Has anyone used thermal pads as a replacement for thermal paste on their MBP?

[Queen6]

Thank you, people over think things like this and are looking for miracles when in reality there are few things that can truly add value. This being not one of them.

After owning many Mac notebooks and suffering some of the real burners. Done & written a fair amount over the years on the MBP thermals. My conclusion is that there's not much benefit as the system will still run the CPU/dGPU in the high 90C region regardless, you may see a reduction in fan speed. Some models can benefit, equally they tend to be the ones that were thermally constrained by design, 16" i9 MBP springs to mind.

If I look at the thermals of my 2011 15" under full load it clearly illustrates the TIM is still performing reasonably well. It holds 2.9 GHz on all four cores (Max 3.2 GHz for multi core), temp in the region of 95C, fan speed in the region of 6K of 6.2K (ambient 26C) and on it's full PL2 power limit of 45W so there is no indication of thermal throttling.

The 2011 is also more complex to deal with as you need to strip out the entire Logic Board to replace the TIM. Given it's age there's risk of breakage removing the board with no spares at hand. As said not worth the trouble...

If I look at my 2021 13" M1 MBP it's much the same story with the fan not even spooling up until 90C and not passing 5K of 7K with zero throttling. Just how Apple designs it's Mac's to encompass higher operating temperatures as a normal aspect of use..

Q-6

 

[Lihp8270]

Not sure personally but this article shows performance improvement on a MBA with a pad…

M2 MacBook Air Thermal Mod How-to

The moment people started to get their hands on the M2 MacBook Air, overheating and thermal throttling were big topics...

9to5mac.com

That’s not really comparable. That’s adding considerable thermal mass rather than just replacing paste.

 

[Lihp8270]

Oops. Look like I got suckered in to posting in a thread revival

 

[Queen6]

Post in question was cut. Justifiably so, as was needlessly insulting with a lack of knowledge of Mac's and their intrinsic workings.

I was wrong Honeywell PTM 7950 as it's not conductive, yet some thermal pads are conductive so beware. I still stand by the same, clean out the the cooling solution. Leave the TIM as is, unless you have serious overheat issues.

What Apple applies may not be the most efficient TIM, equally it's designed for longevity. Bottom line is if your Mac isn't throttling dont worry about it. My own Late 2011 15" doesn't throttle regardless of load and it's been hammered, nor does my M1 MBP, so who cares...

I dont agree with Apple's locked in, locked out approach by any means and it's environmental hypocrisy, equally if you want to run a fast Mac you have to live with it or roll the dice with a Hacintosh.

In the electronics industry there are numerus grades of components & sub grades. Higher tiers can withstand far more abuse. Is Apple utilising top tier no, as the cost would be prohibitive (Mil spec)

Close to 12 years on, still getting value out of my stock Late 2011 15" MBP. It's our media server, only shutdown on a house move, judge the value proposition for yourself...

Q-6

 

[therinwhitten]

I just did this. I took the time while cleaning up the fans to repaste the macbook pro 16 2019 with Honeywell 7950.

The old paste was crusty and dry and frankly horrible lmao.

I saw an average of 10-15C (35C instead of 45-50) idle improvement and a 10C Degree improvement over normal operation.

It seems alot quieter. Although, its still easy to get it to shoot to 85C. 7950 gets better as sets in. So I expect it to improve marginally.
Hotspots are a ton better on both the gpu and CPU though.

 

[Colpeas]

I just did this. I took the time while cleaning up the fans to repaste the macbook pro 16 2019 with Honeywell 7950.

The old paste was crusty and dry and frankly horrible lmao.

I saw an average of 10-15C (35C instead of 45-50) idle improvement and a 10C Degree improvement over normal operation.

It seems alot quieter. Although, its still easy to get it to shoot to 85C. 7950 gets better as sets in. So I expect it to improve marginally.
Hotspots are a ton better on both the gpu and CPU though.

Very much so. I've replaced the old crusty paste in my 2019 16" A2141 with TPM7950 and after a few hours' burn in, it not only saw lower temps but also the Geekbench scores are now off the charts. It scored 12,5% over the Geekbench baseline score for this configuration right in the first run. From what I've checked, this puts my Mac in the 1% high... Idles at around 38-40°C on CPU proximity sensor so no more burnt lap, lol.

To clarify, it's the fastest model with i9-9980HK @ 2,40GHz, 32GB RAM and Radeon 5500M/8GB.

 

[alphaod]

Not much of a Mac user these days, but my 2019 MacBook Pro with the i9 has been chugging along. I didn’t even notice that I had been paying for AppleCare still (just got charged a few weeks ago) so I sent it in to Apple and they replaced my fans. Their turn around was three business days. This unfortunately did not resolve my overheating issues.

Anyways in lieu of creating a whole new thread I happened across this one seeing if swapping the paste would solve my overheating problems.

Good news, the cleanup and swapping to PTM7950 also solved my overheating problems. Before my Mac would hit 98°C and the fans would go all out for seemingly no reason. Now it’s barely breaking 80°C and I don’t even hear the fans come on ever. I actually had to double check that my fans were on!

I also ran Geekbench and my scores were pretty high like the poster before me so I am happy with the results.

I have to comment on Apple’s repair process which seems to be disappointing. When I went to disassemble the computer, I noticed some screws heads were noticeably worn like they used the wrong size Torx bit or did not insert the bit in fully before trying to undo the screws. A couple screws were also not even tightened. Also a lot the black tape Apple used to cover the ZIF connectors were not stuck back in place. I have a tray full of Wiha tools and I would have assumed Apple had something similar. So, I’m very disappointed there.