Got a 12in macbook,mac users advice needed

[Jzeds]

hello every one. hope u r doing fine.
well its been a while that im looking for a second handed macbook for my daily use. i was not sure about to get air or pro models. at last second i finally decided to go for a 12" retina from 2015 and im happy with what i got. got this machine with a fair price of 300$ with 8gbram and 512gb storage. I love the retina display , speakers ,lightweight and keyboard on it although there are some downsides.
-i got this thing today and was setting up my preference and surprisingly after 6 hrs of use with lowest brightness it drained the whole battery. the battery on this thing is new with only 12 cycles and i was expecting it to last till night ( seller said he paid 70$ for the battery replacement).
Beside that poor battery life my main usage is futures trading and it gets hot (warm to touch about 45c maybe) by using only 2 chrome tabs for tradingviewDOTcom and my broker website. are these normal conditions for a 2015 macbook?
-how can i manage the temperature
-i know m core intels are not designed for peformance but i was hoping to use windows on parallel to run some engineering apps, with this over heating seems impossible, right?

os version. 11.7.9
Chrome Version 116.0.5845.140 (Official Build) (x86_64)---------50% battery drain

 

[MiamiBeach]

If you haven’t done so already, I would recommend installing Coconut Battery to see how old the battery is. Even though it may only have 12 cycles, the battery may have sat on a shelf somewhere in a depleted state for a while before being installed. As Apple charges much more for a battery replacement on these systems, the replacement may also not be to the original battery specifications.

As far as heat and running windows on it, I will defer to others on this forum who have more experience with this. My 2017 heats up somewhat when running several programs at once, however as it has a passive cooling design, I figured I would feel more heat on the base of the machine than say a notebook with a fan blowing hot air away.

 

[ApolloBoy]

That sounds about right, when I owned a 2015 12" the battery life wasn't all that great and it always ran hot (which tbf is typical for Intel MacBooks). Not the choice I would've made in this day and age honestly.

 

[ignatius345]

Just to echo what others are saying, battery issues aside I don't think this particular machine is a great choice for modern workflows. My wife had to give hers up around 2020 because it couldn't handle Zoom without skipping and overheating.

It was a great attempt at an ultraportable, but the Intel chips available at the time just couldn't handle any kind of work at all with passive cooling.

My advice would be to try to resell and put the proceeds toward something like a used M1 MacBook Air if budget is an issue.

 

[XiaoKai]

Before you using the 12inch macbook,I strongly advice you to modify the CPU thermal mod.
As you know the intel processor in these macbooks are extremely easy to heat up and died due to the poor
cooling mod.

Here's a guide to modify the cpu thermal mod:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/some-photos-of-my-thermal-mod-of-a-2015-retina-macbook.2334983/

Doing so like this post can help the CPU temperature drop about 20 degrees,and I have applied it to my macbook
and it works just fine.

 

[playtech1]

The 2015 MacBook was never a great one for battery life - I don't think 6 hours of use is not going to be transformed even with a brand new battery.

Speed was also a weakness, particularly in the 2015 model, so again I'm not shocked by your results - especially if an M3 model rather than the higher end machines.

Basically, the 2015 MacBook was not particularly quick in 2015 and 8 years later it's showing its age.

 

[Mcrumors David]

Before you using the 12inch macbook,I strongly advice you to modify the CPU thermal mod.
...

You are advising someone to a) open up the macbook (after having purchased special tools to do so) and b) voiding the warranty c) probably breaking something
What a sh.tty advice

 

[Mcrumors David]

hello every one. hope u r doing fine.
well its been a while that im looking for a second handed macbook for my daily use. i was not sure about to get air or pro models. at last second i finally decided to go for a 12" retina from 2015 and im happy with what i got. got this machine with a fair price of 300$ with 8gbram and 512gb storage. I love the retina display , speakers ,lightweight and keyboard on it although there are some downsides.
-i got this thing today and was setting up my preference and surprisingly after 6 hrs of use with lowest brightness it drained the whole battery. the battery on this thing is new with only 12 cycles and i was expecting it to last till night ( seller said he paid 70$ for the battery replacement).
Beside that poor battery life my main usage is futures trading and it gets hot (warm to touch about 45c maybe) by using only 2 chrome tabs for tradingviewDOTcom and my broker website. are these normal conditions for a 2015 macbook?
-how can i manage the temperature
-i know m core intels are not designed for peformance but i was hoping to use windows on parallel to run some engineering apps, with this over heating seems impossible, right?

os version. 11.7.9
Chrome Version 116.0.5845.140 (Official Build) (x86_64)---------50% battery drain

6h sounds about right if you put the most lightweight Macbook Apple has ever made designed for light use under pressure, =obvious

- Windows on Parallel? Yes can (I'm doing that with a 2017 model), 2gb RAM max but expect it to be slow AF

 

[XiaoKai]

You are advising someone to a) open up the macbook (after having purchased special tools to do so) and b) voiding the warranty c) probably breaking something
What a sh.tty advice

The worst problem in this model is the CPU cooling,especially the 2015 model
Due to the usage of low temperature solder.When the CPU temperature are to high,it just lead to the hardware failure
(a fried ssd or cpu )
Because you are using a 2017 model which have a better cooling design so you can run parallel on your device
But don't even try it on the 2015 model,It definitely will fried your CPU.
I think all alive 2015 model should modify the thermal mod before too late.Some cooper plates and thermal pads are
definitely cheaper compared with a whole new motherboard.

AND THE WARRANTY ISSUE?ARE YOU JOKING?IT'S A LAPTOP RELEASED 8 YEARS AGO!
IT ALREADY MARK AS AN OBSOLETE PRODUCT BY APPLE.
What a unresponsible advice

 

[loby]

The 2015 model for portability and basic usage is really all it is worth besides being a nice looking laptop with the exception of the keyboard.

As far as running virtual Windows and apps…,I would consider another Mac unless your model has 16Gb of RAM. The CPU seems to be designed more so for portability and light tasks instead of processing, so it may not work well for your usage.

I use one daily “still” instead of a iPad. Power management is ok (at least on my MacBook) as Intel CPU’s generate heat as usual. I just like the feel of it and is light and portable.

I replaced the battery at Apple before the price hike, so unless you replace your battery, don’t expect a eight year old Mac to last long on battery usage.

 

[BeatCrazy]

You are advising someone to a) open up the macbook (after having purchased special tools to do so) and b) voiding the warranty c) probably breaking something
What a sh.tty advice

OP has a warranty on an 8-year old laptop??

 

[gilby101]

-i know m core intels are not designed for peformance but i was hoping to use windows on parallel to run some engineering apps, with this over heating seems impossible, right?

Apart from CPU performance, the 8GB RAM makes this almost impossible.

 

[aespana]

If you can, install Catalina. ARM OSs are very hungry battery on this little Macbook