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Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Astro7x posted:

So any tips for cleaning an aluminum Mac Keyboard? Soda got spilled all over it, and I can't figure out how to remove the keys without breaking them to give it a good cleaning.

Turn off the power, dump some distilled water and slosh that poo poo around. Do not use any sort of solvent or it'll dissolve tiny plastic components!

Or just buy another keyboard.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2012 21:22

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 00:35

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Petey posted:

Well, just ordered a July 2011 refurb MBA. 1.8 GHz Dual Core i7, 256 GB HD, 4 GB RAM, for $1199. Would have liked more RAM but couldn't add to the refurb and got ~20% off so I feel pretty good about the deal.

Hoooraaay.

Make sure you get a thunderbolt-ethernet connector if you need ethernet. The USB-ethernet one is comparatively worse (it works but gets really hot).

# ¿ Jul 14, 2012 23:03

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

eames posted:

I cleaned my MBA (not screen) with a damp cloth that had some diluted Isoproyl Alcohol on it.

The Macbook is now clean, but the T-Y-U-I-O-P buttons don�t work anymore. Yay. It�s also out of warranty as of last week. Is there a trick to make it work again?

Nope! You're hosed. You've dissolved some internal rubber and wire insulation and stuff if you're unlucky; at best you've dissolved part of your keyboard. I did this to a Macbook Pro a few months back. It died a similar death. Back up your data and buy a new computer!

# ¿ Aug 28, 2012 19:26

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

eames posted:

Took it to the Apple Store and they wouldn�t replace it.
I ordered an identical 2012 model (13"/4GB/256GB) over night because I didn�t want to wait for a BTO model and this machine will be replaced by the Haswell rMBP anyway.

After pressing the Power-button it took me less than a second to figure out that there�s something wrong with the display. It looks pretty terrible with a strong blue-tint. Blacks aren�t as deep and the color looks less vibrant.

As it turns out this one has a LG display whereas my two old models (2010/2011) have a Samsung. I calibrated the screen with Spyder 4 and the difference is much less noticeable now, but side to side, this calibrated 2012 screen still looks worse than my calibrated 2011.
Text looks sharp and black on the Samsung and somewhat grey/washed out on the LG, but I�m sure a person that has never used a Samsung-MBA before wouldn�t notice.
I�m not sure if Amazon would replace it. Probably not. Sucks.

Yeah you've likely dissolved parts of the thin ribbon cable that connects the display to logic board.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 16:29

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

empty baggie posted:

I'd say those drives will have USB 3.0 within a year. Are there any portable TB drives yet? I don't think I've ever seen one.

There's no point: HDD can't come close to saturating thunderbolt and SSDs as used by external drive makers are ludicrously expensive.

The best use for thunderbolt right now is the gig-E adaptor.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2012 20:31

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

What's the best choice for an external bluray drive? I now have access to a bunch of blu-rays but I can't actually watch them on my rMBP.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2012 14:45

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Bob Morales posted:

The only drawbacks are 4-5 hour battery life (which can be short compared to 7-8 hours) and 1366x768 screen.

If you're doing development work or Photoshop you'll miss the extra room but if you're just writing and surfing the web it's perfect, it's hard to beat the size of that thing.

Keyboard's kind of cramped.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2012 21:16

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Got a stuck pixel on my rMBP--what is the exchange policy on these?

# ¿ Jan 11, 2013 12:33

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

krooj posted:

Maybe a month of lag? Haswell is next month, so I guess they will announce some stuff at WWDC and then again in fall for the BTS circle-jerk.

Rumors have Intel already shipping Haswell chips to large OEMs so it's a pretty good bet they will have Haswell based mac orders up on announcement.

# ¿ May 18, 2013 21:19

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Haggins posted:

I wonder if they were just waiting on thunderbolt 2 for the new Mac Pro. It seems like the only people who need pros now a days are people doing video production and tb2 would be useful for that.

