MacBook Pros overheating due to thermal grease?

This isn't the first time the accusation's been leveled at a company: misapplication of thermal grease causing overheating hardware got a bunch of Xbox 360 fans in a furor over what turned out to be intentional manufacture. Well, a Something Awful forum poster by the name of Interrupting Moss was having (unintentional) thermal issues with his own overheating 129° F MacBook Pro, so he cracked it open and found a dearth of silvery paste. He generously reapplied his own and re-gauged the temperature at 103° -- a 26 degree drop, and that's only an IR reading of the keyboard area. Is this a cure-all for overheating MacBooks the world over? Hard to say, but if your MacBook is too hot to handle (certainly not too cold to hold), you might consider a more mano a la máquina approach before you wait in line to talk to a Genius just to have him/her whisk away your precious laptop for who knows how long. [Warning: link possibly NSFW]

[Via The Inq]

[mike @ May 1st 2006 10:19AM]

A dirth of thermal grease ? Looks like an abundance to me. Makes no sense, if system is heating up, heatsinks are taking heat away. If heat is not carried away, CPU should BBQ rather quickly, and box would stay cool, as chips BBQ.

[Brewer @ May 1st 2006 10:19AM]

Also, not to split hairs, but you should probably put a warning about the post, not kid or work appropriate, for multiple reasons.

[Josh @ May 1st 2006 10:23AM]

Man, and I was really considering buying a MBP today. Me thinks I'll hold off until Apple can fix the following:

1. Whine issues: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=461366&tstart=0
2. Heat probs/thermal grease overapplication: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=463877&tstart=0
3. Airport Issues: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=391986&tstart=0

And I was really looking forward to my first Mac :(

[taka @ May 1st 2006 10:25AM]

These guys not the only one who discovered this. Here's someone else who did the same thing, cleaned up the poorly applied paste, and then reapplied properly. Results were a much cooler system
http://home.sc.rr.com/mixedbag/MBP/Welcome.html

[Jjeff @ May 1st 2006 10:35AM]

Too much thermal paste turns into an insulator. The job of the paste is to fill the air gap between the die and heatsink while still giving as much die-to-heatsink contact as possible.

Gooping on the paste won't do anything except cause a problem eventually. Like was stated above, the drop in system temperature could just be the heatsinks not transferring heat from the chips and letting the chips overheat.

[Jjeff @ May 1st 2006 10:48AM]

Upon further review, I'm adding a bit to my comment:

Apple used to use black squares of thermal pad material that were one time use. Grey goop was provided with replacement logic boards in a small syringe to be used sparingly. It seems from the pictures that the boards could have been reworked and whoever reassembled them quickly put a blob over each die instead of spreading a thin, even layer over them. A pea-sized application of paste is almost too much and it looks like they used the entire tube (you get 2 or 3 cc, if I recall) when reassembling.

My second paragraph doesn't make much sense (still early here at 10:45).. To clarify, I meant that the CPUs might not be transferring their heat to the heatpipe because of the excessive goop on their dies.

[Bruce @ May 1st 2006 11:03AM]

I find it hilarious Apple apologists think burning their testicles is a nice "feature" Apple was kind enough to add to their laptop.

[tr @ May 1st 2006 11:10AM]

"3. Also, not to split hairs, but you should probably put a warning about the post, not kid or work appropriate, for multiple reasons."

what the hell are you talking about? unless looking at circuit boards and thermal paste is some sort of pornography in your world...

[mike burgess @ May 1st 2006 11:11AM]

OK, looking at photos, I'll change my guess to incorrect assembly, since it's almost impossible to over apply HSG, till it shorts out something. When I remove self-applied HSG and sinks, I have to almost pry them apart. When the sink contacts the die/chip, and torqued properly, there is a micron thin film, and all the grease oozes out to the edges. Looks like a large glob of HSG was applied, instead of proper assembly, as the HSG has not spread out, and remained just a lump. Proper assembly, which only needs a scant amount of grease, leaves hardly any visible HSG on the contact surfaces, but squishes it all out the sides. The Torque/Pressure/Contact station at assembly is not working, leaving the huge voids that stay filled with HeatSinkGrease.

[Jeff @ May 1st 2006 11:21AM]

"He generously reapplied his own"

It's probably just slightly more than a nitpick to point out that you don't want to "generously" apply thermal paste to a CPU. This stuff is not meant to be a *barrier* between your CPU and the heatsink. The point is to fill in the microscopic gaps between the CPU and heatsink - the key word being "microscopic".

No I didn't RTFA so I don't know if this is the guy who wrote the article being an idiot or just a little bit of a misinterpretation in the post here. But you only want enough thermal paste to form a seal between your heatsink and CPU.

[glacia00 @ May 1st 2006 11:31AM]

One of the drawbacks to assembly lines is that once someone starts doing something wrong on the line you can easily build thousands before anyone catches it.

Hard to tell from the shots but I'll assume the IC in the middle is the one they're talking about since the other 2 clearly have enough thermal grease.

Again hard to tell from the pic but it does seem a bit sparse on the middle one. As far as too much grease, I would think that there should be a spring clip holding the heatsink on which should squish it down to a thin layer that only fills any airgaps and pushes out bubbles. If not it wasn't thought out too well.

The thermal pads mentioned can work well if there is no chance of movement. If it's compressed then one surface pulls back the pad stays compressed and an airgap forms.

Two words 'Arctic Silver'. It has a special spot on my workbench.

[PodMonkeys @ May 1st 2006 11:37AM]

tr, I think he means the headline on the linked article. Not the picture.

[MosquitoControl @ May 1st 2006 12:30PM]

Actually, his complaint is that there is too much thermal paste, not too little.

Click the link, he shows a picture from the Apple Training Manual and mocks it due to the enormous amount they say to use.

So he cleaned the dies, put on significantly less, and got his results that way.



He found an abundance and/or plethora of goop, not a dearth of goop.

[morcheeba @ May 1st 2006 12:50PM]

I'm still waiting for more info before I decide on this. He measured lower case temps, not lower die temps (where it really counts) or heatsink/fan air temps.

The worst case situation is that the chips are now not as well heatsunk and run hotter... and the poor thermal connection means the case doesn't get the heat. Eventually the processor throttles down power to protect itself.

The heat has to go somewhere, and if the fans aren't spinning as much (less convection) and the case is cooler (less radiation/conduction), then something's fishy.

We need more data, but apparently there isn't a die temperature measurement tool for these computers yet.

[osalom @ May 1st 2006 12:54PM]

and why not just ask apple to replace under warranty your MBP? I understand they have acknowledged the problem and are replacing them.. then you would have a NEW COOLER computer whitout having to void your warranty

[abobo @ May 1st 2006 1:43PM]

So the individual went through three MBP's and had the same problem with the notebook getting too hot.
The thermal grease applied by Apple is almost three packets of thermal grease, which is too much thermal grease.
The only downside would be that the fans would be always on since the sensor is detecting the temperature more precisely. That notebook will always have the fan on since the heatpipe is connected to the graphics chip, Intel northbridge (I think) and CPU.

[Alex Brewer @ May 1st 2006 2:13PM]

If you read the whole article, and look at the name of the poster, you will see how it is nsfw, and that kids shouldn't read parts of it. That was a pretty funny emoticon tho...

[Chris @ May 1st 2006 2:14PM]

"I understand they have acknowledged the problem "

You understand incorrectly. They do not acknowledge the problem. In fact they tell people a scalding hot MacBook Pro is within operating specs.

[arf @ May 1st 2006 2:41PM]

i came from the store today, he said they always put that much on... and a lil grease doesnt effect it as much as people say.

you have a dual core proc, a decent vid card, and an all metal case, its gunna get hot.

[Spyvie @ May 1st 2006 2:45PM]

This is hilarious, especially these comments.

Any 14yo PC enthusiast knows how to correctly apply thermal compound. No self-respecting system builder would ever use anything called grease.

[Brendan @ May 1st 2006 2:53PM]

That Ghostbusters reference was classic.

[D @ May 1st 2006 3:25PM]

In the electronics industry, the skin burn temperature is normally considered 50C or 122F. Prolonged bare-skin contact with metal at this temperature will produce pain, reddening, swelling, and sometimes small blisters.

If the machines are running at >53C as the summary claims, this could be a big problem for Apple. 40C, while uncomfortable, would not be as big of a problem.

(** I've heard 40+ C can be unhealthy for women's reproductive organs but I'm not very knowledge in that field. This temperature can also be temporarily unhealthy for men as well)

[Will @ May 1st 2006 4:41PM]

Also, anyone that is re-applying the proper amount of thermal grease is reporting that the fans come on more often, where as before the fans were not coming on very much at all. Some suggest this is because the excess paste is preventing an accurate heat reading.

Furthermore, if the heat was not being transferred to the heat pipe as some people suggest, the heat would build up in the area around the cpu, since it is on the bottom of the logic board, and thus create a hot spot on the bottom of the case. However this is what is happening now. I challenge anyone who doubts this to touch the bottom of the case. It is not normal, no matter what apple says.

[James @ May 1st 2006 4:53PM]

Please fix the article on Engadgets post - previous commenters are right - the guy complains of too much TIM not a dirth of it. Maybe someone could please learn how to read?

[Ryan D. @ May 1st 2006 5:13PM]

#24 - Are you seriously asking people to learn how to read, yet mispelling "dearth", which is correctly spelled in the article that you are requesting be corrected? That's very funny to me.. not to needlessly snipe, mind you, I just find it funny.

