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Retina MacBook Pro Thermal Paste Swap - Video

Mabyboi

Mabyboi

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 23, 2010
489
0
Ontario, Canada
Hey Guys,

Im not sure if any of you even care for this anymore but there were a few people who asked for me to make a video about how to switch the thermal paste on the Retina MacBook Pro. So I made a video tutorial here, its two parts, disassembly and re assembly.


Please excuse any shakiness in my hands or voice this was my first video tutorial.

And for the step by step:

Step One:

Get a hold of a Pentalobe #5 Screw driver head, and a Torx #5. The Pentalobe head is for the exterior screws, the Torx is for the interior.

Step Two:

Take out the 10 screws in the bottom of the MacBook, be very careful with your Pentalobe screw driver to not strip the screws.

Step Three

Undo the Battery Connector, which is right under the "Warning" label.

Step Four

Remove the Four screws surrounding the CPU, the Four surrounding the GPU, the one silver screw to the CPU side, and the one silver screw to the GPU side under the rubber cap.

EA9BD50C-5719-4E1F-98C4-9890DFE6B083-23568-00001175E5D4F4F5.jpg


E6C36CC0-AFC4-4F0E-93A3-831F62371FD8-23568-00001175DB130C76.jpg


DCAEF0C5-3E5B-4ABA-9EC1-F178CCC68828-23568-00001175D22B1587.jpg


9509B5E8-4436-4A4A-825A-3396C870E69E-23568-00001175ED31073A.jpg


Step Five

Remove the two rubber covers on either heatsink fan grate.

Step Six

Gently remove the heatsink from the unit and clean with a paper towl or alcohol swab.

Step Seven

Put on your choice of thermal paste, only a dab on either Processor.

Step Eight

Put the Heatsink back on, put in the 10 screws you removed along with the rubber cap.

Step Nine

Re attach the rubber covers to either side of the heatsink fan grates.

Step Ten

Re attach the battery plug

Step Eleven

Put the 10 screws back into the bottom plate

8B773EEF-E3B2-4392-B3CD-05F3DD82A2B1-23568-00001175F42D576D.jpg
 
Nice write up and videos, would have been nice to have a comparison - not a big deal though.

Curious - why did you reapply it once you got it?
 
So you actually managed to prepare the camera, camera guy, and everything plus installing the carbon look stickers in less than 5 minutes before making this video. That is fast bro!
 
Dark Void said:
Nice write up and videos, would have been nice to have a comparison - not a big deal though.

Curious - why did you reapply it once you got it?
Click to expand...

I've had some bad experiences with my macs heating up far too much, and the solution was always to change the thermal paste. Figure it take it head on this time!
 
Mabyboi said:
Well you see heres the thing... I did my first swap 5 minutes after getting the machine and didn't do a reading before hand so.......
Click to expand...

What were you temperatures afterwards? I can't get my CPU [2.7GHz] past 58° while all "8" (4+4) cores are at 100%, so I didn't even bother to change the thermal paste like I did with my last MacBook Pro [Core 2 Duo @ 2.8 GHz, from 106° down to 87°].
 
tatical said:
What were you temperatures afterwards? I can't get my CPU [2.7GHz] past 58° while all "8" (4+4) cores are at 100%, so I didn't even bother to change the thermal paste like I did with my last MacBook Pro [Core 2 Duo @ 2.8 GHz, from 106° down to 87°].
Click to expand...

How is that even possible to stay under 58c?

I am pretty sure it's a reading error.
 
Mabyboi said:
I've had some bad experiences with my macs heating up far too much, and the solution was always to change the thermal paste. Figure it take it head on this time!
Click to expand...

Fair enough, as long as you know what you are doing. :)
 
Realistically the best you can hope for on a new machine is a reduction of a couple of degrees at best. Thermal paste is pretty much the same with some brands being marginally better than others, and as will all potentially a trade off for that margin. Large companies know this and tend to use a generic thermal paste as it`s a good as anything else over time.
 
shansoft said:
How is that even possible to stay under 58c?

I am pretty sure it's a reading error.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure. The machine gets warm, but not really hot (nothing like my 2.8GHz mid 2009 MBP). I'm using iStat Pro to get the temps. I don't know if its accurate, but I think it is because it won't get hot.

I was going to change the thermal paste when I first got it, but I wanted to test it out first. When I saw the unusually low temperatures, I decided not to bother. But if I could lower the GPU temps by 10c or more, I might open it up.

Here's a pic of iStat, the CPU is under max load for about 10 minutes. The GPU gets much hotter than the CPU.
 

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tatical said:
I'm not sure. The machine gets warm, but not really hot (nothing like my 2.8GHz mid 2009 MBP). I'm using iStat Pro to get the temps. I don't know if its accurate, but I think it is because it won't get hot.

I was going to change the thermal paste when I first got it, but I wanted to test it out first. When I saw the unusually low temperatures, I decided not to bother. But if I could lower the GPU temps by 10c or more, I might open it up.

Here's a pic of iStat, the CPU is under max load for about 10 minutes. The GPU gets much hotter than the CPU.
Click to expand...

That's the heatsink reading, not the cpu diode reading. The cpu diode could be +20 degrees from the heatsink when under load.
 
Let me get this straight

Mabyboi said:
Well you see heres the thing... I did my first swap 5 minutes after getting the machine and didn't do a reading before hand so.......
Click to expand...

So you took apart a brand new computer to replace the thermal paste for the chance that it might lower temperatures yet omitted the chance to obtain real data?

And by doing you believe the myriad of engineers at Apple handicapped this machine by overlooking the applications of advanced paste?

So you believe in faith over reason? Speculation over data?

:rolleyes:
 
Ive done a re-paste on mine with IC7 and the temps have stayed pretty much the same.

Ive since noticed that the fan doesn't spin any faster until the CPU hits 95c so re-pasting is only going to slightly delay how quick it heats up but its still going to reach 95c in the end, but at least it does cool a little quicker once it speeds up.

The only way you would notice a difference between factory paste and third party paste is if you control the fans yourself with SMC or Lubbos.
 
I would bet that Apple uses the same compound & color everywhere. A good tech would know if you used a different compound.

Yes, this voids your warranty....there is no doubt.
 
ZipZap said:
I would bet that Apple uses the same compound & color everywhere. A good tech would know if you used a different compound.

Yes, this voids your warranty....there is no doubt.
Click to expand...

The techs can't tell which paste it is, it's the same color and looks the same.

But yes this voids the warranty
 
FuNGi said:
So you took apart a brand new computer to replace the thermal paste for the chance that it might lower temperatures yet omitted the chance to obtain real data?

And by doing you believe the myriad of engineers at Apple handicapped this machine by overlooking the applications of advanced paste?

So you believe in faith over reason? Speculation over data?

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Easy now, I've had bad experiences in the past so I took it into my own control and changed it. I know they redesigned the cooling in the retina, but I wanted to change it to help out in any way possible.

I've had a ton of people ask me to do this video, wether or not it changes a whole lot, people still asked for it so I did it.

If you were being sarcastic then take this post as a sincere rebutle.
 
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