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Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh

H

Hoo-doo

Banned
asdad123 said:
So I'm thinking of buying my GF a new computer, but I have a couple questions.

1) MacBook Air or 13" Retina? Does anyone have experience with both? I had a 15" retina and loved it. She only really uses it for web browsing and word documents. I really would like 8gb ram just to be safe which the retina comes with already. I'll most likely be buying fr best buy which means I can't upgrade the air to 8gb. Price would be $944 plus tax for the air or $1299 plus tax for the retina. Unless you guys know a better price somewhere?

2) How much should I ask for her old MacBook? It is the mid 2010 unibody white (2.4ghz, 250gb hdd, 4gb ram). Still got the box and it has apple care until February 2014.

Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

For web browsing and word documents, the 13" Air with SSD fucking screams. It's completely unnecessary to pick the pro for performance reasons in this situation.

If the screen is worth an extra 350 bucks though, that's your call. I would personally go with the air in a heartbeat.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
For the asking price, take a look online at used Mac prices. Macs have a pretty good resale value. I've had a good experience selling to Macofalltrades, though you'll likely get a better deal selling directly to someone.
 
pulga

pulga

Banned
So, Im on a jailbroken iPhone 5 with 6.1.2, was stupidly trying to directly upgrade to 6.1.4.

Now Im stuck in a recovery loop. TinyUmbrella won't exit the recovery loop, and I cant for the life of me go into DFU mode.

Im also getting a 3194 error on iTunes when trying to restore.

What the fuck do I do now?
 
T

T.M. MacReady

NO ONE DENIES MEMBER
Has anyone taken a workshop at an Apple store?

I'm digging through for answers about this and can't figure out whether I need to bring my own computer or not.

For example, I want to take an intro to Final Cut free workshop, but I don't own the program. Can I just show up and work on it on one of theirs or do I need to own the program and bring my own computer?
 
F

Flek

Banned
TeethMummy said:
Has anyone taken a workshop at an Apple store?

I'm digging through for answers about this and can't figure out whether I need to bring my own computer or not.

For example, I want to take an intro to Final Cut free workshop, but I don't own the program. Can I just show up and work on it on one of theirs or do I need to own the program and bring my own computer?
Click to expand...

i forces my girlfriend to one - no computer needet
 
D

Deku Tree

Member
Just got this email:

We’ll soon be introducing a new and exciting feature to iCloud. It’s called iWork for iCloud and it’s a suite of apps — Pages, Numbers, and Keynote — that make it easy for anyone with an iCloud account to create and edit great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations right on the web.

We’d like to invite you to be one of the first to try it, so we’re giving you early access to the iWork for iCloud beta. All you have to do is sign in to iCloud on a Mac or a PC using the current version of Safari, Chrome, or Internet Explorer. Then just click on Pages, Numbers, or Keynote and you’re off.

We’re really proud of these apps and we’d appreciate your help in making them as great as they can possibly be. So we’d love to hear your feedback as you use them.

Sign in to iCloud.com to get started with iWork for iCloud today.

Sincerely,

The iWork Team
Click to expand...
 
K

killertofu

Member
How much RPM are fans supposed to get?

I have one of those widgets about the Mac and it says that one fan is spinning at 5998 RPM but one fan isn't working....

Right now my CPU temp is 176...that's not normal is it?
 
T

TUSR

Banned
killertofu said:
How much RPM are fans supposed to get?

I have one of those widgets about the Mac and it says that one fan is spinning at 5998 RPM but one fan isn't working....

Right now my CPU temp is 176...that's not normal is it?
Click to expand...

turn it off, theres no way that can be right. thermal sensors would manually turn it off
 
B

bomma_man

Member
So I have a 2009 13inch MBP and I think I need to do something about it.

It's slow as fuck: the whole thing seizes up if i try to open a Youtube video, if I try to open a tab, if I try to open a mildly flash/HTML5 intensive page, if I have more than a couple of tabs open. Even just going to the next page on GAF can get it stuck for more than a minute. And this is just with with Safari open, it's even worse with iTunes, Word etc going at the same time.

I'm running Mountain Lion, only have 2gd RAM and have a close to full 500GB HDD.

