Laptop overheating

So I suspect it is overheating, it constantly freezes and hangs or even shuts down.

Can a bigger HDD cause it to heat up more?
Can the battery possibly be shorting?

Also, whenever I restart my laptop and get to the sign in screen, I have to close the lid and let my laptop sleep before being able to sign in, if I don't do this it will freeze and hang on the sign in screen.

I am on a Mac Book Pro (Early 2006) running Snow Leopard, and went from a 80gb HDD to 500gb HDD

Could running Snow Leopard cause an older machine like this to over heat? I have seen the heat go past 200 Fahrenheit.

Any and all help wll be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

200 Fahrenheit is above average but acceptable if you were computer was performing heavy duty at that time. An 2006 MacBook Pro is not, at all, too old to run Snow Leopard, it should be just fine on it. The problems can range from the battery (which I doubt) to the hard disk or even to the motherboard, you never know.

What you can do is perform a hardware test to determine exactly what is wrong (if any) with your computer. This is how you perform that test: Apple Hardware Test for Intel-Macs

I agree with Tarek, you should probably run the AHT first to see if there are any hardware issues (like a bad fan - it wouldn't be uncommon to see one fail with a machine of that age). If you get a clean bill of health from the AHT, another idea would be to open the machine and use some compressed air to clear any dust from the fans (be sure to hold them captive and not allow them to overspin) as well as from the duct at the rear of the machine.

If that doesn't do the trick, I would have a look at the troubleshooting steps here:

Mac-Forums Blog » Mac Hardware » Basic Mac Troubleshooting

I would run an AHT but I don't have the original installation discs, I miss placed them when I moved from place to place, I've looked everywhere for them and just can't find them.

Side note, Safe Mode, poses no problems at all. No grainy glitchiness or freezing.

Kuzco said:

I would run an AHT but I don't have the original installation discs, I miss placed them when I moved from place to place, I've looked everywhere for them and just can't find them.

Side note, Safe Mode, poses no problems at all. No grainy glitchiness or freezing.

Click to expand...

It may very well be a software issue then. I would recommend the article I linked to above and start there for troubleshooting tips.

So I did all that nothing changed. If it is a software issue, why do I still get the same problems, when I run the install disc?

I ran the Apple Service Diagnostic test, no problems, is that the same as Apple Hardware Test?

I have the files needed to do the test (aka disk image) but I can't get it to work.



So apparently this is a chipset defect, and it was acknowledged by Apple. Its been 5 years, do you think they would do a repair? What would they do for me?

Interesting... I've not heard of this defect - and I used to own that exact same model. Do you have a link?

cwa107 said:

Interesting... I've not heard of this defect - and I used to own that exact same model. Do you have a link?

Click to expand...

MacBook Pros with ATI Radeon X1600 graphics cards still experiencing issues | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews


I suppose it doesn't say its a recall but I found that and sounds to me like they would repair it, but then again this was what like 4 years go maybe.