Question about enormous heat...

[shonboy]

Hey everyone, i have a Macbook Pro late 2011 model for about 3 years now, and a few months ago it started getting Extremely hot both during normal and during intensive usage. Also, general performance, especially gaming performance on Windows Bootcamp became much much worse recently even though i generally take care of the machine. Since there are no Apple stores where I'm from, I'm wondering whats your opinion on what could possibly solve this. Is there a way to check myself whether or not fans are going bad, or is it just a thermal paste that needs replacing, or could some other part be causing the issues? I'm trying to find out as much as i can myself because local electronic stores here charge a lot just for examining it not to mention repairing a Mac. Thanks in advance

 

[keysofanxiety]

Hey everyone, i have a Macbook Pro late 2011 model for about 3 years now, and a few months ago it started getting Extremely hot both during normal and during intensive usage. Also, general performance, especially gaming performance on Windows Bootcamp became much much worse recently even though i generally take care of the machine. Since there are no Apple stores where I'm from, I'm wondering whats your opinion on what could possibly solve this. Is there a way to check myself whether or not fans are going bad, or is it just a thermal paste that needs replacing, or could some other part be causing the issues? I'm trying to find out as much as i can myself because local electronic stores here charge a lot just for examining it not to mention repairing a Mac. Thanks in advance

Is it the 15"? If so then it's likely the GPUs are causing the issue, and Apple should be able to sort that out for you under consumer law. I know you don't have an Apple Store near you, but they may offer a service for you to send it to a repair centre.

 

[soupcan]

Or open it up and remove the dust from the vents. It can cause heating issues.

 

[shonboy]

Is it the 15"? If so then it's likely the GPUs are causing the issue, and Apple should be able to sort that out for you under consumer law. I know you don't have an Apple Store near you, but they may offer a service for you to send it to a repair centre.

Yep, its a 15. So you think GPUs are more probable than fans or thermal paste? I'm from Serbia, i don't believe Apple still has any stores in the entire country so that's pretty much impossible :/ Also a lot worse, i don't think fixing or replacing a GPU for a Mac will be easy in a non-Apple store...

 

[keysofanxiety]

Yep, its a 15. So you think GPUs are more probable than fans or thermal paste? I'm from Serbia, i don't believe Apple still has any stores in the entire country so that's pretty much impossible :/ Also a lot worse, i don't think fixing or replacing a GPU for a Mac will be easy in a non-Apple store...

Well from the age of the machine anyway, the fans and thermal paste would benefit from being cleaned and reapplied. It'll certainly make a positive impact and increase the longevity of the machine, hopefully prevent Radeongate from cropping up. If you're comfortable in doing that, go ahead.

If you've already had distorted video, even intermittently, that'll indicate it's probably already toast.

You may not have official Apple Stores, but there could well be some resellers or Authorised Repair Centres. Best thing to do would be to call Apple and see what options you have for hardware repair.

 

[DeltaMac]

Does going to the Apple support site show you any other options?
I don't see ANY in-country support for Serbia, even by telephone, at the Apple site.
You MAY be able to get your MBPro repaired by shipping to the european repair centre, but you need to try to contact Apple directly to see if there is a method to do that from your country.
Is there ANY possibility of doing this from a neighboring country that is listed for support? (I am curious!)

 

[shonboy]

I opened the cover multiple times and cleaned everything as best as i could without fully removing fans and cleaning them thoroughly, and they do seem clean to me. As for Apple support yea they don't care about Serbia at all yet, and i could only try mailing them to see what would they suggest. Replacing thermal paste and full fan cleaning here is around 30-40 euros which would be ok, I'm just trying to figure out if that is the real issue, as replacing the GPU on a Macbook Pro in this country sounds like a nightmare :S
Oh and also, visiting a neighboring country just for this really isn't an option for me now I'm in kind of a bad financial situation atm and I'm using my PC mostly nowadays, i just want to keep Mac from dying