. (The 13" Retina Pro was released last October along side the iPad mini. A month after the normal iOS device release event in September.) Hoping for earlier though. Maybe August? July? Tomorrow maybe? Gimmie gimmie gimmie!
Click to expand...

What are your reasons for upgrading?
 
F

fierrotlepou

Member
Hi guys, I've got a (big?) problem. I wanted to format my entire harddisk (128GB SSD, probably doesn't matter) to install Mountain Lion on it. There was a bootcamp partition on it as well, which I erased. I did this in Disk Utility in recovery mode (when I pressed CMD + R in the beginning).

BU470Ko.png


The problem is, I wanted to erase my whole HD so I could have it whole again, but I couldn't because it said something about: "unable to unmount partition".

So now I'm left with a BOOTCAMP partition and a greyed out part that I can't use. I've tried resizing the HD to take the gray part, but it doesn't work.

I've got no idea what to do...

Thanks in advance guys. These problems are hard to explain.
 
A

Aroo

Neo Member
muddream said:
Getting a current retina would be a bad decision, but deciding between Air and Retina in general is something only you can answer.

Really hoping Apple continues their battery life obsession and gets rid of the dGPU in the 15"...or a quad-core 13". This '09 MBP is slow as molasses, but right now there's nothing in the lineup without a major flaw.
Click to expand...

Quad-core is not going to happen with either Haswell or Broadwell. Those quad-cores are 47W cpus. Way too much for those 13"s.
 
T

TUSR

Banned
Aroo said:
Quad-core is not going to happen with either Haswell or Broadwell. Those quad-cores are 47W cpus. Way too much for those 13"s.
Click to expand...

The mobile wattage of the i7 quads are 45W and the dual cored ones are 35W.

Broadwell is a tick, which brings the architecture to 14nm. And Haswell is already delivering on the power consumption, there is no real need for a quad in those laptops.


Once you go retina, you don't go back.
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
eravulgaris said:
Hi guys, I've got a (big?) problem. I wanted to format my entire harddisk (128GB SSD, probably doesn't matter) to install Mountain Lion on it. There was a bootcamp partition on it as well, which I erased. I did this in Disk Utility in recovery mode (when I pressed CMD + R in the beginning).

BU470Ko.png


The problem is, I wanted to erase my whole HD so I could have it whole again, but I couldn't because it said something about: "unable to unmount partition".

So now I'm left with a BOOTCAMP partition and a greyed out part that I can't use. I've tried resizing the HD to take the gray part, but it doesn't work.

I've got no idea what to do...

Thanks in advance guys. These problems are hard to explain.
Click to expand...
You weren't able to do it under the Recovery boot? Because that's weird. I mean you have everything backed up, right? You could backup to a clone then boot from the clone. Then use Disk Utility and format it while booted from the clone. Then use the install app to start over.
 
F

Fantastical

Death Prophet
Holy fuck my Macbook Pro (June 2012) is running hot. I was watching Netflix today and picked it up and was shocked to feel how hot it was running. REALLY HOT. I downloaded smcFanControl to see the temp and it was 87C when I ran it (after closing Netflix briefly) so it was even hotter. It doesn't seem like my fans are increasing speed. They were still at 2000 RPM even at these super hot temps.

What the hell is going on? This cannot be normal. I've had this for less than a year. I've noticed it gets hot but haven't thought about it. I should also add that I've never really heard the fans. On my old laptop I would of course hear them kicking in, but with this Macbook I've never really noticed them running. I thought this may just be some crazy Macbook thing but now I'm thinking otherwise.
 
T

TUSR

Banned
Fantastical said:
Holy fuck my Macbook Pro (June 2012) is running hot. I was watching Netflix today and picked it up and was shocked to feel how hot it was running. REALLY HOT. I downloaded smcFanControl to see the temp and it was 87C when I ran it (after closing Netflix briefly) so it was even hotter. It doesn't seem like my fans are increasing speed. They were still at 2000 RPM even at these super hot temps.

What the hell is going on? This cannot be normal. I've had this for less than a year. I've noticed it gets hot but haven't thought about it. I should also add that I've never really heard the fans. On my old laptop I would of course hear them kicking in, but with this Macbook I've never really noticed them running. I thought this may just be some crazy Macbook thing but now I'm thinking otherwise.
Click to expand...

Reset your SMC http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Netflix runs like dogshit because silverlight is dogshit.

Im a big stickler on temperatures, and 87C is out of my comfort zone.
 
E

evlcookie

but ever so delicious
eravulgaris said:
Hi guys, I've got a (big?) problem. I wanted to format my entire harddisk (128GB SSD, probably doesn't matter) to install Mountain Lion on it. There was a bootcamp partition on it as well, which I erased. I did this in Disk Utility in recovery mode (when I pressed CMD + R in the beginning).

[IM/G]http://i.imgur.com/BU470Ko.png[/IMG]

The problem is, I wanted to erase my whole HD so I could have it whole again, but I couldn't because it said something about: "unable to unmount partition".

So now I'm left with a BOOTCAMP partition and a greyed out part that I can't use. I've tried resizing the HD to take the gray part, but it doesn't work.

I've got no idea what to do...

Thanks in advance guys. These problems are hard to explain.
Click to expand...

Select the bottom right of the mac HD and drag it down, it should then ask if you want to expand the partition, say yes.

From there you should be able to simply re do it as 1 partition if you want. Don't select the actual mac hd but instead the actual HD model in disk utility. Then go partition and set it to 1, that should remove every partition and reset the drive back to having a single partition.
 
Gorgon

Gorgon

Member
Aroo said:
Quad-core is not going to happen with either Haswell or Broadwell. Those quad-cores are 47W cpus. Way too much for those 13"s.
Click to expand...

If they don't put a quad core in the 13'' Pros than they can just as well kill the 13'' Pro, since at the moment it's little more than a 13'' Air with a fancy screen and a different chassis. There's nothing "pro" about it.


muddream said:
Really hoping Apple continues their battery life obsession and gets rid of the dGPU in the 15"...or a quad-core 13". This '09 MBP is slow as molasses, but right now there's nothing in the lineup without a major flaw.
Click to expand...

Why would they get rid of a discreet GPU on a 15'' Pro? There's no integrated graphics solution at this point that can adequately substitute for a dGPU for those that need it. You want a 15'' Air? That's fine by me, but don't call it a "pro".
 
M

muddream

Banned
Gorgon said:
Why would they get rid of a discreet GPU on a 15'' Pro? There's no integrated graphics solution at this point that can adequately substitute for a dGPU for those that need it. You want a 15'' Air? That's fine by me, but don't call it a "pro".
Click to expand...

Apple's switching between GPU switching sucks ass and the Iris Pro would provide a substantially longer real world battery life for the typical pro-sumer.

The Iris Pro is fairly close to Nvidia's offerings in non-gaming benchmarks, which surprised me. Battery life is something Apple always brags about, while I can't think of a single occasion where Apple has pandered to the rich gamer crowd.
 
Gorgon

Gorgon

Member
muddream said:
Apple's switching between GPU switching sucks ass and the Iris Pro would provide a substantially longer real world battery life for the typical pro-sumer.

The Iris Pro is fairly close to Nvidia's offerings in non-gaming benchmarks, which surprised me. Battery life is something Apple always brags about, while I can't think of a single occasion where Apple has pandered to the rich gamer crowd.
Click to expand...

I undertand that, but that's not my point. Iris may give good performance across the board for many users, but a lot of people buy Pros because either they want or they need as much horsepower as they can get in the only system that lets them use OSX. The main selling point of a Pro is horsepower, not battery life, although if you can get more, the better. If it's for gamming or not is irrelevant. Putting an Iris on a 15'' Pro and saying that its good for "most stuff for the average user" doesn't cut it. Apple could just as well stop calling them Pros and just have a line of macbooks with increasing screen size and increasingly better dGPUs and leave it at that. That's fine by me, but in that case people may just grab something else and stick Linux or Windows in it.

At the end of the day Apple needs to get their act together and decide if they want the Pros to be glorified tablets with integrated keyboards or if they actually want to give a portable "pro" computer for those who need/want them.
 
K

kaskade

Member
Well my MBA came in. I'm at work so I'm just going to wait until I get home to properly open it up. Give me more of a reason to be excited to go home.
 
M

muddream

Banned
Gorgon said:
I undertand that, but that's not my point. Iris may give good performance across the board for many users, but a lot of people buy Pros because either they want or they need as much horsepower as they can get in the only system that lets them use OSX. The main selling point of a Pro is horsepower, not battery life, although if you can get more, the better. If it's for gamming or not is irrelevant. Putting an Iris on a 15'' Pro and saying that its good for "most stuff for the average user" doesn't cut it. Apple could just as well stop calling them Pros and just have a line of macbooks with increasing screen size and increasingly better dGPUs and leave it at that. That's fine by me, but in that case people may just grab something else and stick Linux or Windows in it.

At the end of the day Apple needs to get their act together and decide if they want the Pros to be glorified tablets with integrated keyboards or if they actually want to give a portable "pro" computer for those who need/want them.
Click to expand...

Well, a) they sell that iMac thing which gives you even more horsepower (at an even more outrageous price) and b) I just told you that the Iris Pro seems to possess horsepower similar to weak dGPUs like that 650m in non-gaming tasks. It's just a matter of time until all laptops besides those 10 pound 18" Alienware abominations ship without dGPUs.
 
Z

zychi

Banned
So I'm gonna try and update my friend's '10 macbookpro's hard drive. Are there any specific SSDs that work the best with a MBP? It's the last gen before the i5/i7s were put in them
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Gorgon said:
If they don't put a quad core in the 13'' Pros than they can just as well kill the 13'' Pro, since at the moment it's little more than a 13'' Air with a fancy screen and a different chassis. There's nothing "pro" about it.
Click to expand...

They axed the Macbook. Personally it was a good choice, because the Airs started advancing so quickly there really wasn't enough to differentiate them from the other two options... but I'm not seeing how the 13" MBP is just a fancy MBA. It's got a far more capable CPU, double the default RAM, and more storage. Yeah, not having a discrete GPU sucks, but it's only going to become less of an issue, and if you really want the horsepower you've *always* had to go for 15" or higher ever since the Powerbooks.
 
B

Blackhead

Redarse
muddream said:
Well, a) they sell that iMac thing which gives you even more horsepower (at an even more outrageous price) and b) I just told you that the Iris Pro seems to possess horsepower similar to weak dGPUs like that 650m in non-gaming tasks. It's just a matter of time until all laptops besides those 10 pound 18" Alienware abominations ship without dGPUs.
Click to expand...
... it's pointless assuring a professional that today's integrated CPU is as good as last year's weak dGPUs because the work demands for a pro keep increasing. Even if the demands in a particular sector might have plateaued it's still a competitive advantage for one pro/firm to be using computers with much faster processors that gets work done quicker than another pro/firm.
 
F

fierrotlepou

Member
The Real Abed said:
You weren't able to do it under the Recovery boot? Because that's weird. I mean you have everything backed up, right? You could backup to a clone then boot from the clone. Then use Disk Utility and format it while booted from the clone. Then use the install app to start over.
Click to expand...

Nope, it wouldn't work. I had to boot from a cd, since the recovery thing was straight from the harddisk and that's the cause of the unmounting problem.

evlcookie said:
Select the bottom right of the mac HD and drag it down, it should then ask if you want to expand the partition, say yes.

From there you should be able to simply re do it as 1 partition if you want. Don't select the actual mac hd but instead the actual HD model in disk utility. Then go partition and set it to 1, that should remove every partition and reset the drive back to having a single partition.
Click to expand...

Dragging down didn't work, but it's solved now, by booting from a cd and not from CMD + R.

Thanks guys!
 
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