Thunderbolt 2 is equal to PCIe 3.0 x4 or PCIe 2 x8 (Essentially) and based on this http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html comparison scaling down seems to affect performance by numbers within the margin of error

So I wouldn't be surprised if we get a semi modular system from the mac pro

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 18:58

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

GlitterBob posted:

Any idea how the Haswell i7 MBA compares to last year's Ivy Bridge i7 in gaming use? I bought a maxed out Air last summer (i7-3667U, 8GB, 512GB SSD) and apart from the 12-hour battery, I can't imagine the newer model giving me any discernible benefit in my normal use which consists largely of Photoshop, InDesign and Office, with some occasional video editing. But I also use the machine for light gaming (along the lines of Civ V and Fallout: New Vegas), and any performance increase in that respect would be very welcome.

With the education discount I'm looking at a �100�200 hit provided that I can find a buyer willing to pay roughly what Mac2Sell is quoting me for my current machine. Do you think it's worth it?

10% if that; the GPU will be marginally better. Haswell was entirely focused on battery life over sheer performance gains.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2013 12:08

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Bob Morales posted:

The i7 has always been about 10% faster in the Air, I'd assume it's that way with Haswell. It'd be like getting the upgraced C2D model in the past - 2.53 vs 2.26 or 2.6 vs 2.4. Not a life-changing difference but if you want to spend 10% more for 10% more speed, go for it.

In the 2011 models the i7 was a much bigger boost in the 11" model than the 13" because of the lower base clock of the 11" model.

13" rMPB is a pile of poo poo?

I fail to see why you'd go with a 13 rmbp over the 15mbp for any reason.

Having used both the better choice is the 13" air for mobility and the 15" rmbp for power.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2013 17:07

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

BobHoward posted:

Can't speak for tirinal (whoops, efb!), but I think the CPU being a Crystalwell (aka Iris Pro 5200) strongly implies no discrete graphics. It isn't impossible to do dual graphics with Crystalwell, but a regular HD 4600 i7 makes so much more sense in that case. If you have a discrete GPU, you don't need Crystalwell graphics, and the regular i7s are cheaper, clock higher, and have more L3 cache. Speaking of which:

It's not known for certain, but I've seen some speculation about it which I suspect is true.

Crystalwell consists of a GT3 Haswell CPU chip plus a 50 GB/s 128MB L4 eDRAM cache chip, both mounted to a single package. The L4 cache is what gives it a large graphics performance advantage over a regular GT3 Haswell, which has the same amount of GPU compute power. Fast GPUs can be very bandwidth limited. (The L4 helps CPU performance too, by the way.)

All caches consist of two memory arrays: data and tag. The sizes you see quoted refer only to the data array, so a "1MB" cache can hold 1MB of actual data. The tag memory is the filing system, extra memory that tracks what's currently stored in the data array. The data array is divided into "lines" (usually 64 bytes for x86 processors), and every line needs one tag entry. Tag size is therefore proportional to the number of lines in a cache.

A 128MB cache is going to need a lot of tag memory. Though it would be possible to store the tags on the eDRAM L4 cache chip alongside the L4 data array, SRAM tags located in the CPU chip would be a lot faster. That much tag SRAM would take a lot of die area, so Intel may have sacrificed 2MB of L3 cache SRAM to help keep the die size (and therefore cost) down.

Has intel confirmed that the eDRAM is used transparently as an L4 cache? Because that makes up for a small loss in L3 (and I know a lot of people wanted crystalwell on desktop if that were the case).

# ¿ Jul 9, 2013 16:31

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Quine Connoisseur posted:

Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty accurate description of what it sounds like. I might pop open the back panel later on tonight and see if I can figure out what's going on.

This is what I've got and it's pretty incredible (except for the incessant popping ), you're going to love it.

I really wish the macbook air screens would go ips. After working on a rmbp for a year it's tough to go back

# ¿ Jul 12, 2013 21:12

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Stick100 posted:

7. W8 has a host of issues and takes up MUCH more space on your precious SSD. The boot camp drivers finally caught up but still stick with Windows 7. Also most user hate Windows 8 and it's not very usable from an OS perspective.

Counterpoint: Windows 8 supports USB 3.0 without slipstreaming (useful if all you have are usb 3 thumbdrives) and 8.1 is the first with a not-terrible hidpi mode.

Otherwise, win7 all the way.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 20:30

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Just sold my 13" 2011 Air to a coworker. Let's see how long after the retina MBP refresh I can hold out from buying one.

There any indications on when this will happen? There's some some specs floating around that say that it'll be using GT3e (Iris Pro) graphics which means it'll be less performant but twice as efficient.

It would also be really nice if OS X supported VGA passthrough to host OS, so I could remove my Bootcamp installation completely.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 03:22

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

theperminator posted:

I'm waiting for the Caldigit Thunderbolt station http://www.caldigit.com/thunderboltstation/

Full-speed USB3, HDMI, Ethernet and has a second thunderbolt port, according to the facebook page it supports running a monitor from the HDMI output and the Thunderbolt port simultaneously.

Only 3 USB 3 ports? Cmon, they're super cheap to add in and you can never have enough.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2013 02:14

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

ratbert90 posted:

Depends on the hub that they bought + board layout + design + extra hubs if necessary.

All that can lead to an extra 20$+ in manufacturing costs, which is way more than "super cheap."

Tb hubs cost $200 anyway and to not provide more ports (USB 2 is fine too) is kind of lame

# ¿ Aug 2, 2013 05:57

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

ratbert90 posted:

20$ in manufacturing costs is quite enormous, especially in a low volume product.

$20 is probably vastly overestimating the costs (a PCIe -> 4 port usb 3 retails for < $20) for integrating in a 4 port usb hub but point taken--it's still lame to not have more ports on a $200 hub when I can get a 7 port usb 3 hub for $35. (And usb2 is even cheaper!)

From what I've read the major problems with TB hubs is the daisy chaining support which ends up inflating the costs.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2013 22:31

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Happy Pizza Guy posted:

I have a late 2010 Macbook Air (Pre-Thunderbolt) that I'd like to get an ethernet adapter for and I have two questions related to that:

1. I'd like to buy an adapter that doesn't require drivers on Mountain Lion. Am I stuck with the Apple option, or are there any cheaper choices? It looks like the Apple version is $20, so it's not so bad if I need to go that route.

2. My Macbook is connected to an Airport Express-provided wireless N network with very good reception strength. Am I even going to notice a boost going to 100MBps wired being pumped through USB? I have a mac mini wired to the same network at home that I transfer a lot of files to and from.

Use the apple option. It tends to get hot but it's better than loving around with some lovely third party connector. Unless you absolutely need 100Mbps, wifi-n is probably good enough. You probably should check your real world wifi transfer speeds before spending any $

# ¿ Sep 8, 2013 17:31

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

the kawaiiest posted:

Okay, something weird is going on with my MBA. It's a 13" i7 w/ 8GB and 512SSD. It's the latest model (the 2013 Haswell one).

I just opened it for the first time today and the battery is at 94%, but it tells me it only has a little under 3 hours left. The fan is running, and it got pretty hot within minutes of starting up. I restarted to make sure it wasn't some weirdness or something, but it's still doing it. Screen brightness is super low and I'm only running Chrome. I don't play games and haven't watched Netflix or done anything other than browse the web and listen to music for over a week now. It was fine last night.

This thing is barely two weeks old. I'm genuinely confused. Is something wrong with my battery?

e: it was at 94% when I started typing this, it's now at 92%.

The battery percentage is always an estimate. Stop sperging and if you really care run activity monitor to see what's eating your CPU, if anything.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 19:34

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

the kawaiiest posted:

The computer's behavior changed overnight, it's hot to the touch, the fan is running within seconds of the computer starting up and the battery percentage is dropping every other minute. I was wondering if anyone here has experienced something similar of if it's a known bug. Of course I should have known better than to ask a bunch of goons for help. Silly me.

run top -o cpu in terminal and check what the process consuming most cpu time is.

