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Resolve your MacBook Temperature Problem

plinden said:
So 5?F (just slightly less than 3?C) cooler? Do you think it worth it?
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Worth the 5 cents worth of arctic silver to put on, sure it was worth it. But the implied risk of having a non-booting macbook would be a detterent to this though. Which of course the warranty wouldn't cover. You shouldn't do this if it is your only computer that you saved up for months to get, or you are still paying for it on your credit card. I like the Macbook enough, that if I broke it I would have ordered a new one to replace it, and chaulked it up to experience not to try it again.
 
No plastic blocking the vents on my black MacBook. I've had it since Saturday and it has never gotten really hot. It gets a little warm but doesn't seem any warmer than my wife's Dell Inspiron 6000 to the touch. I haven't really monitored the temps internally or externally because I don't want to start obsessing over them. The laptop works great (I put 2GB mem in yesterday) and seems fine so I'm happy to leave it at that. :D
 
Atlasland said:
When will people learn... Rev A computers just don't work!
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My last computer, a Rev A Power Mac G5, and my new computer, a Macbook, have never had issues. I don't think users run such a high "Rev A" risk with Apple as they might with other vendors...maybe that I'm just lucky, maybe that's just optimism.

Edit: No plastic on my black macbook.
 
sam10685 said:
ahh. so why would too much of it be doing bad stuff?
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Too much of it would start insulating the heat even if it's Arctic Silver 5. There needs to be a a very small drop on the core that barely covers the area for it to work as efficiently as possible. But like others have already said, I too recommend not trying it out without extensive knowledge of the task and the risks involved.
 
Fiveos22 said:
Chestnuts roasting over an open fire...
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Unless Apple is planing to make a transition to the "roasted chestnut" business alternatively plan to provide a new efficient male birth control, I seriously think they should hold the introduction of new hardwares until it reaches rev. B
 
MrCrowbar said:
I'm pretty sure applying new thermal paste voids your warranty...
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Thank You Mr. Obvious


MrCrowbar said:
If the procedure would make it run as cool as my calculator and double battery life, I'd already have done it. But this improvement is barely noticable in heat or battery life so why bother?

If it is not working within the margins, return it and get another. If it does work and you can't accept it getting warm on heavy use, get a Dell so you know what a hot laptop really is.
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How would I kow what the improvement would be if I didn't do it. If I would have known that it would not make a significant difference, I probably would not have done it.

I didn't have a problem with the tempurature, I just wanted it to work at optimum performance. I am very pleased with the Macbook, I like it better than my MBP.
 
sparks9 said:
Am I the only one who would prefer a small, quiet, cool, slower laptop over a bulkier, noisy, hot, ultra-fast laptop?
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I bought the 12'' iBook as result even though I knew MB was around the corner. I would never buy a rev. A product from Apple, no matter how amazing they are. I use my hardware professionally (science), hence I am better off with a trusty tractor than unreliable racing car. If I have a need for massive computing power, I would never do it on a laptop, that is for sure.
 
Scraping the barrel in terms of "news" a bit aren't we? Some guy has a piece of plastic, and a mere handful of unverifiable posts on digg.com claim they have plastic too.....

And some guy who didn't even bother taking the actual temperature of the unit he "fixed" before he worked on it, compares two different units temperatures and then tell everone how his "results" dont match the findings of almost everyone else who seems to have don the paste mod.

And the x86 kernel closed/open with the update three days later just looked daft. Might not have had to backtrack if "news" was based on more than just one tech analysts blog and the pure speculation posted within.

At least make this crap page 2.
 
Although I have been using macs at the high school I teach at for years, the macbook is my first apple purchase. To be honest with you, I haven't seen a single problem with my macbook to date. I'm glad people are reporting their issues, because at least I can stay informed incase of any blanketed issues. Overall, I love this laptop.
 
danr_97070 said:
Yeah, but where do you live that you have a moose in your backyard?! :)
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Ironically I am from Caribou, ME, but there are no Caribou here. I actually was chasing a Moose on my Mountain Bike yesterday, it was a juvenile trotting along at 13.6 MPH. I am not originally from up here, so it is a bit odd to see into Moose. And they are BIG.
 
notjustjay said:
Er... actually, I can't find anyone else other than the original blogger who reported having found the plastic film on their vents...
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^ what he said.
 
MrCrowbar said:
I'm pretty sure applying new thermal paste voids your warranty...
If the procedure would make it run as cool as my calculator and double battery life, I'd already have done it. But this improvement is barely noticable in heat or battery life so why bother?
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I'm unsure why everyone is giving this post any credit. No before or after temps on the case or the CPU using a temp app. The person did not check how well the heat sinks and dies mate before applying a thin layer of paste (this should be a concern when each die does not have an independently moving heat sink).

Some of us have done before and after and seen 10C improvements on idle and 6-10C improvements on full load. I've re-applied paste on a 2.0 and 2.16 now and both times the drop in CPU temp and case temp has been dramatic. My friends 2.16 was idling at 65-68C and now idles at 54-56C. I'm guessing the differences at full load are less since the fans eventually do come on and the CPUs do run hot. Regardless, my 2.0 case is no hotter than a 1.33 15" Powerbook and cooler than my old Titanium.

The paste problem is real on the two MBPs I've opened. On the 2.16, there were air gaps on about 30% of the CPU and the paste was about 1 mil thick where there was contact. I'm convinced the paste is responsible for at least part of the variation reported in MBP CPU and case temperatures.
 
No vCore temp

Not only did MacDev Center not do a before test, they didn't get a temperature reading from the thermistor on the processor (I haven't seen that mentioned yet so pardon me if it's already come up). This is the figure that other people are comparing and it's the component that will be most effected. Also, a 10ºC drop in core temperature is not going to manifest itself as a 10ºC drop in temperature on the chassis. What were they thinking?. Hypothetically speaking let's say they did DID to a before test and there was a 2ºC drop in temp. Because there is a direct vent where most of the heat is being exhausted a 2ºC drop in chassis temp might represent a 4ºC drop in core temp. This is hypothetical, I'm not sure what the actual relationship is (if any, I could be wrong here but based on my experience, I'm not). Just as a note... they're not actually seeing a 2ºC difference between the machines, they're seeing a 2ºF difference (their meter was set to farenheit.... sigh).

That brings me to another thing that was missed... no ambient room temperature, no temperature readings at idle?

In addition based on the picture it looks like they're spreading on the Arctic Silver 5 a little too thick (not by much but just a tad too thick, I'm not sure it would make a huge difference if at all, the application is MUCH better than what Apple is doing). For the slug size of a Core Duo the initial application should have been less than a 1/4 of a BB. They also clearly didn't read the instructions very thoroughly either because had they actually read the instructions thoroughly they'd know that Arctic Silver 5 needs about 200 hours of thermal cycling to set after which point its performance typically improves by another 2ºC to 5ºC.

I'm actually surprised that MacRumors would post such a poorly written article. I have absolutely no problem with the results if they're true but the writer in this case didn't even have a remotely scientific approach. This was without a doubt one of the worst articles that I've ever seen posted on MacRumors.

Cheers, Joe
 
It is rediculous that the article on macdevcenter made front page. For one, the computer did have a very bad thermal-paste situation to begin with (unlike some of our other forum members), plus it was so horribly documented and lacked planning..
 
The thermal sensor is also affected by how well it makes contact with the heatpipe. Using some artic silver there would increase the reported temperature, and therefore increase fan usage, and further increase cooling.

As the sensor was disturbed on one machine and not similalry disturbed on the other, any result is invalid anyway. The measurements are no longer 'like'.
 
Macnoviz said:
This is not a heat issue. The Macbook is as hot as it is allowed to get, but these reports are not about a flaw in the design that burns your legs, but a simple error of some employee not removing all plastic from the laptop he is assembling. Maybe because of the time pressure, if you believe Thinksecret, who first reported May 9, later May 16 due to shortage of stock. This leads to a lot of stress, especially with Steve Jobs breathing down your neck.

By the way, who is rating this positive? I know it also gives you a solution, but since when is an easily solvable problem a good thing?
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I always assumed that computers were put together by machines. But I have nothing to base that on except my assumption. Are you saying that computers are pieced together by human hands?
 
JAT said:
No plastic. No excess heat. A 1.83/512/combo, here. This does not get any hotter than any other laptop I've used. I've owned 7 from 3 different mfgrs: 3 Apples, 2 Dells, 2 Toshibas. I don't know if that's enough of a population for anybody to care.

Yes, it can get warm when hitting the processor hard. Maybe warm enough that I wouldn't want it on my skin. That's what happens. I've never approached burning from the MB, but I certainly did with the Dells. I have used the MB with shorts on, never could with a Dell.

If anybody has a faulty MB that is truly blazing hot, that is a problem. I see no issue with the heat from mine.

Oh, I also plan to upgrade this to 2GB of ram. That will reduce the processor use and perhaps heat at times. Theoretically.
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I like your last word, it's funny. I am staring at my code and I know theoretically it should work, that's the only thing I've been keeping telling my boss since yesterday. LOL
 
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