After all the reports of the possible overheating of the newly updated MacBook Pros, I thought Id go ahead and do a teardown of the 15 MBP and offer some insight on the process on replacing the stock/factory thermal paste. A good set of tools is definitely recommended, and a spudger tool and a pair of tweezers will help too when youre putting everything back together. Since I dont believe iFixit has done a step-by-step guide on the new MacBooks, I would strongly suggest individuals who have never done this before not to take this on as a first project. If youve taken MBPs apart before, then I would rate this 6/10 in difficulty.
Example of the miniature ribbon cable = PITA. Its in the center of this image, right above the RAM and at the lip/edge of the fan cutout.
Display cable, requires you to lift a metal bracket before the ribbon can be pulled out. Be careful as it's very fragile.
Ribbon cables along the left side of the logic board. You can see the really small one again at the edge of the fan cutout.
Logic board removed from the unibody.
Logic board with heatsink. After removal its actually not too bad compared to whats out there, but still too much thermal paste in my opinion.
Cleaned up and ready to be put back together with a application of Arctic Silver 5. I dont have a picture of the AS5 applied, but I only used a thin layer. Rule of thumb is to put the amount of TP roughly to the size of a grain of rice, but adjust accordingly to the size of the chip. I used a toothpick to spread it evenly, then put the heatsink back on. A good idea is to wiggle the heatsink just a tiny bit to make sure theres proper and even contact between the 2 components, and also helps to spread your thermal compound. Then screw on evenly from opposing corners.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
Roman2K~ on 4/15/2011
I have gone ahead and re-applied the thermal paste on the 4 chips (CPU, GPU, Thunderbolt controller, southbridge).
Before:
GPU heatsink:
Dirty. Nice job, Apple "Geniuses"... (I had them re-apply termal paste on both the CPU and GPU.)
Southbridge heatsink:
Excess of thermal paste coming out of the edge of the heatsink. Originally, I wasn't planning on re-doing the southbridge or the Thunderbolt controller, but upon seeing such horror, I would'nt have been able to live with myself knowing that such a mess was living underneath my MBP's keyboard.
GPU & CPU:
![]()
![]()
Nasty. They told me they cleaned up the stock application and re-applied only the necessary amount. Right
. Not to mention, the screws were only loosely tightened. They did swap the motherboard for a new one, covered by the first year Apple Care (in order to alleviate my doubt about the CPU coming from a poor batch), so I can't complain about them specifically.
Thunderbolt controller:
![]()
Kind of clean, relative to its neighbours, though way too thick and uneven.
Southbridge:
I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture of the southbridge, but it wasn't pretty, as the picture of the corresponding heatsink (above) can attest.
After:
Thunderbolt controller & southbridge:
![]()
As documented by somebody early in this thread, their heatsinks are elevated by a good millimeter above the corresponding chips. Thermal paste isn't appropriate in this case. I put thermal pads leftover from an EK waterblock. They fit perfectly underneath the heatsinks: there's a good, tight contact after screwing them back on.
GPU & CPU:
![]()
All cleaned up. I found a toothpick to be the perfect tool for removing thermal paste between the tiny elements (transistors?) surrounding the main chip. Precise yet soft wood.
GPU & CPU:
![]()
Arctic Cooling MX-2 applied, ready to be spread by the heatsinks. There's a little more than necessary but at least I'm almost certain it spread over the whole surface. Also, the MX-2 is liquid enough that the pressure from the heatsink only leaves the thinnest layer necessary to fill surface imperfections while excess is pushed to the edges (proved over and over after dozens of desktop CPU and GPU heatsink and waterblock un-/mounting).
Results (running on battery, integrated GPU)
Absolute maximum load temperature:
93°C => 88°C
Note: temperature rises to 94°C but only briefly as when when fans reach 6200 RPM, the CPU is cooled town to a stable 88°C. Before, temperature rose to 93-95°C and stayed there.
Idle temperature (no applications loaded, Finder only):
45°C => 37°C
1080P video in VLC:
85°C => ? (not tested yet)
1080P video on YouTube:
85°C => 67°C
Brief initial peak at 76°C tighly controlled by fans speeding up to 2500 RPM for less than a minute.
Average usage (multiple Chrome tabs, paused YouTube videos, iTunes playing, MPlayerX paused):
55-65°C => 45-47°C.
General:
Before the "re-pasting", the top left area of the keyboard was always hot (but still sustainable to the touch). YouTube videos would make it hot the point I couldn't leave my finger on it. Fans rarely spinned at their minimum speed (2000 RPM), and it felt like they were useless.
Fans now stay at 2000 RPM nearly all the time. They did speed up to 2500 RPM (barely audible in a silent room) once when the CPU cores reached 85°C until they got it down to 76°C, and proceeded to progressively slow down to 2000 RPM (their minimum, inaudible). I love this behaviour.
The top left area of the keyboard rarely gets hot anymore. Warm sometimes. Slightly warm most of the time. That's because the CPU never gets to stay hot long enough now: fans actually manage to move heat away from the heatsink now.
To me, that was the whole point of this operation. Temperatures aren't that much lower, but the top left area is now cool and I never hear the fans. Exactly what I expected.
Difficulty:
Very easy, actually! aznguyen316's teardown video guide on YouTube was the exact and only instructions I needed to proceed. This video is brilliant, really! Much thanks again to him for this gem, a gift to other MBP 15 2011 owners.
Tools needed:
Success! Thrilled with the result. Smooth, easy process (for the most part thanks to aznguyen316's video guide). 100% clean chips. I can only recommend thermal paste clean re-application to all owners of an MBP.
As an added bonus, I now know my MBP inside out. It's not a black box anymore. Apple produce some serious quality products, zero doubts about that. The tight internals just speak for themselves. Sturdy components, neat cable routing, sleek black PCB motherboard with robustly soldered elements. Eye-candy for me. It's a shame that the assembly chain ends with such a poor job at applying thermal paste. Neglected as seemingly irrelevant, but absolutely vital in the end.
aznguyen316 on 4/11/2011
Thanks to aznguyen316 we have a video of the process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlMxoHK0Os4
alphaod on 3/8/2011
For everyone else's benefit
Do not reapply the thermal paste under those heatsinks. They are for better or worse nothing more than just a cover; the gap between those piece of metal and the chips is about .5mm so you can only use thermal pads or if you must use thermal paste, you need a mesh to enforce it.
If you try to put more than a thin layer of thermal paste in that space you are probably doing more harm than good; I had to order replacement thermal pads to replace the one I removed out of ignorance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Preliminary Results:
Specs: 15" MacBook Pro 2.3GHz/8GB/750/6750m/Hi-ResAG
Stock, the MBP idled at about 48C during browsing with multiple tabs, email, and iChat open. Watching something on YouTube (720p) or Hulu (480p) would make the laptop jump up to about 80C.
After AS5 application, idle is now at about 37C with normal browsing, email, and iChat. Heres the kicker, streaming Hulu (480p) in the background with full-screen YouTube (720p) brings the MBP only to about 68C. The GPU temperatures were recording on average about 5-10C cooler than the CPU. This makes the MBP nearly silent now, as the fans dont kick in until the laptop reaches about 80C in my case.
I'm going to let the paste settle for a few days and report back with any changes.
Full set with higher resolution images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fr4c/sets/72157626045020161/with/5487489942/
Example of the miniature ribbon cable = PITA. Its in the center of this image, right above the RAM and at the lip/edge of the fan cutout.
Display cable, requires you to lift a metal bracket before the ribbon can be pulled out. Be careful as it's very fragile.
Ribbon cables along the left side of the logic board. You can see the really small one again at the edge of the fan cutout.
Logic board removed from the unibody.
Logic board with heatsink. After removal its actually not too bad compared to whats out there, but still too much thermal paste in my opinion.
Cleaned up and ready to be put back together with a application of Arctic Silver 5. I dont have a picture of the AS5 applied, but I only used a thin layer. Rule of thumb is to put the amount of TP roughly to the size of a grain of rice, but adjust accordingly to the size of the chip. I used a toothpick to spread it evenly, then put the heatsink back on. A good idea is to wiggle the heatsink just a tiny bit to make sure theres proper and even contact between the 2 components, and also helps to spread your thermal compound. Then screw on evenly from opposing corners.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
Roman2K~ on 4/15/2011
I have gone ahead and re-applied the thermal paste on the 4 chips (CPU, GPU, Thunderbolt controller, southbridge).
Before:
GPU heatsink:
Dirty. Nice job, Apple "Geniuses"... (I had them re-apply termal paste on both the CPU and GPU.)
Southbridge heatsink:
Excess of thermal paste coming out of the edge of the heatsink. Originally, I wasn't planning on re-doing the southbridge or the Thunderbolt controller, but upon seeing such horror, I would'nt have been able to live with myself knowing that such a mess was living underneath my MBP's keyboard.
GPU & CPU:
Nasty. They told me they cleaned up the stock application and re-applied only the necessary amount. Right
. Not to mention, the screws were only loosely tightened. They did swap the motherboard for a new one, covered by the first year Apple Care (in order to alleviate my doubt about the CPU coming from a poor batch), so I can't complain about them specifically.Thunderbolt controller:
Kind of clean, relative to its neighbours, though way too thick and uneven.
Southbridge:
I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture of the southbridge, but it wasn't pretty, as the picture of the corresponding heatsink (above) can attest.
After:
Thunderbolt controller & southbridge:
As documented by somebody early in this thread, their heatsinks are elevated by a good millimeter above the corresponding chips. Thermal paste isn't appropriate in this case. I put thermal pads leftover from an EK waterblock. They fit perfectly underneath the heatsinks: there's a good, tight contact after screwing them back on.
GPU & CPU:
All cleaned up. I found a toothpick to be the perfect tool for removing thermal paste between the tiny elements (transistors?) surrounding the main chip. Precise yet soft wood.
GPU & CPU:
Arctic Cooling MX-2 applied, ready to be spread by the heatsinks. There's a little more than necessary but at least I'm almost certain it spread over the whole surface. Also, the MX-2 is liquid enough that the pressure from the heatsink only leaves the thinnest layer necessary to fill surface imperfections while excess is pushed to the edges (proved over and over after dozens of desktop CPU and GPU heatsink and waterblock un-/mounting).
Results (running on battery, integrated GPU)
Absolute maximum load temperature:
93°C => 88°C
Note: temperature rises to 94°C but only briefly as when when fans reach 6200 RPM, the CPU is cooled town to a stable 88°C. Before, temperature rose to 93-95°C and stayed there.
Idle temperature (no applications loaded, Finder only):
45°C => 37°C
1080P video in VLC:
85°C => ? (not tested yet)
1080P video on YouTube:
85°C => 67°C
Brief initial peak at 76°C tighly controlled by fans speeding up to 2500 RPM for less than a minute.
Average usage (multiple Chrome tabs, paused YouTube videos, iTunes playing, MPlayerX paused):
55-65°C => 45-47°C.
General:
Before the "re-pasting", the top left area of the keyboard was always hot (but still sustainable to the touch). YouTube videos would make it hot the point I couldn't leave my finger on it. Fans rarely spinned at their minimum speed (2000 RPM), and it felt like they were useless.
Fans now stay at 2000 RPM nearly all the time. They did speed up to 2500 RPM (barely audible in a silent room) once when the CPU cores reached 85°C until they got it down to 76°C, and proceeded to progressively slow down to 2000 RPM (their minimum, inaudible). I love this behaviour.
The top left area of the keyboard rarely gets hot anymore. Warm sometimes. Slightly warm most of the time. That's because the CPU never gets to stay hot long enough now: fans actually manage to move heat away from the heatsink now.
To me, that was the whole point of this operation. Temperatures aren't that much lower, but the top left area is now cool and I never hear the fans. Exactly what I expected.
Difficulty:
Very easy, actually! aznguyen316's teardown video guide on YouTube was the exact and only instructions I needed to proceed. This video is brilliant, really! Much thanks again to him for this gem, a gift to other MBP 15 2011 owners.
Tools needed:
- Phillips screwdriver
- TX6 Torx screwdriver
- Toothpick (in place of spudger): for both unplugging the various kinds of cables, and cleaning up intricate parts of the chips
- Nailpolish remover
- Coffee filters
Success! Thrilled with the result. Smooth, easy process (for the most part thanks to aznguyen316's video guide). 100% clean chips. I can only recommend thermal paste clean re-application to all owners of an MBP.
As an added bonus, I now know my MBP inside out. It's not a black box anymore. Apple produce some serious quality products, zero doubts about that. The tight internals just speak for themselves. Sturdy components, neat cable routing, sleek black PCB motherboard with robustly soldered elements. Eye-candy for me
. It's a shame that the assembly chain ends with such a poor job at applying thermal paste. Neglected as seemingly irrelevant, but absolutely vital in the end.aznguyen316 on 4/11/2011
Thanks to aznguyen316 we have a video of the process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlMxoHK0Os4
alphaod on 3/8/2011
For everyone else's benefit
Do not reapply the thermal paste under those heatsinks. They are for better or worse nothing more than just a cover; the gap between those piece of metal and the chips is about .5mm so you can only use thermal pads or if you must use thermal paste, you need a mesh to enforce it.
If you try to put more than a thin layer of thermal paste in that space you are probably doing more harm than good; I had to order replacement thermal pads to replace the one I removed out of ignorance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Preliminary Results:
Specs: 15" MacBook Pro 2.3GHz/8GB/750/6750m/Hi-ResAG
Stock, the MBP idled at about 48C during browsing with multiple tabs, email, and iChat open. Watching something on YouTube (720p) or Hulu (480p) would make the laptop jump up to about 80C.
After AS5 application, idle is now at about 37C with normal browsing, email, and iChat. Heres the kicker, streaming Hulu (480p) in the background with full-screen YouTube (720p) brings the MBP only to about 68C. The GPU temperatures were recording on average about 5-10C cooler than the CPU. This makes the MBP nearly silent now, as the fans dont kick in until the laptop reaches about 80C in my case.
I'm going to let the paste settle for a few days and report back with any changes.
Full set with higher resolution images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fr4c/sets/72157626045020161/with/5487489942/
Last edited:
