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The Thermal Paste Reapplication Endeavor
- Thread starter murdercitydevil
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One would think that improving their reputation with regards to overheating laptops should be motivation enough. Every time they do a hardware update, forums are flooded with temperature threads. Surely this must scare off a lot of customers.
It's only voided if they can prove that you removed it e.g. a sticker that rips as you open the heatsink or a non-replacable decal.
Call AppleCare.
They may not see the paste when doing other work, but once they do it's all discretion.
Doesn't help that AS5 looks completely different either.
That ain't looking good, but amazing results you got there.
Could I ask you to post the difference in temperature of you CPU Diode and your Heatsink Sensor. It would be pretty Interesting to see how well compared to others the heat is transported to the heatsink.
Could I ask you to post the difference in temperature of you CPU Diode and your Heatsink Sensor. It would be pretty Interesting to see how well compared to others the heat is transported to the heatsink.
This did not void my Applecare because this laptop doesn't have apple care on it! Why would I buy applecare in the first year if it's already covered under warranty? Yeah, phone support, awesome, let me go shell out 300 bucks so I can talk to someone on the phone. That's what forums like this and ifixit are for. But I will buy it after the end of the first year, for sure.
And like others have said, literally the only way they could ever find out anything was tampered with was if they did the exact same thing I did and saw how well the thermal paste was applied. And I see no reason for them to take off the heatsink, even during a logic board replacement.
As for the question about temps, here's what istat tells me (just booted up, comp is idle)
Cpu - 28
Cpu heatsink - 25
Enclosure Base - 22
Enclosure Base 2 - 22
Enclosure Base 3 - 22
GPU - 26
Heatsink B - 23
Those may seem crazy low but my comp is on my desk right next to an open window, and it's relatively cool outside. Here they are at 100% CPU usage for 3 minutes -
CPU - 72
CPU Heatsink - 41
Enclosure Base - 24
" 2 - 22
" 3 - 24
GPU - 48
Heatsink B - 41
Looks like heat still isn't transferred as efficiently as it could be to the heatsink. But on the other hand, it's a cheap piece of **** compared to a full copper sink, for instance, with a lapped base. Not sure why Apple didn't go for full copper. That would have been a nice touch.
And like others have said, literally the only way they could ever find out anything was tampered with was if they did the exact same thing I did and saw how well the thermal paste was applied. And I see no reason for them to take off the heatsink, even during a logic board replacement.
As for the question about temps, here's what istat tells me (just booted up, comp is idle)
Cpu - 28
Cpu heatsink - 25
Enclosure Base - 22
Enclosure Base 2 - 22
Enclosure Base 3 - 22
GPU - 26
Heatsink B - 23
Those may seem crazy low but my comp is on my desk right next to an open window, and it's relatively cool outside. Here they are at 100% CPU usage for 3 minutes -
CPU - 72
CPU Heatsink - 41
Enclosure Base - 24
" 2 - 22
" 3 - 24
GPU - 48
Heatsink B - 41
Looks like heat still isn't transferred as efficiently as it could be to the heatsink. But on the other hand, it's a cheap piece of **** compared to a full copper sink, for instance, with a lapped base. Not sure why Apple didn't go for full copper. That would have been a nice touch.
how does that work? I invalidate the first year's warranty, then that invalidation transfers to the 3 year apple care? Part of apple proving anything was tampered with is proving that it happened during the life of the warranty in question.
Am I the only one who felt I'm incredibly disconnected to rest of the world here? no offense.
While you're at it, include your computer's serial number and your SSN, so you can be banned from the Apple Store.
The apple care is an extension of the pre existing 1 year warranty....ask them if you want...but lets say your gpu dies...they open your machine up...hello whats this this isn't the cheap stuff we use in the factory...maybe our client applied this last week just before he rang up to tell us his GPU had died....
You see you've got no way of proving when you did this. You've basically just **** any warranty you had out of the window...sorry
I'd rather keep my mbp as it left the factory.
No, no, I raised my eyebrows too. I'm just giving the OP the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was wasn't serious when he said that.
Just ran the same test. Idle Temps look quite the same on my i7 15" with Heatsink 25° and CPU 29°. No significant difference there.
But after 3mins of full CPU load my temps look like this:
CPU - 86
CPU Heatsink - 40
Enclosure Base - 23
" 2 - 23
" 3 - 23
So, this is with the original Apple thermal paste and the CPU gets 14° hotter than yours.
I geuss, I know what I'm gonna be doing this weekend. =)
While 14 deg may seem like a lot, its not. Different testing conditions, two different laptops, and maybe the fans were a little different too during testing.
I for one am not touching mine, its fine the way it is, and the time, I dont have.
This inspired me to do this to my late 2006 Macbook. I had the same globs of heatsink compound on my machine. Unfortunately I forget to take before temperature readings.
All I can say is that within a minute of watching an SD Youtube video my fans would whir at full speed. Now even when HD video is left playing for extended periods my fans are only mildly audible and my temps max out at 156°F (or 69°C for those outside the US).
All I can say is that within a minute of watching an SD Youtube video my fans would whir at full speed. Now even when HD video is left playing for extended periods my fans are only mildly audible and my temps max out at 156°F (or 69°C for those outside the US).
You aren't buying a new warranty period, you are paying for an extension of your existing one year which you just lost. Not trying to sound harsh or rude though, I think you did a great job.
I don't know, I am personally pretty confident that my MBP isn't going to have any hardware issues, and if it does, that Apple won't notice anything was opened up and I'll be fine. Really, almost any issue besides total logic board failure is user-serviceable, right? So I should be able to fix it myself. If the logic board for some reason kills itself, and apple doesn't want to fix it, I'm probably going to end up just replacing the entire laptop (I hear it's like a thousand dollars to replace a logic board?). Anyway, I'm not worried about any of this warranty voiding stuff. I actually can't recall ever needing to use a warranty on anything. I've always fixed it myself or just replaced it.
Exactly. There's a thread with an MBP13 with a failed 320M. It would have ended differently if he replaced his paste.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for efficiency. I exclusively use Ceramique on all my builds. I just don't condone telling people to do it and not letting them know their warranty is out the window. I know for a fact that my application will help thermals, but I'm not going to toss warranty out for a few C*s.
Sad how people say thios thermal paste issue has been fixed. It appears Apple doesn
t use the money for QC. Considering the 13inch MBP has hardware that you can get for very cheap now, having QC can't cost too much.
t use the money for QC. Considering the 13inch MBP has hardware that you can get for very cheap now, having QC can't cost too much.
2010 15" i7 high temperature in idle
I just got 15" i7 and idle temperatures are (CELSIUS):
the CPU 66 and heat-sink 55
wow ? that's huge difference.
I posted a little while ago about reapplying thermal paste on the 2010 MBP. I wanted to do this not because my temps were sky high and my machine was overheating, but for 2 reasons: First, I knew for a fact that when I opened the machine up and peeled off that heatsink, I would be absolutely sure to see a mess of (presumably) low quality thermal paste slathered on there like A1 on a cheap steak. I knew that a proper application would lower the temps at least somewhat, and give me peace of mind that it was a job done right, rather than a rushed effort done by a chinese child who couldn't care less. Second, I pride myself on being a DIY person, as well as a person who likes to learn new things. I know many of you will think or say how stupid it is to take apart your MBP and "void" your warranty for "no reason", but I consider this type of thing fun, and a learning experience. Should I ever need to actually fix a problem or replace an internal component, it will be all the easier to do so now that I have a greater knowledge of how the innards of an MBP work. So, without further ado, the pics!
I didn't take too many pictures because better quality ones can be found on ifixit's teardown, but here they are anyway. (BTW, ifixit is a GREAT source for anything of this nature, major props to them) Most of the pics are blurry because I have an old camera and because I had shaky hands (high on caffeine pretty much all the time).
As you may know, battery removal requires a triwing Y0 screwdriver. I ordered the 26 piece kit from ifixit and it's awesome, couldn't have done any of this without it. A shot of my tools and the progress thus far, measured in screws.
Here is the MBP with the battery removed. I of course took great care in keeping everything perfectly intact. There's no way to tell that the battery was removed, so it would be pretty difficult for Apple to prove I voided the warranty.
Fans taken out, all cables disconnected.
For the most part, taking the whole thing apart was pretty straightforward. It took me a long time because I was being extra careful. Really the only difficult parts involved the logic board itself. Just as I thought, after I took off the heatsink, I discovered thermal paste spread around like goddamn cake frosting.
The heatsink was just as bad. Sorry again about the terrible quality pics.
It was a real chore to clean all this stuff off without spreading it even more. A mixture of Q-tips soaked in rubbing alcohol and a small microfiber lint free cloth did the job. Here you can see the nice shine on the chips' heatspreaders.
The heatsink cleaned up nicely as well. I had a strong urge to lap the damn thing with 2000 grit like I did for my desktop's heatsink. If I had more time and patience I probably would have done it
Finally, here is my application of Arctic Cooling MX-2. I couldn't do a perfect job because my trusty little plastic spreading tool was nowhere to be found, so I did the best I could with my finger wrapped in plastic (credit card was too big). I used around a 10th of how much was originally on the chips, I think.
And that was basically it. Putting it back together was much harder than taking it apart. The biggest problem was putting the logic board back in without damaging anything. The microphone that hangs underneath it was impossible to position right, until I re-read what ifixit said about sticking it in its position in the speaker, and after that it was super easy. I reconnected all the cables, put the battery back, closed her up, and booted up. At the login screen, I was shocked to see that my keyboard wasn't working. I had a feeling during the reassembly that the keyboard ribbon wasn't fully inserted, and I turned out to be right. I had to open the MBP back up (luckily battery removal wasn't necessary) and shoved it in there as far as it would go. After that, everything was perfect.
So, results! As I expected, nothing tremendous. My original idle CPU temp was around 43-45 degrees, after it was about 5 degrees cooler, around 37-38. Highest load temperature, conducted with 4 instances of "yes > /dev/null" in terminal, was about 86 degrees. The fans were running at 3k RPM, set with smcfancontrol. After the thermal paste job, load temps dropped almost 10 degrees, topping out at around 76-78. The GPU temps dropped almost 10 degrees as well during CPU load (don't have the exact numbers, I deleted the text file where I had recorded them). So overall, not a total waste of time!
That's basically it. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but if you're a tech enthusiast and like taking things apart, it was definitely fun. Thanks for reading!
I just got 15" i7 and idle temperatures are (CELSIUS):
the CPU 66 and heat-sink 55
wow ? that's huge difference.
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You probably run on nVidia gfx (from what I can see from your screenshot) and thus temperatures are normal. You will get idling at 60 with discrete gfx on.
Tom
You don't need to quote the whole of the OP's post.
@ the OP - you may not have any obvious indicators that you've voided the warranty by doing this, but if Apple did find out, you're very likely to not be covered by any of your remaining warranty (Apple Care or not). It would be discretionary on Apple's behalf.
At any rate, slathering on the goo like Apple MFG process have is disgustingly useless, given modern production robotics, the goo could easily have been applied correctly without wasting any time. Foxconn FTL.