Target mod:
Base on the thermal mod done by 1095bimu, adding thermoelectric heat pump between the macbook and the water cooling system.
I want it to be cheap, readily available and quick to do.
Cost so far:
Total: about $80
Water cooling and peltier + cooling plate+extra wires: 50.34 USD (Converted from CNY)
Macbook Opening tools: 8.34 USD
Laird flex700 80mm x 40mm, 2mm thickness, 2pcs : about 12 USD
Cheap 12V thermostat + voltage adjustment units: about 8.65 USD
Background story:
Thanks to the pandemic, last spring i had to work from home and started to give online lessons. With the setup I use, it was pretty resource demanding. I ran camTwist(something like OBS but older), Zoom, and reflector to mirror my iPad Pro to the mac. And after a few lessons, i noticed a horizontal dark line group under the screen. I freaked out and turn off the computer. The next day, the lines disappeared, about this you can refer to [an article from iFixit], the cause and symptom pretty much aligned with my macbook. As long as i cool down the display control board, the backline disappears.
To fix this, I bought a pretty strong fan to constantly cool the bottom of the macbook and the rear part of the display. It went on great, for the next 9 months there’s no problem, not even when i play GTA online using boot camp. Until two weeks ago, due to the second school lockdown, i had to do online class again, this time, similar setup, replacing the camtwist with OBS. Dark lines appears this time on top of the screen. I had to get the air conditioner to work on 26 degree to continue with the class. I fed up with it, cuz I was shivering while the mac is toasty.
And the heat wave coming out of the heatsink had baked the lower part of the display case dark. I’ve up the contrast 16 percent since it’s hard to see on camera.
At this point… I did consider buying a new Macbook, cuz i love the portability. But all the macbook from 2016 share a very similar design, the heat sink would always cook the display control board if it heats up(and i’m not confident with M1’s heat performance just yet). I lost confident in MacBooks, I just want the MacBook i have now to work, even it’s repurposed into a desktop. Many people share the same problem used their Macbook as a desktop, some even remove the screen(it doesn’t work no more anyway) to get better performance. I still want my screen to work, cuz its after all a beautiful display.
So here’s my MOD decision:
The goal is to conduct most of the heat from the CPU and GPU directly to the lower case then to the water cooling system so that the display control unit doesn’t get cooked.
Bonus goal would be to let the CPU and GPU run more effectively. Hopefully the gaming and working performance would be better then.
Log 1 June 22
I’ve spent the past week researching how to mod the Mac, I’ve used images provided by iFixit to roughly measure the CPU, GPU and heat sink area, to guestimate the amount of thermal pad needed. I’ve read that 1.5mm was not enough, so i went for the 2mm, as they can be squeezed if needed.
I ordered a water cooling system with the power supply as they are readily available. Water cooling plate, 2x peltier unit. Aluminium plate to make direct contact with the bottom cover.
Peltier plate spec:
Model: C067 (People suggested not to use the Tec plates, so i chose this one)
Voltage: 12V,
Size: 40*40 mm thickness: 3.9mm
I’ll upload some pictures soon. (Sorry i wasn’t confident enough to edit my post on the mac, i’m doing everything on a iPad. so photo editing and arranging content is really hard)
The thermostat and voltage adjustment units, thermal pads or screw driver sets are not here yet, so i could only try to run the water cooling system solo.
So far the result is that the plate gets too cold, and it built up small amount of condensation as expected, and the whole bottom case is cool to the touch.
When running cinebench, Room temp 30C, macbook bottom right at the edge of the cooling plates had a record of 27 degrees. Since the heat from the CPU and GPU had to travel to the top case, then to the lower case, the cooling effect wasn’t optimised. I suspect when the thermal pads are applied, the result would be better.
I didn’t run the test long, cuz i don’t want condensation building up in the machine killing the motherboard, i had to wait for the parts to arrive.
Log 2 June 23
Thermal Pad installed, bad news is that unlike what i’ve expected. I expected the heat would be transferee to the AL plate. Instead, the heat had spread across the lower case to the upper case, result being the bottom case is hot, and the touch bar area is hotter than usual.
And when I open up the Macbook to put in the thermal pads. i saw condensation built up between the cpu area and the battery connector, i was so anxious to dry it out cuz a few drops fell on the mother board when opening the case. I didn‘t take a picture. But condensation is there, so i had to be more careful.
But since the bottom plate is now heated up, condensation should be out of the way.
Now i think... to make it work, i gotta keep the temperature of the lower case at a certain temperature, at room temperature. But that would require better control. I may have to use a raspberry pi… which is a whole new area for me.
Base on the thermal mod done by 1095bimu, adding thermoelectric heat pump between the macbook and the water cooling system.
I want it to be cheap, readily available and quick to do.
Cost so far:
Total: about $80
Water cooling and peltier + cooling plate+extra wires: 50.34 USD (Converted from CNY)
Macbook Opening tools: 8.34 USD
Laird flex700 80mm x 40mm, 2mm thickness, 2pcs : about 12 USD
Cheap 12V thermostat + voltage adjustment units: about 8.65 USD
Background story:
Thanks to the pandemic, last spring i had to work from home and started to give online lessons. With the setup I use, it was pretty resource demanding. I ran camTwist(something like OBS but older), Zoom, and reflector to mirror my iPad Pro to the mac. And after a few lessons, i noticed a horizontal dark line group under the screen. I freaked out and turn off the computer. The next day, the lines disappeared, about this you can refer to [an article from iFixit], the cause and symptom pretty much aligned with my macbook. As long as i cool down the display control board, the backline disappears.
To fix this, I bought a pretty strong fan to constantly cool the bottom of the macbook and the rear part of the display. It went on great, for the next 9 months there’s no problem, not even when i play GTA online using boot camp. Until two weeks ago, due to the second school lockdown, i had to do online class again, this time, similar setup, replacing the camtwist with OBS. Dark lines appears this time on top of the screen. I had to get the air conditioner to work on 26 degree to continue with the class. I fed up with it, cuz I was shivering while the mac is toasty.
And the heat wave coming out of the heatsink had baked the lower part of the display case dark. I’ve up the contrast 16 percent since it’s hard to see on camera.
At this point… I did consider buying a new Macbook, cuz i love the portability. But all the macbook from 2016 share a very similar design, the heat sink would always cook the display control board if it heats up(and i’m not confident with M1’s heat performance just yet). I lost confident in MacBooks, I just want the MacBook i have now to work, even it’s repurposed into a desktop. Many people share the same problem used their Macbook as a desktop, some even remove the screen(it doesn’t work no more anyway) to get better performance. I still want my screen to work, cuz its after all a beautiful display.
So here’s my MOD decision:
- I would perform the thermal pad mod with cheaper thermal pad with the heat conductivity of 5W/mk
- The heat has to go somewhere, so a water cooling system is involved.
- i want the contact temperature to be lower, cool to the touch, so a peltier semiconductor plate is involved.
- To avoid condensation, a thermostat is there to prevent the contact surface getting too cold.
- To avoid constant on and off for the peltier plate, i’ve ordered a voltage adjustment unit to lower the wattage of the cooling plate.
The goal is to conduct most of the heat from the CPU and GPU directly to the lower case then to the water cooling system so that the display control unit doesn’t get cooked.
Bonus goal would be to let the CPU and GPU run more effectively. Hopefully the gaming and working performance would be better then.
Log 1 June 22
I’ve spent the past week researching how to mod the Mac, I’ve used images provided by iFixit to roughly measure the CPU, GPU and heat sink area, to guestimate the amount of thermal pad needed. I’ve read that 1.5mm was not enough, so i went for the 2mm, as they can be squeezed if needed.
I ordered a water cooling system with the power supply as they are readily available. Water cooling plate, 2x peltier unit. Aluminium plate to make direct contact with the bottom cover.
Peltier plate spec:
Model: C067 (People suggested not to use the Tec plates, so i chose this one)
Voltage: 12V,
Size: 40*40 mm thickness: 3.9mm
I’ll upload some pictures soon. (Sorry i wasn’t confident enough to edit my post on the mac, i’m doing everything on a iPad. so photo editing and arranging content is really hard)
The thermostat and voltage adjustment units, thermal pads or screw driver sets are not here yet, so i could only try to run the water cooling system solo.
So far the result is that the plate gets too cold, and it built up small amount of condensation as expected, and the whole bottom case is cool to the touch.
When running cinebench, Room temp 30C, macbook bottom right at the edge of the cooling plates had a record of 27 degrees. Since the heat from the CPU and GPU had to travel to the top case, then to the lower case, the cooling effect wasn’t optimised. I suspect when the thermal pads are applied, the result would be better.
I didn’t run the test long, cuz i don’t want condensation building up in the machine killing the motherboard, i had to wait for the parts to arrive.
Log 2 June 23
Thermal Pad installed, bad news is that unlike what i’ve expected. I expected the heat would be transferee to the AL plate. Instead, the heat had spread across the lower case to the upper case, result being the bottom case is hot, and the touch bar area is hotter than usual.
And when I open up the Macbook to put in the thermal pads. i saw condensation built up between the cpu area and the battery connector, i was so anxious to dry it out cuz a few drops fell on the mother board when opening the case. I didn‘t take a picture. But condensation is there, so i had to be more careful.
But since the bottom plate is now heated up, condensation should be out of the way.
Now i think... to make it work, i gotta keep the temperature of the lower case at a certain temperature, at room temperature. But that would require better control. I may have to use a raspberry pi… which is a whole new area for me.
Last edited: