Running too hot?
The Heat Issue!
Yes, the MacBook Pro runs hot. Even sitting around in idle, some display models I’ve felt are hot enough to cause pain for the second it takes for reflex to kick in. But I read a thread on Apple’s discussion forums about the poor application of heat sink compound, how it’s basically gooped on like fudge on ice cream. So not being at all satisfied with my MBP (week 14) until I examined its guts for the sake of seeing how it was built and put together, I opened up my MBP to replace the thermal compound. Take a look at the pictures below.
After removing Apple’s strangely (or excessively) applied thermal compound, cleaning the chip and heat sink surfaces, and using Arctic Silver 5, I can’t say for certain that the MBP runs cooler than it did before the procedure. Sometimes it feels warm, and sometimes it’s borderline hot. But it’s never gotten as hot as other MBPs I’ve felt, usually early builds like week 7. The only variable I can figure is the phase of the moon. Maybe resetting the PRAM or NVRAM (or whatever they are) might do more good. On battery power, however, mine runs at fairly cool, it feels about 40oC on the bottom.
However, it’s pretty obvious why the MBP runs so hot. The fans almost never turn on! There are three thermal sensors inside: one taped to the heat pipe (seen below), one taped to the bottom of the case below the right fan, and one to the right of the DVD drive at the palm rest. But they don’t seem to be doing any good. When the fans do turn on, they turn on together, rather than being independent of each other. I would have thought the left fan would turn on more often since it’s where the CPU is and where the laptop gets hottest.
ATI Radeon Mobility X1600, Intel 945PM, Intel Core Duo all covered, and them some.
Heat pipes that lead to tiny fins where the fans blow.
Core Duo with a mountain of gray goo.
Northbridge close-up.
I have no idea how heat sink compound is physically spread all over like that.
After cleaning using cotton swabs and ethanol, and being careful not to break the tiny capacitors.
Shiny copper.
(But not easily, iWeb is hard to use!)
