I think the big difference here (aside from antenna-gate) is that the other issues are part or manufacturing defects, not design defects. When you add a design defect to an already unpopular design change, you get a bigger outcry. Plus, as indicated, there are now more units out there.
Why does the AI app cut off articles after 4-5 paragraphs, but the whole article is visible when I go into the comments section? It keeps happening.
Is is it just me?
I'm not noticing that.
Reminds me a guy name Louis Rossman, which he repaired dozens of apple laptops, often heavily criticized their circuit design.
I'm not an electrical engineer, though, so not sure if he have some valid points. But almost all of the GPU issues related to some small components which can be easily fixed.
DuhSesame said: Reminds me a guy name Louis Rossman, which he repaired dozens of apple laptops, often heavily criticized their circuit design.
I'm not an electrical engineer, though, so not sure if he have some valid points. But almost all of the GPU issues related to some small components which can be easily fixed.
Hmm, yea, I'm not familiar with that at all (the story... I'm roughly familiar with electronic component design, as my first degree was in electronic engineering.
Some of the issues were solder related, but Apple wasn't alone in that. The whole industry switched to meet environmental regulations and the 'new' solder just isn't as good, especially in applications that require and physical stressing or heating/cooling (which causes physical stress on solder connections). A buddy of mine made a good deal of money with a high-end wave soldering machine fixing PS3s, for example. Lots of makers had problems.
What saved that, has largely been the massive reduction in power/thermal demands over the last decade or so. But, a poor design can still be a problem. (And, I'm sure they have improved the solder and technics since then too, but I don't know much about that.) Apple's laptops, especially, are under-designed when it comes to thermals. The metal construction helps, but they could make them much better if they dedicated more of the design to cooling.
But, that isn't really anything new. As long as I can remember, the pro Apple laptops ran hot. Apple has just continued to shrink designs instead of taking advantage of the lower thermals for reliability.
DuhSesame said: Reminds me a guy name Louis Rossman, which he repaired dozens of apple laptops, often heavily criticized their circuit design.
I'm not an electrical engineer, though, so not sure if he have some valid points. But almost all of the GPU issues related to some small components which can be easily fixed.
Hmm, yea, I'm not familiar with that at all (the story... I'm roughly familiar with electronic component design, as my first degree was in electronic engineering.
Some of the issues were solder related, but Apple wasn't alone in that. The whole industry switched to meet environmental regulations and the 'new' solder just isn't as good, especially in applications that require and physical stressing or heating/cooling (which causes physical stress on solder connections). A buddy of mine made a good deal of money with a high-end wave soldering machine fixing PS3s, for example. Lots of makers had problems.
What saved that, has largely been the massive reduction in power/thermal demands over the last decade or so. But, a poor design can still be a problem. (And, I'm sure they have improved the solder and technics since then too, but I don't know much about that.) Apple's laptops, especially, are under-designed when it comes to thermals. The metal construction helps, but they could make them much better if they dedicated more of the design to cooling.
But, that isn't really anything new. As long as I can remember, the pro Apple laptops ran hot. Apple has just continued to shrink designs instead of taking advantage of the lower thermals for reliability.
As for the "running hot" part, that's pretty common for most of the laptops now, since both CPUs & GPUs are power hogs. You can check notebookcheck.net and see the reviews on thermal, you'll find many laptops even runs hotter both on surface or inside than what Apple offered. Even manufacturers trying to find a clever way, it helps too little that weren't making a huge difference. So I don't think Apple have done a pretty bad job in this regard.
For the "circuit design" thingy, he said it's also related to a Tantalum capacitor that wears out quickly and too small for the job
As far as I know, Apple never changed this design till the day that Unibody went obsolete. But I do remember there are a short period of time where manufacturers think that Tantalum is the way to go, but now switched back to Aluminum-polymers because it's also dangerous and not so reliable. So it could be because some of the quality doesn't meet the expectation.
Current MacBooks are using Aluminum-polymer and MLCC caps for the most part. With that being said, it seems there were always some GPU related issue with Macs, even in later Retina MacBook Pros, the Mac Pro, mostly because some small components that didn't worked out well. But I also know that you can not expect all of the Macs they sold works 100% reliable, so not sure if he's too hypercritical, or not.
DuhSesame said: As for the "running hot" part, that's pretty common for most of the laptops now, since both CPUs & GPUs are power hogs. You can check notebookcheck.net and see the reviews on thermal, you'll find many laptops even runs hotter both on surface or inside than what Apple offered. Even manufacturers trying to find a clever way, it helps too little that weren't making a huge difference. So I don't think Apple have done a pretty bad job in this regard.
Yeah, I haven't really compared Apple to others in this regard. I know a lot of PC laptops are quite noisy.
I guess my point was that if you took, say, the 2015 MBP chassis (or insert some other year) that is designed for a higher thermal capacity, and then put the more modern lower thermal chip in there, it wouldn't run as hot. So, they could cool them better if they wanted to, leading to better reliability (especially if pushed a lot) and more quiet operation.
DuhSesame said: For the "circuit design" thingy, he said it's also related to a Tantalum capacitor that wears out quickly and too small for the job
Wow, that's a pretty cool site. Bookmarked! Thanks.
DuhSesame said: With that being said, it seems there were always some GPU related issue with Macs, even in later Retina MacBook Pros, the Mac Pro, mostly because some small components that didn't worked out well. But I also know that you can not expect all of the Macs they sold works 100% reliable, so not sure if he's too hypercritical, or not.
Yeah, I don't know the actual statistics. I personally owned 2 of them with GPU issues in those years. I saw a few more out of the dozen or so I had access to at work where it showed up.
cgWerks said: ... leading to better reliability (especially if pushed a lot) and more quiet operation.
That's the theory, but it wouldn't be too much of a problem. The Tjunction (The highest die temperature set by Intel) were 100-105 Celsus, and will shut it down if goes any higher. Although it could make a difference if you're planned to keep pushing the laptop for more than 50 years...
I still don't think Apple is the one that will cheat in their design, though. If you checked their supplier lists ever year, all of the parts they gathered will always come from first-tier (KEMET, Vishay, Panasonic, Coilcraft, etc.). If someone would cheap out in their design, they'll probably use something in the second-tier to begin with.
Not to mention, gold-plating on a PCB are still minorities in PC industry.
DuhSesame said: That's the theory, but it wouldn't be too much of a problem. The Tjunction (The highest die temperature set by Intel) were 100-105 Celsus, and will shut it down if goes any higher. Although it could make a difference if you're planned to keep pushing the laptop for more than 50 years...
It's the whole thing, though, not just the CPU shutdown temp. Other components and the boards, solder, etc. And... how much noise the fans have to make.
DuhSesame said: That's the theory, but it wouldn't be too much of a problem. The Tjunction (The highest die temperature set by Intel) were 100-105 Celsus, and will shut it down if goes any higher. Although it could make a difference if you're planned to keep pushing the laptop for more than 50 years...
It's the whole thing, though, not just the CPU shutdown temp. Other components and the boards, solder, etc. And... how much noise the fans have to make.
That will probably have lot more to discuss than just "how efficient" the cooling is, which is what product design and aging test about. While I think yes, the cooler the better, but not likely to running out in the typical life span. Also, it's not always about the bigger size the better, but also how you manage the air flow. If someone puts a cooler fan directly against other, it will be a mess.
Actually, I think it may have a slightly edge compared to other laptops due to the way how cool air comes in, just for Pros. Most laptop draws air directly under the cooler, but Apple pulls from the side, which means the cool air will pass through batteries and most electric components on their way.
Comments
I'm not an electrical engineer, though, so not sure if he have some valid points. But almost all of the GPU issues related to some small components which can be easily fixed.
Some of the issues were solder related, but Apple wasn't alone in that. The whole industry switched to meet environmental regulations and the 'new' solder just isn't as good, especially in applications that require and physical stressing or heating/cooling (which causes physical stress on solder connections). A buddy of mine made a good deal of money with a high-end wave soldering machine fixing PS3s, for example. Lots of makers had problems.
What saved that, has largely been the massive reduction in power/thermal demands over the last decade or so. But, a poor design can still be a problem. (And, I'm sure they have improved the solder and technics since then too, but I don't know much about that.) Apple's laptops, especially, are under-designed when it comes to thermals. The metal construction helps, but they could make them much better if they dedicated more of the design to cooling.
But, that isn't really anything new. As long as I can remember, the pro Apple laptops ran hot. Apple has just continued to shrink designs instead of taking advantage of the lower thermals for reliability.
For the "circuit design" thingy, he said it's also related to a Tantalum capacitor that wears out quickly and too small for the job
https://store.rossmanngroup.com/d3-c7771-c9560-1-piece.html
As far as I know, Apple never changed this design till the day that Unibody went obsolete. But I do remember there are a short period of time where manufacturers think that Tantalum is the way to go, but now switched back to Aluminum-polymers because it's also dangerous and not so reliable. So it could be because some of the quality doesn't meet the expectation.
Current MacBooks are using Aluminum-polymer and MLCC caps for the most part. With that being said, it seems there were always some GPU related issue with Macs, even in later Retina MacBook Pros, the Mac Pro, mostly because some small components that didn't worked out well. But I also know that you can not expect all of the Macs they sold works 100% reliable, so not sure if he's too hypercritical, or not.
I guess my point was that if you took, say, the 2015 MBP chassis (or insert some other year) that is designed for a higher thermal capacity, and then put the more modern lower thermal chip in there, it wouldn't run as hot. So, they could cool them better if they wanted to, leading to better reliability (especially if pushed a lot) and more quiet operation.
Wow, that's a pretty cool site. Bookmarked! Thanks.
Yeah, I don't know the actual statistics. I personally owned 2 of them with GPU issues in those years. I saw a few more out of the dozen or so I had access to at work where it showed up.
I still don't think Apple is the one that will cheat in their design, though. If you checked their supplier lists ever year, all of the parts they gathered will always come from first-tier (KEMET, Vishay, Panasonic, Coilcraft, etc.). If someone would cheap out in their design, they'll probably use something in the second-tier to begin with.
Not to mention, gold-plating on a PCB are still minorities in PC industry.
https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Supplier-List.pdf
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supplies-101,4193-5.html
But who knows, I guess someday I'll dig down a bit more.
Actually, I think it may have a slightly edge compared to other laptops due to the way how cool air comes in, just for Pros. Most laptop draws air directly under the cooler, but Apple pulls from the side, which means the cool air will pass through batteries and most electric components on their way.