?? about HD heat

Have had our 17 inch MB Pro for a little over a week now and love it. Coming from a PC and a desktop, we opted to go with the 7200 RPM 100 gig HD as well as some external storage.

One issue my wife brings up is the heat. Is this simply a function of the HD (and I'm assuming it's safe and won't kill the HD soon or else it wouldn't have been an option, right) or just that it's a big laptop. It's really also the first laptop we've had and use it like a desktop replacement. We did have a HP for a few weeks, before returning it and going the Mac route. I don't remember it feeling this warm.

I hope we don't regret getting the 7200 drive (albeit not particularly worried about the storage aspect of it).

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Two quick thoughts
1) search this and other forums for the numerous discussions of heat related issues.
2) You may want to download smc fancontrol. If you decide you dont want to alter your fans behavior, you can at least make sure they are both working. I doubt the heat is a result of your hard drive. It is more likely a CPU and GPU related heat.
-d

Heat answer

Don't worry about it, as the guy said above, just down load SMC fan control. I have the 15" MBP and I use that little program most of the time as I am usually editing, and I like to keep my laptop cool.

The intel macs just heat up, simple as. mine stays at about 50 degrees centigrade on normal web, music use, and rockets up to about 82 degrees centigrade on video encoding and heavy use.

As it says, it aint a "Lap" top, more a desktop, but with SMC fan control, I can use it on my lap when lazing infront of the tv or showing my housemates something on it.

By the way, it's an ace machine. I came from using a pc for 7 years. I now have my Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz beast sitting beside me allways switched off. And htis little 1.83Ghz beats it every time for what i need it to do. Appart from when i need to scan something in, as Canon stupidly don't supply drivers for Mac.

I can just do stuff far easier with a mac. One of my housemates has a HP 17" laptop, and we often end up on the sofa in the house just doing stuff and now and again I look over and feel like heaving becuase of what Windows looks like and all the clicking going on to achieve a simple task.

Ahhhhhh

'tis like having walked through a shower of rain for seven years and finally I have a big dry fluffy towel and a warm room to sit in

I had my MBP at 75C and it was in the yellow zone. SMC control does the job great.

Best fan control

Yeah the heat is a macbook thing and I personally do not think running at 82 C is good for any electronic device (barring perhaps a hair dryer) let alone a $3000 macbook....no matter what the official apple party line is on the subject.

Try this fan control:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23137

I believe the SMC control is an App you have to run....this one by "logotomo" ends up in preferences....It works great! Gives you all the control you need or at the very least it is a quick way to take a peek at yer temp and at what your fans are doing and when.....

That is a much better app thats for sure!