MacBook cooling - remove optical drive

[Britain4]

Hi guys
I’m debating removing the optical drive on my 2011 MBP 15” to use the slot for airflow having seen the massive drop in temps you get from running it without the bottom cover

The only thing is the felt flaps covering the slot - these would block most of the air flow so would need removing and I can’t see any way of doing this that wouldn’t be permanent - no way back to a SuperDrive if it doesn’t work

Has anyone else done something similar with running an open SuperDrive slot? Worth it for the temp drops or not? Dust is a worry but surely no different to the newer MBPs with vents in a similar place?

 

[th0masp]

I've turned off the dedicated GPU on mine, that made a very noticeable difference: the machine is now almost always pretty cool to the touch, fans rarely if ever spin up. There's a little utility I'm running to achieve that called gfxCardStatus that enforces iGPU use.
If you are not using external screens or software that is particularly heavy on the GPU I'd say it's really worth trying that before ripping holes into your machine. (Stuff like web browser, Photoshop, video players will work fine with the enforced iGPU mode, might want to stay away from 3D apps though).

Since this this is an old laptop I do not use it for heavy lifting as far as the GPU is concerned. Has been fine for years now here (had the AMD GPU fail more than once so despite it being fixed and working now I'm kinda too afraid to use it again).

Other than that it might be worth having the thermal paste reapplied to get lower temperatures. I had a shop do that a while ago just to be safe.

 

[pshufd]

My solution is to mount the laptop on four to six Nuun tubes. These tubes are about three inches long and an inch in diameter. Nuun are electrolyte supplements and I have a lot of empty tubes.

 

[Britain4]

Thanks for the replies! I do use gfxcardstatus on it normally to keep it cool when not playing games.

The Intel HD 3000 I’ve always found surprisingly capable - sometimes (rarely) I do use it for playing games though, so I’m trying to do all I can to extend the 6750’s life as much as possible without having to disable it completely with the drawbacks that comes with.

I did replace the thermal paste (Kryonaut) pretty much as soon as I got it, which made about a 20c difference in temps (I suspect the old stuff was long past it)

I think I’ve decided against the CD vent idea for now - if there’s a non-permanent way of doing it I’ll give it a shot and see if it helps though. I might look into adding some slightly thicker feet to try and increase airflow under it a bit if I can find some that look decent.

 

[alex.houston]

You could make laptop run cooler by using smcFanControl app to increase the minimum fan speed. The app download page:
https://www.eidac.de/?p=312

 

[pshufd]

I used to use one or two of these USB cooling fans when things were hot with my 2008 MBP.

I would put the MacBook Pro on spools like these: