15" MacBook Pro (SB) Thermal application/guide

[RainCityMacFan]

What is being talked about here? I thought everyone was removing the heatsinks, cleaning off the thermal paste and reapplying AS5. Is this mention about the metal plate covering the thunderbolt chip, or is everyone doing AS5 doing it wrong?

Yea don't take off the metal plates. Those need to be secured with thermal pads or paste reinforced by a mesh.

Just reapply to the CPU and GPU heatsinks.

 

[OxOOCOFFEE]

Any 13" info

Any one tried this with 13". Was it worth it? They idle nice but when you get them working they can run hot. Just wondering if any one changed paste specific to sandy bridge 13"

 

[whateverandever]

Well, I went in and did a re-application job using MX-4 paste. Sadly, at least under "idle" conditions (just a web browser and mail open basically) I'm not seeing greatly improved temps.

With the dedicated GPU enabled pre re-app I was hovering around 52C. Now I'm hovering around 50C. Still a drop and maybe it'll be much better under load.

Just a tip to anyone doing this: the fan cables should be pulled directly up, not out horizontally. Accidentally pulled the wires out of the socket!

 

[RainCityMacFan]

What were your idle temperatures?

And under load 52°C is very low to be honest

 

[grayh0und]

Yea don't take off the metal plates. Those need to be secured with thermal pads or paste reinforced by a mesh.

Just reapply to the CPU and GPU heatsinks.

uh oh, I also took those plates off. I put MX-3 on them... Is it bad? And can i buy the other stuff to undo it again? Thanks!!!

 

[whateverandever]

What were your idle temperatures?

And under load 52°C is very low to be honest

That's not under load -- it was 52C idle with the dedicated GPU enabled (I was testing with an external monitor so it's always enabled).

 

[pullman]

Does anyone know where in Europe one can buy the various kinds of thermal "paste" mentioned in this thread?

 

[Nikonian]

Im planning on doing this whereas in Windows I've reached 100C.
Can someone please do a walkthrough without errors? The fact that the original post has a mess up, with the plate thing, is unsettling.

 

[grayh0und]

Does anyone know where in Europe one can buy the various kinds of thermal "paste" mentioned in this thread?

ebay,
alternate.nl dutch site,
alternate.be
alternate.de
overclockers.co.uk
google search for more.

 

[fr4c]

Im planning on doing this whereas in Windows I've reached 100C.
Can someone please do a walkthrough without errors? The fact that the original post has a mess up, with the plate thing, is unsettling.

That was another MR member who went ahead and re-appled the TC, which is not covered under the first post. For your reference, the highlighted area below is what you should not touch:

 

[grayh0und]

That was another MR member who went ahead and re-appled the TC, which is not covered under the first post. For your reference, the highlighted area below is what you should not touch:

There's also one under the speaker:

Does anyone know where to get good, high-quality thermal pads? Preferably that ship to Europe? Thanks!

 

[RainCityMacFan]

I just got my MBP

Now I'm trying to calibrate my battery just to begin things off... Hence I'm trying to drain my battery by

-Watching a music video on Chrome (flash)
-Forcing discrete GPU
-Installing Starcraft 2 (will later it later... on ultra )

But it's not getting as hot as I thought (not even surpassing 90ºC).

CPU: 81ºC
GPU: 69ºC

might replace thermal paste some day later. But so far so good. Just I would not want this thing on my lap at the moment. . .

 

[Nikonian]

I just got my MBP

Now I'm trying to calibrate my battery just to begin things off... Hence I'm trying to drain my battery by

-Watching a music video on Chrome (flash)
-Forcing discrete GPU
-Installing Starcraft 2 (will later it later... on ultra )

But it's not getting as hot as I thought (not even surpassing 90ºC).

CPU: 81ºC
GPU: 69ºC

might replace thermal paste some day later. But so far so good. Just I would not want this thing on my lap at the moment. . .

Run 3D Mark in Bootcamp... You'll get 100c just like me.

 

[lankox]

For all of the cables and ribbons, came someone identify which ones need to be removed by pushing up (vertical) and which ones are removed by pushing front of back (horizontal)? Thanks!

