27 month old Macbook Black with some issues...HELP and SUGGESTIONS NEEDED!

[as3487]

As I said, I have a 27 month old Macbook Black. For about 9 months or so it's been suffering from RSS. The episodes only occur if I'm streaming video online, or running graphics-heavy games while doing something else like playing video or running Transmission. Sometimes to avoid the random shutdowns I'll sit it on an ice tray. Up until a few days ago, that would prevent the shutdowns. But, not anymore. My mac has all of it's original hardware, and I've made no upgrades. If I use it lightly (web browsing, word processing) I have no problems and the machine doesn't run as hot. But, as I'm sure you can imagine I rarely use my mac lightly.

I'm not sure what the problem is exactly. At first, I thought I needed more RAM. Then I thought the heat sink needed to be replaced. Now, I'm wondering if the problem can be corrected by simply reapplying the thermal paste. But, before I purchase anything I just wanted to get some feedback. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Any thoughts as to what could be the problem?

I'm a DIY kinda guy, so please don't tell me just to send it into Apple. If you need any additional information (specs, etc.) I'll be happy to post them.

Thanks in advance for any and all help!

 

[LANz]

I had a similar problem with my macbook but that ended up being the Motherboard, how ever it does sound like a heat problem for you.

Some laptops dont use themalpaste but rather a kind of sticker that you can peal of that transfers the heat, but from what i can tell from ifixit it looks like the macbooks use a paste. So my suggestion is to scrape the old of and replace it, and then get some compressed air and clean out the heatsink/fan.

And if at all possible do this sooner rather then later, worst case scenario the heat will blow a capacitor or something.

 

[eman]

If you pull the heat sink, reapply some thermal paste. When the macbook gets hot does the fan speed increase?
The fan and heat sink may have a lot of hair and dust clogging the heat sink; blow the dust out with a compressor.

 

[LANz]

If your feeling really adventures you could take apart the fan and grease it up.

However there is a big chance of messing this up even if you have done this before and it would probably be fairly expensive to replace.

 

[Jasoco]

Same thing happened to my 3-year-old MacBook. My solution was to buy a new MacBook Pro. I tried to open it up last year but I got all but one screw out and could not get the last one to come out. It started to strip so I cried and gave up trying to get inside.

 

[nineohtoo]

I just went through this. I have the last gen BlackBook before they went to unibodies. My 10.6.2 computer was getting up to 90 degrees celsius and my fans were spinning past 5000rpms at times. Usually only when using flash videos. Tonight I backed up my 10.6.2, upgraded to 10.6.3, and then took it apart with ifixit's heat sink guide. When I took it apart, there was paste all over the processors and heat sink. Cleaned it up, put on some AS5, and the fans have been much calmer.

For anyone with x3100 or older macbook's who are having little issues like this, I really recommend having the thermal paste looked at. If you do it yourself it won't cost you more than $15. I got my AS5 on ebay for like $7 shipped. I wish I had a photo of how it was before the fix, but this is how it is after: