I'm using my 3/4 year old laptop since I'm at my moms house for a week. I've been using it for about an hour and its REALLY hot. No games just internet and youtube.
Im not playing any games or anything. Laptops on 0% load. Why the **** is it always hot?
Probably because there's dust and shit in it, or some dodgy graphic settings. I only ever get >100 GPU if playing games, and high core temps if its on epic cpu / very high room temp.
Not sure what the equivalent to Activity Monitor is for Windows (Task Manager?), but I found a corrupted file for a printer on mine was making the CPU run full blast. Deleted that file, and it was smooth sailing. Check for failing software.
Those temp readings suggest that either both CPU and GPU fans are dead or that the vents are really clogged up with dust.
Important question, can you hear the fans spinning? If not, can it be that the laptop is switched to some powersaving mode that prefers slowing the CPU down to spooling the fans up?
OT: What's so wrong with Macs? For the extra money you get a pretty good piece of hardware plus the ability to run MacOS X. I'm not saying they're worth the money, but they're certainly not shit...
sounds like a lack of airflow. laptops are notorious for that. giving the vents plenty of space is the only thing you can do in that instance, aside from buying one of those cooling mats that forces its own air into the vents.
Judging a device just by people who use it is not a good idea. There will always be Apple, MS and "opensource"(Linux, *BSD, *OSOL, Haiku,...) zealots out there claiming that their choice is the one and only. A MacBook for example is actually quite interesting piece of technology. S-IPS matrix display, multitouch touchpad, very power efficient etc etc. If you need a MacOS X for some reason (iPhone apps development), you don't have a choice anyway...
I do not have a Mac and I don't even want one, I'm just saying that they're definitely not a total ripoff, 'cause you get some extra goodies for you money. The question is if it's worth it and that's a matter of personal opinion rather than a value/money equation. The fact that Macs don't offer ME anything I'm willing to pay extra for doesn't mean that they don't offer anything to anybody...
also, to add to this. if you're not having a very enjoyable experience with laptops, then it would be a good idea to give a different product a try. i'm not a fan of apple but if i were in the market for a portable computer. and i was not enjoying windows laptops then i'd seriously be considering apple.
they seem to be able to get the best out of the hardware compared to a windows based laptop. even with the development of tablet computers, apple (unfortunately) are top in that department too. even with their flaws, they are still faster than most tablets on the market. that being said, the Asus tablet seems to be a very close 2nd.