As for the issue itself, a friend of mine has one of these, and the very first thing I noticed is how hot it is. His response "Yeah, I need to check into that." That is a bug, not a feature.

[sheik124 @ May 1st 2006 5:27PM]

Oh man, ROFLMAO at the people in the first page or two of the Something Awful thread suggesting Apple is infallible and that the amount of thermal paste on there is just dandy. It takes me 5-15 ENTIRE BUILDS to finish a SMALL tube of Arctic Silver 5, Apple is putting WAY too much TIM on those cores. Someone needs to let them know.

[rob @ May 1st 2006 6:22PM]

selections from the SA forum post:

somedude: "Hmm, engadget seems to think you found too little thermal paste, and fixed the problem by applying more. That could lead to some confusion..."

original poster: "I'm not going to try and correct all these retarded blogs just because they can't read."

He called engadget retarded. ha.

[Spyvie @ May 1st 2006 10:12PM]

Engadget is a great site, I check it every day and generally enjoy the news and the sense of humor. I have to say however that the writers on this site are definitely not �nuts & bolts� tech savvy.

[Ash @ May 2nd 2006 12:11AM]

Surprising that Mac fanatics havent replied yet with the "Macs have HIGH quality construction" argument. Thats Ok though. Macs have a SUPER drive .. does Dell have it???

[Circle @ May 2nd 2006 2:08AM]

Alrighty kids, no arguing now.

Ok, I had a VAIO that I thought was an egg poacher (65c) so I went and dug up intel's specs for the 1.86 Pentium M and was amazed. Max operating temp (at die) is 100c.

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/mobile/pm/sb/CS-007971.htm

So these are some durable chips. (Obviously the core duo would have similar thermal tolerance.)

Second, holy mother of god have any of you actually built a system? Really, the layer you want is roughly paper thin, or possibly thinner!

I have Athlon 64s that idle @ ambient (room temperature for the uninitiated) on AIR COOLING and that's enough thermal goup for a server cluster of my Athlons!

As for the lack of readings of on die. Yes I see that as a possible point, but I am unwilling to concede that you should use that much goup!

Ok, so if you believe that is the proper ammount of thermal paste, let's do an experiment. (I know the people who need this proof are to scared to open their own box, consider this academic.)

1. Start CPU burn in, let it run for about 45 mins.
2. While it's still running load up Speed Fan (or other temp monitor) Note temps and shut down everything.
3. Remove Heatsink from proc, apply an APPLE CERTIFIED ammount of thermal paste.
4. Reapply Heatsink
5. Start CPU Burn in, let it run for 45 mins. (If it makes it that far)
6. If it hasn't crashed start Speed Fan (or other temp monitor) and note temp.

I promise you the temp in #6 will be MUCH higher. Assuming you do not fry your CPU.

As usual I take no responsibility if you do anything, and I mean anything at all, or if you do nothing I also waive that too.

But you trust Apple right?!?!? Everything will be fine if they are right...

[Elwood @ May 4th 2006 5:26PM]

I'm seeing this complaint all over the place, but I'm somewhat curious as to why 129F/53F is considered hot. That's normal operating temp for a lot, if not all newer intel chips. Both of my newer desktops run in that range, and my Pentium M-based laptop runs hotter still. What exactly do these folks expect w/ a processor and video card of that power in a case that thin?

[Aluvus @ May 6th 2006 4:47PM]

"31. I'm seeing this complaint all over the place, but I'm somewhat curious as to why 129F/53F is considered hot."

53C was the external temperature of the case. Processor surface temperatures are likely to be much higher. Even after the reapplication, Interrupting Moss reported full-load processor temepratures of 64C.

[absurdio @ May 26th 2006 3:36AM]

Yeah, this needs to be corrected fast.
The SomethingAwful post as well as every other post to this effect has complained of TOO MUCH thermal grease, not too little.
Proof? Here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=199840
http://home.sc.rr.com/mixedbag/MBP/Welcome.html (already linked)
and the testimony of anyone else who's tried this.
Get your story right, engadget.

[Brett @ Apr 23rd 2007 2:34PM]

I found a solution that helps greatly with the heat problem, and doesnt require any type of surgery. Theres an app for os x called smc fan control. It allows you to up the minimum speed of both internal fans to whatever you like, up to 6000 rpms. This took care of my heat problem so well. Before, my macbook processors/interior was at 140+ fahrenheit. Now, when i have the fans throttled to 6k rpm, my temps are stable around 115*F, and the exterior case temps are greatly diminished as well.

http://www.conscius.de/~eidac/software/smcfancontrol2/index.html

[Don @ Sep 18th 2007 5:36PM]

Isnt that bad for the fans to be on at almost full speed constantly?