4160 I love almost everything about my 17" PowerBook except for the cooling fan's relentless cycling on and off - at least up until about 10 days ago.

Since I installed TemperatureMonitor sometime last spring, I've noted that during normal use, the big PowerBook runs in the mid-to-high 50°s Celsius, which is relatively cool compared with what MacBook Pro and MacBook owners are contending with, but plenty hot for me, and the fans cut in at about 58.5°, run for several minutes, and then shut down again when the processor temperature drops to 54°.

That was, until I updated to OS 10.4.8 a couple of weeks ago. The PowerBook has ended to run cooler for the first day or two after a reboot, so initially I didn't pay much attention to the lack of fan activity after the updater install, but that was done on Oct. 12; today is Oct. 24, I haven't restarted, and the 'Book is still running in the high 40°s - low 50°s most of the time. The fan has only activated sporadically while doing heavy multitasking.

The weather is getting cooler, although we've had above normal temperatures here in Nova Scotia all through the fall so far, and the heat is on for chilly evenings, so I don't think that's the reason for the change. It was a lot colder back in March when I first started using this machine for production, and the fan was coming on frequently then.

Consequently, while I don't have any scientific proof, it seems that OS 10.4.8 is doing a better job of keeping the PowerBook's internal temperatures down than did OS 10.4.7 and previous Tiger builds, at least on this PowerBook. It's not a matter of diddling with fan activation temperatures, either. The fan still cuts in at 58.5°; the computer is simply running cooler.

Cool.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noted a similar improvement.


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