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

Macbook Pro Ventilation Physical Mod

C

CjPhan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 13, 2011
7
5
I am aware of the existence of software that enables the adjustment of the RPM for the fans. So before I get criticism for this, I'd like to inform you all :). Also I didn't purchase a warranty, nor did this void it with this project because I already broke my optical drive by prying it out with mini-shears to put in my optibay.

This is my first post as well. In my opinion, it's quite alright.

Macbooks tend to overheat when enduring large programs or games. My macbook especially overheats even though I set the fan to run faster then stock (Istat menu pro)

So I decided to modify my macbook, physically it isn't as impressive as the guy who decided to put a biometric finger print scanner into his, but this mod is better then the Cooool apple logo mods or the panda keyboard =_=.

What I did was I got my local metal shop to cut out a rectangle out of the bottom of my aluminum cover. This rectangle resides directly under my fan.
I also had pieces of perforated steel to fit( The aluminum that they had which I preferred was too thick). Everything was eyeballed to fit. Afterwards I used a cement bonding agent to bond together the piece of steel and aluminum cover together. ( Look below for pictures).

The final pieces which were a spontaneous addition were the pieces of plastic mesh and metal mesh. The plastic mesh was superglued onto the steel and then the metal mesh followed. The mesh is to hopefully prevent any intruding objects that may wish to make it's way into my motherboard. Enjoy :)

2011-10-13170825.jpg


2011-10-13170852.jpg


2011-10-13185105.jpg


2011-10-13190958.jpg



2011-10-13220206.jpg


2011-10-13220529.jpg


Screenshot2011-10-13at101328PM.png
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: kaans, Howard2k and Ovedius
It's quite beautiful. If only you can feel it, the way the air moves through the mesh and out the vent. It's literally cool.
 
I've gotta agree that it does not look visually appealing, but I would like to know the real-world temperature difference.
 
  • Like
Reactions: me55
I thought of this the other day not that I would bother or dare do it, but my idea was to cut measured vent lines out of the body not a great big hole lol, plug in your charger and do some heavy work and test this out see how much of temp loss there actually is, one thing with this mod is your going to have to look out for dust building up in the heat sink now and restricting the air flow, the reason apple didn't put any vents into the system other than an exhaust is because of that reason, 4-5 years ago a few AMD HP laptops were over heating due to heat sink air flow restriction because of a design flaw that allows dust to basically form a wall over the intake on the heat sink. I know you have put mesh over to prevent this but fine particle build up will happen now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tenkaykev
Now if that spanned the entire width of the bottom, and had much, much smaller holes, then it would be great.
Except it would have a huge dust problem.

Also, you have a strange sense of style. Very strange. Almost like a PC user's.
 
Last edited:
Good idea, not for me tho...

Also, I'm asking myself... why didnt you just drill the holes into your bottom cover? I think it would have been way more appealing to the eye in that case...
 
  • Like
Reactions: GumaRodak
Interesting idea. and not terrible looking. Though I would think you will end up having quite a dust problem. Perhaps you might want to look into finding a much finer mesh to put there to filter dust. Otherwise the buildup of dust inside could cause problems down the road.
 
If he buys a new bottom case and replaces it, then apple would never know if he did this mod. Disregarding the fact about the prying of the optical drive.
 
Anyone can get 29C by idling and jacking the fans up to 6200rpm. A case mod like this was totally unnecessary. The real challenge is to keep your MBP below 40C while doing everyday work on it.
 
Did you try first removing the existing thermal paste on the CPU and GPU and replacing with arctic silver? Given how thick Apple seem to apply the thermal paste usually and the better properties of arctic silver, this can actually make a big difference to temperatures and doesn't require any external mods. I've not tried this on a MBP myself, but have done on desktop PCs with good results and know others have tried this with MBPs.

There's various guides about this online...
 
This is a good idea! but IMPO it doesn't look appealing to me plus I won't have the guts to drill a hole into my mbp... :p

anyways, I'm quite interested to see the fingerprint mod you mentioned, do you have a link to it by any chance?
 
i loved it, ill do it too when i buy the 2012 macbook pro. please put more benchmarks, also, next time dont forget to have before and after shots!
 
Nice job OP. It obviously wouldn't fool anyone that it is oem apple design, but it looks nice nonetheless. As another person said, you could simply order a replacement bottom cover and perform the mod on that so you don't void your warranty.
 
Your macbook wasn't overheating in the first place. It felt hot due to the aluminum casing, but trust me, it wasn't overheating.

If it was, it would've shut down to prevenr damage to itself.

Congrats on ruining a perfectly good laptop on a whim.
 
snaky69 said:
Your macbook wasn't overheating in the first place. It felt hot due to the aluminum casing, but trust me, it wasn't overheating.

If it was, it would've shut down to prevenr damage to itself.

Congrats on ruining a perfectly good laptop on a whim.
Click to expand...

You do realize that cutting a piece out of the REPLACEABLE bottom plate doesn't necessarily "ruined" his laptop.

He wanted to lower temperatures, so he did.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hackintosh Sr.
shardey said:
You do realize that cutting a piece out of the REPLACEABLE bottom plate doesn't necessarily "ruined" his laptop.

He wanted to lower temperatures, so he did.
Click to expand...

True. Said replacable part is expensive, and hid mod killed the resale value.
 
snaky69 said:
True. Said replacable part is expensive, and hid mod killed the resale value.
Click to expand...

It did kill the resale value, if he was trying to sell it like that. I found 13" and 15" brand new replacement bottoms for $70-$80, which I consider to be cheap.
 
Man, you guys are freaking harsh.

I think it's a great mod. Personally, I'd like to find a way to add an air filter if I were to do it, but all in all, it doesn't look bad, and it appears to be functional.
 
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