N3OGH
Bear patrol must be working like a charm
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
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 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to deblin
Re: [rant] 0 for 2 on repairs
Well, to drag out an old, dated, and overused phrase.
"I feel your pain".
My MBP was way way too hot. I decided for a while to just hold on to it, and eventually, I did the unthinkable.
I went out, bought a #0 Phillips screwdriver, a #6 Torx driver and carved that puppy up like last years thanksgiving turkey. As the parts of my 1 month old $2000 laptop laid there strewn across my kitchen table, I thought to myself what have I done? Well, when I got to the main circuit board and saw the pitiful job they did of applying the thermal paste to the processor and heat pipe, I knew why. Big grimy gobs of greasy grimy gopher..., well you get the idea.
I cleaned the factory applied grease off with some rubbing alcohol (and a SPATULA, LOL) and applied a nice coat of Arctic Silver 5 to the die of all 3 chips that connect with the heat pipe. I reassembled my MBP and fired it up. It felt a LOT cooler to the touch when using it, but I was reluctant to come "out of the closet" on this issue and admit to everyone that I had done surgery on my new laptop until I had some hard evidence it was indeed a "fix". Some people had been claiming (on other boards) that the heat was no longer being dissipated, and that you would be killing your processor by doing this.
Last night I downloaded the Kernel extension that accesses the thermal sensor in the Core Duo chip directly, and got my answer.
I opened 3 shells of "Terminal" and put the system into a "yes" feedback loop, pushing the system to %100 processor load. The result?
I ran the system for 3 hours straight, on a flat hardtop desk at full load. Max processor temp (inside the processor, not case temp) was 61C. The fans were pretty much HOWLING, but more than reasonable for any computer at full load for such a period of time. Bottom of case was warm, but no warmer than say, 102F (just my best guess). The top of the case was cool to the touch, even over the "F" keys to the left of the keyboard.
The bottom line? The thermal paste IS applied wrong. I have no doubt of it whatsoever. Apple needs to make good on this, as not everyone is willing to take screwdriver and Torx driver to their new baby and do open heart surgery on it. For those that are, the benefits are legion. My MBP is now *THE* coolest (in more ways than one) computer I've ever owned, and I love it.
If you have the skills, the steady hand, and maybe a shot of liquor to calm your nerves, I wholeheartedly suggest it. Fortunately, I had no problems re assembling my computer, and no one could tell by looking at it that I had.
Whew... got that off my chest.... |
deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| Here's the thing. The guy I was speaking to on the phone acknowledged the thermal paste "rumors" and when I asked him about getting them to re-apply it, he said he'd ask them to. And supposedly he did.
But the morons at the repair depot didn't even get to the "repair" portion of it, they just concluded it was within spec after playing a friggin' DVD for an hour.
Since I don't have my MBP in front of me, if someone is willing to play a DVD for a few minutes and check the CPU usage, I'd be very curious how much it uses. I'm guessing --
"Talk is cheap because the supply is greater than the demand" - Shelby Friedman |
