I know things heat up in rendering times but my MBP is getting seriously hot to the point where it’s almost burring my hand when I go to touch the back.. Is this common among others?
I have bough a stand to elevate the MBP up on a angle but now I’m thinking of getting a fan based stand to cool the thing down. What do others use?

I rendered a 20 minute cut with Magic Bullet and this took 4 hrs to complete and I’m concerned that the heat it’s putting out will fry the board or drive in it.

Oh and I do use an external drive.

Simon

Get a USB powered fan cooler for your MBP. The CoolerMaster line is a good place to start looking.

When I use my external keyboard and monitor I set the laptop up on a little cardboard box. This provides airflow all around the computer, elevates the screen so it's at a comparable height as my 23" Cinema Display.... and it didn't cost anything :-)

I've noticed that when I boot into Windows XP and do anything CPU-intensive, it gets especially hot. Hasn't done any harm though (yet).

I use smc Fan Control, and always place it on a cool table or something when I render.
But in short: yes, it can get really hot when it renders.

Thanks for the info.

Mathieu do you find better performance with smc Fan Control?

Non related: I have to log out to view updated posts then re log back in a gain, this has been this way for some time now.

I don't think smc Fan Control gives better performance. But it's nice to be able to read how warm your laptop is getting, and you can change the speed of your fans. Default is 2500 rpm, maximum is 6000 rpm. I only use that last setting in emergency situations.
But the main reason I have it, is so I can keep an eye on the temperature and speed of the fans while rendering.

I once read that the default speed which Apple ships their laptops with, is 1000 rpm and that it's actually a bit low. I don't know if that's true though.

When I use my external keyboard and monitor I set the laptop up on a little cardboard box. This provides airflow all around the computer, elevates the screen so it's at a comparable height as my 23" Cinema Display.... and it didn't cost anything :-)

I've noticed that when I boot into Windows XP and do anything CPU-intensive, it gets especially hot. Hasn't done any harm though (yet).

Yes the little box works well, that's my travel cooler, DVCam box, paper clip box, old BetaSP box, but the fan coolers really lower the sensor temperatures significantly. For regular work you probably don't need it but for processor intensive rendering, $25 to $55 dollars isn't much to keep the laptop cool.

I just had my logic board go out on my MBP today. 1100 to replace it. I always wondered if the heat would do something like this to my computer. Maybe it had nothing to do with it... but i wouldn't be surprised.

Now, the question is... are towers the only real solution for editing HD? And if so, where do I plug in the SxS cards? haha.