Forum rules
An Activity Log is required for support requests. Please read How-to get an activity log? for details on how and why this should be provided.
The Mac is overheating when transcoding a 720p film. The fan whirls very loudly. The power brick becomes very hot and emits a metallic smell. When I unplug the power cord, the fan stops whirling, but framerate drops from 40 fps to 11 fps. It appears to me that Mac lowers processing power when relying on the battery, thereby making it run cooler. Is it possible to make the Mac run in this cool state with it plugged in? On Windows, I was able to set the priority on Handbrake to lower the CPU usage of Handbrake. But on Mac, I can't find this option. It's stuck on super hot drama queen mode and makes my other programs run super slow.
Simply put, you have some sort of hardware failure/issue and should take it in to Apple to be repaired.
Macs are actually widely known for not overheating. Unlike a cheap Acer laptop, they are proper computers with proper cooling systems. I've run encodes on my 15" MBP (and my old 13" MBP) for days on end without issue. One of the developers has run similar CPU intensive tasks for WEEKS without problems on his Mac.
Explain to Apple what's happening and, assuming you did the sensible thing and got AppleCare with your laptop, they'll fix it.
EDIT: I should add, the only thing you've described that is actually overheating is the power brick. You don't want that smelling like burning. If it's just a matter of your fans spinning up to max then that's entirely normal behavior.
I have a Mac Book pro and using Handbrake is taking 100% CPU and system overheating. It is not a hardware problem as I use other video conversation software which running fast, use 40% CPU.....google this problem and it seems it is a serious software problem.
@peter - Rubbish. You've just defined a hardware problem.
You *want* your video encoder running the CPU at 100%. Video encoding is a very intensive operation and any video encoder that isn't fully utilising the CPU is badly optimised.
If your system can't handle 100% cpu usage, you need to get it repaired. This is *Normal* operation
Regardless of whether someone has a hardware problem or not, the developers should port over the Windows option of lowering process priority? I can barely watch a 480p h264 main profile video on Mac while I'm transcoding. It plays back at half the framerate.
Mac: 2.2 GHz Core i7 - can't multitask Windows: 2.66 GHz Core i7, 3.0 GHz Wolfdale - both allow me to multitask