 

[RainCityMacFan]

Run 3D Mark in Bootcamp... You'll get 100c just like me.

Nah I just ran CPUTest at unlimited repetitions. It soared to around 90ish ºC. I got scared and frantically tried shutting the processes down.

I'm sure even my iMac would panic and die after that. There's no way I will ever use my MBP to that point but yea I'm reapplying the paste, just in case.

 

[kntgsp]

Good guide, but not sure how this is all that big of a surprise for those of you posting "zomg unacceptable!1one!" or the equivalent.

The thermal paste application has been horrible in most of their laptops and desktops for years and years, so this is nothing new. It should be expected. It's the same with pretty much any company doing large volume sales.

Also, pretty sure the thermal paste application is done by assembly line automated units (i.e not humans). I remember seeing a video of some computer parts assembly lines a year or so ago and the machine basically squirts a drop, the part moves to the next station and the heatsink gets pressed on. I can't imagine Apple, with their volume and required profit margins, using hand labor for that. And even if they do use hand labor, some Chinaman earning pennies an hour with a quota to meet is not going to do a thoughtful job with it.

How's the anti-tamper look in the new Macbooks? I've had to bring a few macbooks under warranty (on which I replaced the thermal paste) in for service over the years for various issues. Not once have I had so much as a peep about the warranty being violated.

 

[Bigmacduck]

Just did it! Some tips on thermal compound

I have received my BTO 15" 2.3GHz High Res Antiglare MacBook Pro. I upgraded it with a 480GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD and 8GB OWC RAM.

This evening I went through the thrilling experience reapplying the thermal compound. Like so many others in this thread described, my BTO machine also had way too much thermal compound. So I carefully cleaned it and reapplied Arctic Cooling MX-4.

Be sure that you use a thermal compound that is electrically non-conductive and non-capacitive. It should also be non-curing, non-corrosive, and non-bleeding. Look for a paste that has a thermal conductivity of higher than 6 W/mK (Watts per meter Kelvin). The higher the better, but make sure it complies to the characteristics stated above. MX-4 has a themal conductivity of 8.5 W/mK.

Everything went well and the MBP survived the procedure. It's a bit annoying that a user has to make these modifications to get a top machine. The machine is already running 8-10 C cooler. The thermal compound needs now to be conditioned with several hours of operation and several hot / cold cycles. It probably takes ca 50 hours until the compound reaches its optimal performance.

The procedure is definitely nothing for people who are faint at heart. I had quite some sweat drops running down my forehead. It is important to take enough time, work slowly and ultra-carefully. There are 13 cables that must be disconnected (and reconnected) from the mainboard. Some of these cables are very tinny and tricky to handle. The mainboard is held in place by 7 Torx screws. Don't try this if you are not experienced in electronics.

It is very important to use an anti static work mat and a wrist strap. Electrostatic discharges can in worst case destroy the delicate electronic parts and in best case lead to premature component failures within some months or years. It is definitely not a procedure that I would like to perform several times in a year.

Remember that if your MacBook Pro suffers from premature electronic component failure, you will get a new main board that has again too much thermal paste and you need to repeat this tricky procedure again - not something you really want to do all to often - unless you are a masochist.

 

[edifyingGerbil]

just upgraded

this thread is great as it documents pretty much the average temperature at the various stages of setting up the new 2011 MBP

I just traded my 2.0 GHz for a 2.2 GHz and kept an eye on CPU temps. After putting all my movies/music/docs on the machine I noticed the temp had gone up to about 70c (according to iStat, which strangely showed that my brand new MBP has already gone through 3 cycles ). The fans, I noticed, made a strange noise, they weren't emitting a constant stream but rather intermittently. I think this caused the huge spike in temperature, as 70 is rather a lot for simple indexing of new files.

I reset the SMC and PRAM and immediately the fans are now operating as they should, ie pushing out a steady stream of air. I also downloaded gfxCardStatus and have set it so that the integrated graphics are operating exclusively at the moment as I'm just browsing the web and listening to music.

With all of those steps, my current temperature is 38c for the CPU.

I either got a MBP without excessive amounts of thermal paste or resetting SMC/PRAM fixes a lot of the overheating issues?

I should probably try playing a game and see what happens, I understand Windows 7 makes it demonically hot.

If overheating is an issue should I ask the genius bar people if they could open her up and reapply thermal paste? I lack screwdrivers and thermal paste.

EDIT: nevermind, i just discovered a pixel that's burnt out or whatever it's called, so I'm going to be returning this tomorrow morning... Oy vey iz mir

 

[adamchilders]

From 98C to 73C Overnight

Hi guys,

just wanted to share my success story and recommend that everyone check their thermal paste if they have temperature issues and don't want to send it back to apple.

I've had my 2011 15" MBP for about a week now. I noticed crazy high temps near 90C under load and 98C under full load with CPU Test (8 Threads x 10 minutes).

So I took apart my new baby and oh my gosh... I have never seen so much thermal paste on one computer. they used enough for at 5+ applications.

anyways I cleaned everything off and reapplied some Arctic MX-2, not the easiest stuff to work with, my application on the CPU side was still a bit heavy.

so after a fresh test of CPU Test (8 Threads x 10 minutes) my temperatures got to a max of 77C and stabilized at 73C. I should say that before each test I set the fans to max and let them cool the CPU to around 42C, and left them on max during the test. that's a real 20C drop under full load. but then I had crazy amounts of thermal paste everywhere.

I'm very happy now to say the least.

-oh, and about half of the screws holding the motherboard in were crooked... seriously I'm disappointed. no real damage though.

 

[daneoni]

^
That looks awful

 

[ozred]

^
That looks awful

I certainly agree, mine was very similar. I wish I would have taken some pictures, but honestly I was so focused on not making a mistake, or damaging anything (even though I've done each of my prior MBP's ) it's still very nerve wracking.

I pay quite a premium for my S class MBZ, but at least I don't have to tear it apart to "make it right".

I wish I didn't have to tear down my new MBP's to fix them myself. Or since I do, then why must we pay such a premium? Funny how Apple gets away with this without being held accountable. Yet I've been around long enough to not be surprised.

It's an Apple - I both love em & hate em. It is what it is, proof positive that great marketing overcomes everything.

 

[brentsg]

That looks like someone just stepped on a tube of thermal paste.

 

[adamchilders]

yeah, I was really shocked.

Interestingly the bottom of the macbook is significantly warmer now.

I think the part that bothers me the most was the screws. about half of them were in crooked and about half way screwed in. I though about calling apple, but since I've already fixed it I don't see the point.

This is my first new mac since the 2006 Black Macbook (yeah I paid for the black paint). I must say the overall industrial design is much better, but the build quality is crap.

 

[xxfury2xx]

OK guys,

I'm in some pretty deep sh%t right now

I took it apart, re-applied the thermal paste, and put it back together. The process took about 3 hours because I took it VERY slow and steady.

Everything seems to be OK, except for the fact that the keyboard isn't working! WTF did I do wrong? What did I leave unplugged in there? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

The only other oddity I noticed was that the system clock thinks it's Dec. 31, 2000.

Please help!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

OK guys,

I'm in some pretty deep sh%t right now

I took it apart, re-applied the thermal paste, and put it back together. The process took about 3 hours because I took it VERY slow and steady.

Everything seems to be OK, except for the fact that the keyboard isn't working! WTF did I do wrong? What did I leave unplugged in there? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

The only other oddity I noticed was that the system clock thinks it's Dec. 31, 2000.

Please help!

I'm not exactly sure but this one right at the fan has my attention. I just reapplied my thermal paste today on my replacement 15 inch. Really need to ground yourself. No kidding static mat run a wire to your outside main water line the ground going into the ground. I ran a 30 ft bell wire over connected to my mat. Worked a charm. I realize i just scared the **** out of everyone but I'm not kidding make sure your grounded and i wore static gloves today just for extra security. Noticed I said this is a my second MBP.