Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Don't forget to clean your Macbooks!

alexmarchuk

alexmarchuk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 28, 2007
695
271
New Jersey
It started with my mid-2012 rMBP powering down whenever it switched to the 650M and sometimes randomly causing kernel panics. From grey screen that has centered messages about your computer about to shut down, etc. To bootups that wouldn't boot unless I held down power for a longer time.

Then I tried resetting everything I could find, SMC, etc. Shill shut off. I uninstalled gfxCardStatus to see if it would resolve the issue, nope. Tried settings to disable automatic switching, nope.

Ran into this discussion on Apple's website: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5300005

Lots of GPU panics, same message readouts on our 10,1 Macbooks. I still kept searching though and it finally made sense. My fans would wind up having iTunes open or some other menial task. I read somewhere else about maybe the computer wasn't getting the right temperature from the GPU in order to cool it - apparently the GPU is shut down when it reaches a critical temperature.

Ordered the Pentalobe screwdrivers and opened it up today.

LjGO2Vm.jpg

ohuhEOB.jpg





Ran numerous games and rendering programs on the dPU, fans aren't even screaming. Before today it would have caused a kernel panic in less than a minute - the screen would flash and turn off.
 
alexmarchuk said:
Ordered the Pentalobe screwdrivers and opened it up today.
Click to expand...
In what kind of environment do you run your MBP? That looks almost like sawdust! I had occasion to open my Early 2008 MBP last year after 5 years of use and the dust inside was barely perceptible.
 
Um... Dude? I think you might want to vacuum your apartment and clean the dust off the surfaces more often if you get that amount of crap collecting inside of your machine. Mind you, my machines aren't exactly sparkly clean on the inside when I give them my annual cleaning after pollen season ends (it's pretty much a necessity when you have lots of pollinating trees close to the window), but that's pretty extreme.

Last time I saw something like that was when I was cleaning out a desktop that sat on the floor (i.e it did double duty a low power vacuum cleaner) and hadn't gotten a cleaning in at least 5 years by that point.
 
Well for almost three years it has been through a college dorm environment, on the go everywhere I've always kept the machine clean but didn't realize how much dust was getting in.
 
There's got to be more to this. I can't imagine under normal use your machine would get that dusty on the inside.
 
My MacBooks have served me very well delivering terrific service life. I keep them well maintained and clean on a regular basis.

It's very easy.

I carefully place it down on the ground, hose it off and let it air dry... :)
 
Wow, that's a lot of debris in the computer - I'm afraid to look at what mine has. :eek:
 
Opened up my MBP last week after seeing similar temp spikes. I found a huge chunk of dust in the fan outtake clogging a good third of the vent. I also used compressed air in all the hard to get places. Now my idle temps are about 10C less!

It should be noted, here in Cairo the 'dust' is more like soot due to the pollution, it's very fine and sticks to everything, not good for electronics.

Who knew dust was a MBP worst enemy? :rolleyes:
 
arcite said:
Opened up my MBP last week after seeing similar temp spikes. I found a huge chunk of dust in the fan outtake clogging a good third of the vent. I also used compressed air in all the hard to get places. Now my idle temps are about 10C less!

It should be noted, here in Cairo the 'dust' is more like soot due to the pollution, it's very fine and sticks to everything, not good for electronics.

Who knew dust was a MBP worst enemy? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yeah, both fan outtakes had chunks of debris which I think contributed the most to the temp spikes.
 
Yeah, this is not bad at all. I have over 400 computers that live out in service drives and shops in car dealerships. They get really gunked up, especially the laptops that we use to program cars.
Agree with TS, its a good idea to tear them apart and clean them now and again.
 
Oh my, I haven't seen it this bad in a while. I have a 2008 MacBook and after 10 years not even that is as bad as yours. No offence, but clean out your house/apartment if that much junk gets in your fan with little use.

EDIT: I didn't realise how old this thread was... Sorry. :p
 
TheSkywalker77 said:
Oh my, I haven't seen it this bad in a while. I have a 2008 MacBook and after 10 years not even that is as bad as yours. No offence, but clean out your house/apartment if that much junk gets in your fan with little use.

EDIT: I didn't realise how old this thread was... Sorry. :p
Click to expand...
As I noted previously it has been in a variety of locations and environments and I have no idea to this day what contributed to the build up. I no longer have this model anyway but it was a shock to me how much of a damn dust magnet it was.
 
alexmarchuk said:
As I noted previously it has been in a variety of locations and environments and I have no idea to this day what contributed to the build up. I no longer have this model anyway but it was a shock to me how much of a damn dust magnet it was.
Click to expand...

Now a days it is harder to get into the laptops and desktops to clean the dust. Locking everything down is apple’s direction....but maintenance like this becomes harder to preform as the newer models come out.

I have to clean out my Mac Pro 2013 every six months or so (or when I remember) and With its fancy cooling design with the large fan on the top, the bottom is where the air for cooling flows from and therefore collects dust and cycles it throughout all of the inner components.

With new “cool-looking” design, it seems to always comes with a price in performance and practicality. I am sure the iMac Pro will have its difficulties with its new cooling system eventually regarding dust. Looks cool in design, but application will probably collect more dust inside and not a way to clean it out by the user. I suspect that the new MacBook pros also with it’s “cool” looking double fan cooling system will also eventually have dust issues..

I wonder how long they will last without overheating and blowing up...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back