I'm guessing I need

1) More RAM
and
2) A new HDD/external to offload stuff

Anything else? Am I missing something? Should I just get a new one? Where's a good place to get Mac hardware (I'm in Aus)?

Thanks
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
bomma_man said:
So I have a 2009 13inch MBP and I think I need to do something about it.

It's slow as fuck: the whole thing seizes up if i try to open a Youtube video, if I try to open a tab, if I try to open a mildly flash/HTML5 intensive page, if I have more than a couple of tabs open. Even just going to the next page on GAF can get it stuck for more than a minute. And this is just with with Safari open, it's even worse with iTunes, Word etc going at the same time.

I'm running Mountain Lion, only have 2gd RAM and have a close to full 500GB HDD.

I'm guessing I need

1) More RAM
and
2) A new HDD/external to offload stuff

Anything else? Am I missing something? Should I just get a new one? Where's a good place to get Mac hardware (I'm in Aus)?

Thanks
Click to expand...

More RAM will always be better. You should also aim to keep around 10% of your disk capacity free at all times; filling to capacity causes serious issues.

Taking care of that, the simplest solution for making a Mac run like new is just to wipe it and start over... though I usually wait for new OSs to do that since it's a hassle (restoring from backups just puts the cruft back.)

To free up space and make it a bit snappier, you can clear out unused language files, delete your safari thumbnails, and clear your caches. There's plenty of guides out there for doing it manually.

I've got a 2008 MBP and it's still speedy if you perform basic maintenance.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
Fuchsdh said:
More RAM will always be better. You should also aim to keep around 10% of your disk capacity free at all times; filling to capacity causes serious issues.

Taking care of that, the simplest solution for making a Mac run like new is just to wipe it and start over... though I usually wait for new OSs to do that since it's a hassle (restoring from backups just puts the cruft back.)

To free up space and make it a bit snappier, you can clear out unused language files, delete your safari thumbnails, and clear your caches. There's plenty of guides out there for doing it manually.

I've got a 2008 MBP and it's still speedy if you perform basic maintenance.
Click to expand...

Thanks dude, appreciate it.
 
M

muddream

Banned
bomma_man said:
So I have a 2009 13inch MBP and I think I need to do something about it.

It's slow as fuck: the whole thing seizes up if i try to open a Youtube video, if I try to open a tab, if I try to open a mildly flash/HTML5 intensive page, if I have more than a couple of tabs open. Even just going to the next page on GAF can get it stuck for more than a minute. And this is just with with Safari open, it's even worse with iTunes, Word etc going at the same time.

I'm running Mountain Lion, only have 2gd RAM and have a close to full 500GB HDD.

I'm guessing I need

1) More RAM
and
2) A new HDD/external to offload stuff

Anything else? Am I missing something? Should I just get a new one? Where's a good place to get Mac hardware (I'm in Aus)?

Thanks
Click to expand...

2.56 GhZ 4GB 2009 13" MBP here and I'm experiencing the same issues.

I hardly ever use more than 3GB of my RAM and 1/3 of my HDD is free. What's causing the slowdown for me is that the CPU quickly gets up to 80° C and clocks down, even if I'm merely watching one HD stream. It's been this way for over a year now and I'm guessing the cooling paste is just completely used up at this point seeing as how this thing has been getting hot since day 1. Resetting SMC and formatting hasn't helped.

I can't be bothered to tinker with this thing at this point since I've been planning to upgrade this fall for quite a while.
 
S

Supermanisdead

Member
How sure of a bet is a decent refresh or price change in the next 2 months? I want a new mbp but I don't want to get caught buying one weeks before they release a new one or adjust the current ones. That happened to me last time, in 2008 and I regretted my non-unibody model forever. I can wait for it, but I'll be annoyed as fuck if there's no significant change.
 
K

KennyLinder

Member
muddream said:
2.56 GhZ 4GB 2009 13" MBP here and I'm experiencing the same issues.

I hardly ever use more than 3GB of my RAM and 1/3 of my HDD is free. What's causing the slowdown for me is that the CPU quickly gets up to 80° C and clocks down, even if I'm merely watching one HD stream. It's been this way for over a year now and I'm guessing the cooling paste is just completely used up at this point seeing as how this thing has been getting hot since day 1. Resetting SMC and formatting hasn't helped.

I can't be bothered to tinker with this thing at this point since I've been planning to upgrade this fall for quite a while.
Click to expand...

Ha, I am glad I found this thread. My MBP does exaclty the same. It's a Unibody 13" just before they called it a "Pro". I was ripping a DVD the other night using Handbrake and the CPU was 94º for over an hour. Not good. During normal MS Office use with skype and safari open it sits around 60º. It's generally slow browsing now, youtube 720p videos are slow and it seems to chug lots in general. Time for an upgrade at some point :(
 
T

tsumineko

Member
Supermanisdead said:
How sure of a bet is a decent refresh or price change in the next 2 months? I want a new mbp but I don't want to get caught buying one weeks before they release a new one or adjust the current ones. That happened to me last time, in 2008 and I regretted my non-unibody model forever. I can wait for it, but I'll be annoyed as fuck if there's no significant change.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting. I'll either buy the new updated MBPr, or a cheaper last year's model. Waiting is win/win.
 
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Yeah I ordered a Haswell Air and gave up on waiting for a retina. i7, 8GB ram, 256GB SSD. I was going to get the 512GB SSD but I can't really justify the stupidity tax on the upgrade. ;b
 
C

Chris R

Member
I just want the Retina to come out so I can feel good about an Air purchase to replace my 2011 Air and not constantly think that my purchase might be a bad one.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
EviLore said:
8
Click to expand...

Urgh. That's a shame, but I guess I'm constantly judging all the comps by a pro lens even if they aren't built for that. I feel old complaining about it, though. I think the PowerMac 7100 I had was... 16MB graphics, expandable to I think 128Mb.

Also: the original Power Mac G5s were maxed at 4GB? That's crazy.
 
A

asdad123

Member
Hoo-doo said:
For web browsing and word documents, the 13" Air with SSD fucking screams. It's completely unnecessary to pick the pro for performance reasons in this situation.

If the screen is worth an extra 350 bucks though, that's your call. I would personally go with the air in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

Went with the 128gb air for $944 plus tax at best buy for her. Damn this thing is so light compared to her old unibody macbook and the battery is nuts. She's been on it for 2 hours and the battery only dropped to 85% lol.
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
I've been using my iMac 2012 21.5" with fusion drive for just over a month now.

I lived with the speck of dust behind the screen and out of the way, and I'm mostly fine with it.

Anyway, so far the fusion drive just screams. Boot up is snappy, and apps open with just one bounce.

The magic trackpad is awesome, and I found myself starting to do stuff I didn't think I would, for example, clicking with my dragging finger. Battery for the trackpad is good. I don't turn it off ever, so even when my iMac is shut down, it's still 'on' (probably a low power mode). So far it has only just started the low battery warning (10% power left), and it has been a month.

Keyboard is at 45%. Pretty happy with that.

I also shut my mac down at night now. Something I didn't anticipate moving from a laptop is that I don't have persistent power, and since it's so snappy on bootup, it feels fine to just shut down at night.

I have encountered a slightly weird bug with an external seagate drive that I'm using for time machine. Occasionally, my mac will sleep, and when woken, it doesn't see the drive, which has some how been dismounted, so I get the 'incorrectly ejected' warning. I don't think it's the mac, but maybe more the drive, as I had it happen once on my old laptop as well, where I never had issues before. I've heard that some seagate drives come with firmware that has power down modes, so maybe it is related to that.

I'm trying it in a hub (my cinema display) and it doesn't seem to happen there so fa, but the occurrence is pretty intermittent.

Why does my iMAc make a sleepimage? It is on hibernate mode 0, but if I delete it, it recreates it on boot. Further, I notice it doesn't really use it, since my last time it was modified was at a date and time exactly occurring with my last weird external drive dismount. Maybe it's related for the sleep, like the drive interferes with the sleep state or something.

I dunno. It's all anecdotal and minor.

But so far, really enjoying the iMac.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
CrudeDiatribe said:
No, 8GB on the middle and top models. Ended up with 5 GB in my '03 2x1.8GHz when I was finished upgrading it. That thing was stupid fast for its day.
Click to expand...

Mactracker gives 4GB as the original limit for the 1.8, not sure which model I had. Not sure how accurate that is, I don't think I put any more than 1GB into it, might have been upgraded from 512MB (at some point the RAM from Macmall or whatever went bad.)

I still remember all my RAM totals for a stupid reason-- 16MB, 128MB, 640MB, 1GB, 6GB and 16GB for my current Pro. Always bizarre to think that my iPhone is significantly more powerful than my G4. Would be interesting to somehow compare it to the G5 too.

I guess I'll plunk down the cash and go for broke on the RAM on the new Pros if they stick with the current 4 slots (please please please someone push it up to 6 before it ships.) Wonder how much 64GB is going to cost me.
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
mrkgoo said:
Why does my iMAc make a sleepimage? It is on hibernate mode 0, but if I delete it, it recreates it on boot. Further, I notice it doesn't really use it, since my last time it was modified was at a date and time exactly occurring with my last weird external drive dismount. Maybe it's related for the sleep, like the drive interferes with the sleep state or something.
Click to expand...
I think they broke it a while ago. I did follow a guide though that told me to make a fake locked file with the same name in its place so it couldn't be recreated. But when I installed Mavericks it removed it.

It works completely different in Mavericks though. Thanks to the memory compression, the sleepimage file will be much smaller. For me with a fresh reboot it shows up as 1.07GB. All the swapfiles are also different now. I have two swapfiles next to my sleepimage. One is 67MB and the other is also 1.07GB. It used to create them in powers of 2 as they were needed. But apparently the whole system is completely different now. And Mountain Lion also does it a bit differently as much as I can remember.

But I agree, the sleepimage was useless on these newer machines with the ability to save all app states and pick back up where it left off even if the machine shuts off abruptly.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
muddream said:
2.56 GhZ 4GB 2009 13" MBP here and I'm experiencing the same issues.

I hardly ever use more than 3GB of my RAM and 1/3 of my HDD is free. What's causing the slowdown for me is that the CPU quickly gets up to 80° C and clocks down, even if I'm merely watching one HD stream. It's been this way for over a year now and I'm guessing the cooling paste is just completely used up at this point seeing as how this thing has been getting hot since day 1. Resetting SMC and formatting hasn't helped.

I can't be bothered to tinker with this thing at this point since I've been planning to upgrade this fall for quite a while.
Click to expand...

KennyLinder said:
Ha, I am glad I found this thread. My MBP does exaclty the same. It's a Unibody 13" just before they called it a "Pro". I was ripping a DVD the other night using Handbrake and the CPU was 94º for over an hour. Not good. During normal MS Office use with skype and safari open it sits around 60º. It's generally slow browsing now, youtube 720p videos are slow and it seems to chug lots in general. Time for an upgrade at some point :(
Click to expand...

Hmm interesting, where does it tell you how hot the CPU is?
 
C

CrudeDiatribe

Member
Fuchsdh said:
Mactracker gives 4GB as the original limit for the 1.8, not sure which model I had. Not sure how accurate that is
Click to expand...

It is wrong. I had one; 4x 1GB + 4x256MB.

At launch in the summer of '03, the G5 came in 1x1.6, 1x1.8, and 2x2.0, with 4 slots for RAM on the low end and 8 on the two high ones. In November (?), they replaced the 1x1.8 with the 2x1.8 model.

In addition to only having 4 slots, the PCI slots were not the faster PCI-X slots as on the middle and top models.
 
R

Ravidrath

Member
Jayayess1190 said:
This has happened between Intel and Apple before. Why not let Lenovo in on the party? And does this mean the the 13" Pro's with the 28W ULV will get Iris Pro, or only the quad core 15"?
Click to expand...

Grr, more evidence that suggests they're getting rid of the discrete GPU...

Gonna need to find something else, looks like.
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
The Real Abed said:
I think they broke it a while ago. I did follow a guide though that told me to make a fake locked file with the same name in its place so it couldn't be recreated. But when I installed Mavericks it removed it.

It works completely different in Mavericks though. Thanks to the memory compression, the sleepimage file will be much smaller. For me with a fresh reboot it shows up as 1.07GB. All the swapfiles are also different now. I have two swapfiles next to my sleepimage. One is 67MB and the other is also 1.07GB. It used to create them in powers of 2 as they were needed. But apparently the whole system is completely different now. And Mountain Lion also does it a bit differently as much as I can remember.

But I agree, the sleepimage was useless on these newer machines with the ability to save all app states and pick back up where it left off even if the machine shuts off abruptly.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks.

Is hibernate mode 0 still the default for desktops? (Powered RAM, no sleepimage).
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
muddream said:
Get smcFanControl



Let's say this turns out to be just as fast in games as the Geforce...will the gamer tears stop flowing or is the word "integrated" enough to cause moisture & saltiness?
Click to expand...

Not likely... having a swappable graphics card will still be a better option than integrated, especially if you're holding on to your computer for a while.
 
S

Sol1dus

Member
Guys I've never owned an apple computer before. Thinking about the MacBook with retina display. Would mainly be used for school work/research. However I would also like to use it to game occasionally. Would it be able to run games like Civ 5. Could I install steam on it?
 
A

Autumn Wind

Member
I am not happy that Apple is getting rid of the discrete GPU in the 15" rMBP and I hope the iMac line does not follow. You never know with Apple.

The Iris Pro though is meant to be for the quad core line only to my knowledge and the Iris 5100 will be for the 13".

I hope one of the next Mac minis has the 5100.
 
M

muddream

Banned
I really hope Mavericks & Iris 5100 will be enough for smooth retina scrolling...I tend to view the 15" as overkill for a laptop, but I need one this fall and I'd rather spend $500 more than buy a slightly less expensive premium product with a shameful flaw.
 
C

corn_fest

Member
I'd have a hard time calling any computer without a discrete graphics card "Pro".
I mean, I know most of their MBP sales are probably to college students who use them for email and Word, but the actual professional market of photographers, video editors, 3D modelers and so on that use them couldn't be too happy about it, I'd think.
 
M

muddream

Banned
Why does it matter what the GPU is called? There's a very high chance it'll be faster than the discrete alternative at almost everything besides teh gamez.
 
D

DeadRockstar

Member
muddream said:
Why does it matter what the GPU is called? There's a very high chance it'll be faster than the discrete alternative at almost everything besides teh gamez.
Click to expand...

What are you basing that on? Assuming a GT 750 for this year's retinas, what would the Iris Pro beat it at?

I'm not saying you're wrong, since I've only seen videogame benchmarks, but I'd like to see the source.
 
D

DeadRockstar

Member
muddream said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i74950hq-tested/17

I'd guess the jump from 650 to 750 will be similar to the jump from regular Iris Pro to Apple's rumored exclusive high end version.
Click to expand...

The 5200 definitely comes out swinging for compute tasks, but I don't think we're at the point where it's a complete replacement for a discrete GPU, generally speaking. Apple's concern seems to be power saving though, which is inarguably in favour of a single chip and makes it a suitable replacement for their uses. It's a compromise, but then so is all mobile computing.

For a computer I'll use exclusively for work, it's a compromise I don't expect to be bothered by. Still, they could use all the performance they can get, so hopefully they really have secured higher than stock performance parts from Intel.
 
W

Windam

Scaley member
Got a Macbook Air 13" with a 256GB SSD back in April for my birthday, but those new Haswell ones are making me jealous with their supposed improved battery life. I find mine dies too quickly when just browsing and using iTunes. Anyone with the new Airs that can confirm the battery is a lot better?
 
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Windam said:
Got a Macbook Air 13" with a 256GB SSD back in April for my birthday, but those new Haswell ones are making me jealous with their supposed improved battery life. I find mine dies too quickly when just browsing and using iTunes. Anyone with the new Airs that can confirm the battery is a lot better?
Click to expand...

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/17/4436332/macbook-air-review-13-inch-2013

13 hours and 29 minutes. That’s all you really need to know — that’s how long the new MacBook Air running Safari lasted running The Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and images at 65 percent brightness.
Click to expand...
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Windam said:
Holy shit EviLore replied to me. :'D
Okay, now I'm super jealous. I run mine on the third or fourth lowest brightness setting with backlit keys off and it goes down way too quickly (maybe 3-4 hours?) for my liking. Gotta see if I can pawn mine off. :(
Click to expand...

Well you might wanna' wait and see if the much-vaunted and thus far semi-realized claims of faster performance and better battery life under the Mavericks DP are realized. You might get a second life on your notebook without spending more than $30.

(Although does that mean the Haswell Airs are just going to get even more ridiculous battery life?)
 
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