2007 SR MBP temps worse after thermal paste job!

[fs454]

Alright, so in my boredom waiting for the new Macbook Pros to come out, I decided to tear down my MBP, clean it out, and do a thermal paste job. My temps weren't all that bad before, I remember around 50-55ish idle, but I didn't really record it or the load temp.

Being at college and away from my tools, I went to Radioshack and picked up the T6 torx, size 00 screwdriver, and some Arctic Silver 5.

Got to the heatsink, cleaned the gross Apple job with Isopropyl Alcohol wipes(all I had), and then used a glove to apply a very, very thin layer of the stuff(I was once told to apply about a rice-grain sized amount to all three chips and spread it around, went with that, and made sure it was spread and covered. I then rubbed my AS5-coated glove finger on the heatpipe contact points to coat them with a tiny bit of the stuff before putting them together(I didn't put a separate helping on, I just smeared a little from what was on my glove). Put the MBP back together and have been using it for about a day now.

Idle temps are now 65-70 celsius, and will hit 90 under load. What could I possibly have done wrong? I've done many desktop applications of AS5, so the job felt like a piece of cake...is there something I'm missing? Maybe certain screws that specifically need to be tightened or aligned better? I didn't like how I couldn't screw the heatsink onto the chips before reassembling the computer, but instead having it become attached as I started re-installing the components/logic board.


Did I miss something here, or am I unlucky? Thanks.

 

[robfromabove]

I'm a fan of the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Sometimes things are just better left alone.

 

[Gav2k]

You've proberly put to much paste on. But that said you might find with use the temps get better as the paste cures.

 

[Pax]

I'm a fan of the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Sometimes things are just better left alone.

+1

 

[Pax]

Looks like it's mostly a myth anyway....
http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/hardware/the_definitive_macbook_pro_thermal_roundup

All that effort for 5 C / 11 F.

Take it apart and chuck some more in. You should end up back where you started.

 

[maflynn]

So you cleaned up Apple's really gross job, which had kept the laptop relatively cool with your clean application and now it's running hot

sounds like you screwed up and were the one who did a really gross job. You'll now need to redo it if you wish to see those temps again

btw why did you put the AS5 on the heat pipes. I'm not understanding that move. This may be one reason why it's running hot. Those heat pipes are for shedding heat. AS5 is for making sure the chip and heat sink have a tight seal for thermal transfer. Putting AS5 on anything else (or too much) will cause it to act like insulation

 

[fs454]

So you cleaned up Apple's really gross job, which had kept the laptop relatively cool with your clean application and now it's running hot

sounds like you screwed up and were the one who did a really gross job. You'll now need to redo it if you wish to see those temps again

btw why did you put the AS5 on the heat pipes. I'm not understanding that move. This may be one reason why it's running hot. Those heat pipes are for shedding heat. AS5 is for making sure the chip and heat sink have a tight seal for thermal transfer. Putting AS5 on anything else (or too much) will cause it to act like insulation

Alright. This MBP ran very hot in the first place, before I did it. To the point where if I browse the web (flash off), after 20-30 minutes, the bottom is scalding hot to the point where you can't hold your finger on it for more than a few seconds. It's only gotten worse over the 2.5 years I've had it, so I figured while I'm in there cleaning and fixing a fan rattle, I'd do the paste job to shave off a few degrees.

I did not put it ON the heatpipes. I just "prepped" the contact pads that make contact with the CPU/GPU die with a tiny bit of leftover that was on my glove finger from applying it to the chips. I also am very experienced with computer hardware, have done a bunch of thermal paste applications in the past and have had no problems. I use a very little amount of paste (rice grain!) on the chips themselves, just enough to thiiiiinly coat the chips.

 

[6-0 Prolene]

Boy, Apple sure screwed the pooch with the "gross" job that kept your computer working just fine.... Good thing you fixed it.

 

[blackburn]

heatsink not fully seated?

 

[Gav2k]

Alright. This MBP ran very hot in the first place, before I did it. To the point where if I browse the web (flash off), after 20-30 minutes, the bottom is scalding hot to the point where you can't hold your finger on it for more than a few seconds. It's only gotten worse over the 2.5 years I've had it, so I figured while I'm in there cleaning and fixing a fan rattle, I'd do the paste job to shave off a few degrees.

I did not put it ON the heatpipes. I just "prepped" the contact pads that make contact with the CPU/GPU die with a tiny bit of leftover that was on my glove finger from applying it to the chips. I also am very experienced with computer hardware, have done a bunch of thermal paste applications in the past and have had no problems. I use a very little amount of paste (rice grain!) on the chips themselves, just enough to thiiiiinly coat the chips.

you should only apply it to the chips not the mating surface.

 

[MacModMachine]

So you cleaned up Apple's really gross job, which had kept the laptop relatively cool with your clean application and now it's running hot

sounds like you screwed up and were the one who did a really gross job. You'll now need to redo it if you wish to see those temps again

btw why did you put the AS5 on the heat pipes. I'm not understanding that move. This may be one reason why it's running hot. Those heat pipes are for shedding heat. AS5 is for making sure the chip and heat sink have a tight seal for thermal transfer. Putting AS5 on anything else (or too much) will cause it to act like insulation

what the.....how is your comment going to help at all.....

the arctic silver IS SUPPOSED to be applied and polished into the heat pipe / heat sink assembly then a thin layer applied to the cpu.

the op most likely has another issue other then the heat sink / thermal paste.

maybe the fan is going bad...stopping while running, heat pipe not secured enough.

i can surely vouch for apples crappy thermal paste application, applying arctic silver will help....but its barely worth the hassle.

 

[ouimetnick]

Alright, so in my boredom waiting for the new Macbook Pros to come out, I decided to tear down my MBP, clean it out, and do a thermal paste job. My temps weren't all that bad before, I remember around 50-55ish idle, but I didn't really record it or the load temp.

Being at college and away from my tools, I went to Radioshack and picked up the T6 torx, size 00 screwdriver, and some Arctic Silver 5.

Got to the heatsink, cleaned the gross Apple job with Isopropyl Alcohol wipes(all I had), and then used a glove to apply a very, very thin layer of the stuff(I was once told to apply about a rice-grain sized amount to all three chips and spread it around, went with that, and made sure it was spread and covered. I then rubbed my AS5-coated glove finger on the heatpipe contact points to coat them with a tiny bit of the stuff before putting them together(I didn't put a separate helping on, I just smeared a little from what was on my glove). Put the MBP back together and have been using it for about a day now.

Idle temps are now 65-70 celsius, and will hit 90 under load. What could I possibly have done wrong? I've done many desktop applications of AS5, so the job felt like a piece of cake...is there something I'm missing? Maybe certain screws that specifically need to be tightened or aligned better? I didn't like how I couldn't screw the heatsink onto the chips before reassembling the computer, but instead having it become attached as I started re-installing the components/logic board.


Did I miss something here, or am I unlucky? Thanks.

Maybe you applied it wrong. I was going to apply it to my laptop, and let the heat sink do the work, but the AS5 is thick, I spread it out with a credit card, and my temps are lower by 15F. Dell used some hard thermal paste. It was fine, until I took it apart, cleaned it, and put it back together. So, the hard paste was fine, until I separated the Core Duo from the heat sink. Now all is fine with AS5.

 

[ouimetnick]

you should only apply it to the chips not the mating surface.

Well the old inastructions for AS5 did say to apply it to the chips, and smear a little on the mating surface of the Heat sink

 

[maflynn]

i can surely vouch for apples crappy thermal paste application, applying arctic silver will help....but its barely worth the hassle.

Let me say apple's crappy job was better then the OP's good job,i.e., it was running better before he fixed it

Besides, his MBP running at 50-55c means there was little room to fix and greater margin for error.

As was already stated is it aint broke don't fix it.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I have the first C2D model MBP, and my temps were up in the 70º range until I swapped bottom cases. Afterwards, my temps dropped by 10º-20º. Of course then Apple got ahold of it to fix the power board, and my temps are back up near 70º again, but I can confirm that it should help, if you didn't mess up anywhere.

tl;dr: the OP screwed up somewhere.

 

[Smoothie]

Your problem may be due to using a glove to apply the thermal paste. You should use a credit card or something with a flat, thin edge. It's likely that the paste was applied unevenly, so that there are slightly thicker portions preventing complete contact across the area of the heat sink.

 

[ouimetnick]

Your problem may be due to using a glove to apply the thermal paste. You should use a credit card or something with a flat, thin edge. It's likely that the paste was applied unevenly, so that there are slightly thicker portions preventing complete contact across the area of the heat sink.

agreed. I use a CC. With stock dell paste, my d620 ran 120F idle, and up to 160F under full load. With AS5, it runs 102F idle and up to 145F on full load. The issue may not be the thermal paste on Apple's laptops. They use very small, and poor quality heat sinks. The heat sinks are so thin, but then so are the laptops. The MBP non unibody has the heat sink attached to the bottom, so the bottom also helps acting as a large heat sink. On the unibody MB, and MBP The heat sink is right side up, right under the keyboard. So my brothers term "the bottom acts as a heat sink" is incorrect. If his bottom part of his MB heats up, it seems as the heat is building up, and not escaping. After all the Heat sink cooled chips are right side up, so they must be heating up the logic board because of being improperly cooled.

 

[fs454]

XD the bitterness of some people here is amazing.

I opened it back up and began unscrewing the logic board when I saw that during the last reassembly, the black rubbery compound and the yellow "tape" had been folded down into the fan's air path instead of over it covering the seam. Duh. I pulled them out and laid them over the fan/heatsink and put it back together.

48C with around 7% CPU usage. basically idle.


Happy again. Thanks to those who did help and not defend apple for their laughably bad thermal paste applications. (which are better in the new MBPs!)


Let us all remember this nice picture from Apple's repair manuals:

 

[kny3twalker]

XD the bitterness of some people here is amazing.

Let us all remember this nice picture from Apple's repair manuals:

I too was surprised by the comments. Especially the condescending don't fix it if it is not broken.

And that picture is absolutely hilarious.

 

[6-0 Prolene]

I too was surprised by the comments. Especially the condescending don't fix it if it is not broken.

And that picture is absolutely hilarious.

I've never had a single heat-related problem on my 3,1. The OP talks about how he "did it better" and his machine ran hotter. This thread should inspire users everywhere to leave their thermal paste alone and quit worrying about whether the inside of their computer is pretty.

What on Earth am I supposed to get from that scenario besides the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" message?

The pic might be hilarious, but that ugly job and hilarious picture worked better for the OP than his own job.

 

[maflynn]

I too was surprised by the comments. Especially the condescending don't fix it if it is not broken.

You only see those remarks because he tried to fix a MBP that wasn't broken. a MBP running in the low to mid 50s is perfectly acceptable and re-applying AS5 isn't going to decrease temps too much more - maybe 2 - 5 degrees Celsius.

Besides they weren't condescending, but words of wisdom. The OP would have been far better off to leave his functioning MBP alone then trying to fix a non-broken MBP. The result - a laptop that's now running in the mid-70s.

There is a moral of the story and its if ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry if that sounds condescending but rather a recommendation not to mess with stuff that don't need to be messed with.

 

[Pax]

You only see those remarks because he tried to fix a MBP that wasn't broken. a MBP running in the low to mid 50s is perfectly acceptable and re-applying AS5 isn't going to decrease temps too much more - maybe 2 - 5 degrees Celsius.

Besides they weren't condescending, but words of wisdom. The OP would have been far better off to leave his functioning MBP alone then trying to fix a non-broken MBP. The result - a laptop that's now running in the mid-70s.

There is a moral of the story and its if ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry if that sounds condescending but rather a recommendation not to mess with stuff that don't need to be messed with.

+1

The OP admitted there was nothing wrong with his approx 800-1000 day old computer
He admitted he did it "out of boredom"

It was not broken
He chose to fix it
It went wrong

Case closed

Luckily, he was able to recover back to more or less where he was.

 

[jawa12083]

Wirelessly posted (iPod Touch 2G 8GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

If his computer was a 2007 model, its only 3 years old. 2010-2007=3. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[vant]

<--- Experienced in applying thermal grease.

You should never apply thermal grease with anything except a straight edge. Using a glove would certainly cause bubbles in the paste which would reduce the amount of contact between the chip and the heat sink. Even better, I would prefer just putting a rice grain size in the middle and apply the heat sink allowing the pressure to spread the paste to minimize bubbles (YOU CANNOT LIFT IT ONCE ITS BEEN APPLIED!). Also, sometimes you can't help but get bubbles in some applications.

Also, my experiences with AS5 has been bad. I've seen many cases where my AS5 applications have dried, and must be reapplied.

 

[Pax]

Wirelessly posted (iPod Touch 2G 8GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

If his computer was a 2007 model, its only 3 years old. 2010-2007=3. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Corrected, thanks