If you have tuxera ntfs mounting a bootcamp partition make sure to tell spotlight not to index it otherwise a core or so is gonna be eaten with that for no real gain

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 22:38

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Heisenberg1276 posted:

To be fair the burn in on the original LG retina screens was awful. No idea how they are now.

LG burn in was goddamn terrible. If you have it, get it replaced (I also got the trackpad replaced at the same time).

MacRumors forums are terrible and should be avoided at all costs

# ¿ Sep 23, 2013 20:46

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

PRADA SLUT posted:

Is the new $2600 MBP "a good deal" or is is just way too expensive for what you get?

I'm torn between video performance mainly between the 650M and Iris Pro. Is there a real-world comparison?

I don play a lot, but things like Dota, Starcraft, Diablo, and CounterStrike.

The 750m is faster but the Iris Pro consumes less power. Starcraft is CPU bound, and none of the other three are particularly graphically taxing if you're smart about it.

It's pretty clear from the pricing that Apple is steering people away from the discrete GPU.

e: For what it's worth if you spec out the base model to be like the higher end one, you end up getting the same 2599 sans 750m. So if you're going to go for a faster processor, more ram, and more SSD, go for the top end one.

Malcolm XML fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Nov 3, 2013

# ¿ Nov 3, 2013 19:38

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Animal posted:

What is the consensus on the new 802.11ac Time Machine? I ordered the 2TB model, but I was pointed out that its better to buy a more powerful router that has USB 3.0 storage, and an external hard disk. Any opinions?

3tb works well for me and I can get apple support if needed.

The other routers are ok but asus might have violated FCC regs on wireless output so who knows what else they did. Plus they look kind of dumb compared to the apple one, but you get better range.

Wave 2 ac will obsolete current ac models anyway so I just needed a time capsule replacement.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 23:57

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

eddiewalker posted:

Most non-Apple routers don't do Time Machine backups. Even with significant hacking it won't work reliably. You'd need a very powerful router to make USB3 worthwhile. My 600mhz Broadcom router maxes the CPU writing to a usb2 disk and I manage maybe 10mB/s to the disk.

This is because time machine requires AFP support and hfs+ support which no router other than apple's support well out of the box. The alternative is to set up a freenas box with AFP and an hfs disk plus netatalk

You can enable unsupported volumes for zfs instead of hfs but that's a bad idea for backups!

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 00:04

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

nescience posted:

Anyone run Linux on their MBA? Any significant driver issues with Debian based systems?

run it in a vm and forget about drivers. Vt-x/d + EPT will give more than enough performance for desktop use.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 12:11

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

japtor posted:

OS X doesn't support VT-d afaik, and I wonder how it'd work on an MBA anyways. My understanding was that it pretty much gave the whole device to a VM to use natively, so I figure it'd be full screen, but would you have to shut down/pause the VM completely to use OS X again? I also have no clue if VT-d can even do that with integrated graphics in the first place.

Yeah, but if you're not going GPU heavy the drivers provided are good enough for desktop work

# ¿ Jan 22, 2014 11:55

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

TinTower posted:

The laptop is going to be part-funded through Disabled Student's Allowance. My major concern, though, is upgradability, especially when it comes to the PCI-e SSD...

A MacBook Pro retina is basically not upgradable (the ssd is proprietary) and you should not want to. Internal storage upgrades are foolish in general given that external is cheaper and is easily serviced.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2014 23:54

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

[quote="Pivo" post="426387833"]
WTF

I hope you mean for the rMBP only.
[/t quote]

Any money spent on internal storage upgrades (except hd-ssd upgrades) is better spent on external ones since usb 3/ thunderbolt are just as fast.

Plus keeping all your data on one drive is bad idea so you want it replicated anyway.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2014 00:09

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

The Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter has been a huge piece of poo poo for me too with my rMBP. I want from using a MacBook Air with the USB Ethernet adapter to a rMBP with the Thunderbolt adapter and it constantly has issues acquiring an IP, waking from sleep correctly, and regular connection hiccups. This is on the exact same network using the same drop to my desk, so nothing else changed.

10.9.3 seemed to help a bit, oddly enough. I'm still disappointed with the TB adapter, though. It makes me want to track down a USB adapter again and just use that.

I have never run into an issue using the TB adapter.

The usb adapter can't handle gigabit and gets really hot so it's not ideal.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 20:58

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

My TB adapter actually gets hotter than the USB adapter ever did for me.

I'm really wondering if they're using a mix of vendors for their NICs or something.

Hm maybe your adapter is shot? I'd look into getting it swapped.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 21:15

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

also macs do not have hardware vp9 decoding support so download h264ify and marvel as your fans no longer spin up for takeoff

# ¿ Sep 12, 2015 21:31

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Binary Badger posted:

Nah, that article sucks boil-covered moose cock.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-over-qualcomms-imod-mirasol-display-lab-in-taiwan

I like this article much better, more research and actually explains why the gently caress I should care that Apple took over a monitor lab.

It's loving technology going in a whole new direction, advocating reflective technology over transmissive technology, which is more natural and less eye-straining.

I especially like the part where they mention that a product using the Mirasol tech looked better in direct sunlight than any other display that was reviewed.

Also, the biggest tell is here, emphasis mine:

That's gonna mean a big jump in battery life. The only caveat is using it in dark environments (like most goons are used to) but it's as simply solved as adding a backlight.

It was also mentioned that Mirasol can refresh fast enough to do video.

mirasol looked like poo poo in non-direct sunlight. QCA never got it off the ground

# ¿ Dec 15, 2015 23:39

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Binary Badger posted:

Yeah but is the line about being able to do it with a fraction of the power consumption of other GPUs of note?

i sincerely doubt apple will devote transistor space and electrical budget to something that's useful only in lighting and games

if someone finds out a sweet way to use hw ray tracing to say increase web browsing battery life, then, well

# ¿ Jan 10, 2016 13:57

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Binary Badger posted:

BTW, I wouldn't get too excited about Skylake updates for Macs after reading this:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/intel-skylake-bug-causes-pcs-to-freeze-during-complex-workloads/

Oh Intel, haven't you loving learned since the FDIV bug? Everything is FP calculations these days.

Wonder what the BIOS fix involves.. hope it doesn't have any impact on calc speed.

fixed via a microcode update. who cares.

it'll be fixed in hw by a new stepping if it's a hw bug

# ¿ Jan 11, 2016 23:23

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

MrChupon posted:

Anyone think they might bump the top end gently caress-off rMBP to 2TB or more?

Lately I've found myself in need of a lot of disk space as my job revolves around a lot of VM snapshots that are much more convenient when stored locally. I've been shuffling around on a 512GB rMBP from a couple years ago, but I think that would get me to upgrade. I'm a bit paranoid that Apple is going to go the route of the iPhones and rarely increase storage under the premise that 'everything is in the cloud these days' or something like that.

You are an edge case tbh

Get an external drive over thunderbolt or USB 3

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 23:59

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Perplx posted:

apple's "gumstick" ssd predated the m.2 standard, but they really should have switched to m.2 once it was out

why? to support the 3 people who can't just buy an external drive?

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 01:18

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Pivo posted:

If you've ever played with a new MacBook, it's incredibly magical how thin and light it is. You honestly would not believe it's a general purpose computer, it's unlike anything you've ever seen.

But it's slow as gently caress and has a lot of problems like an awful keyboard.

Hopefully they don't give that treatment to the Pro line... I'll accept that featherweight razor-thin laptops should exist, but the Pro is already thin enough for me.

15" pro is still too heavy to schlep around so i'm ok if they shave off a few mm in keyboard travel

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 23:29

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 00:35

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Mu Zeta posted:

Where the fuuuuuuck is the new hardware I want a new computer.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2016 17:50

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