2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

[adrianlondon]

Remove the screen from the Pro and connect it to a monitor. Sure, it's no longer portable but it's useable. Then as carefully as you can put your MBA back together again, removing all your changes (which, ironically, now mean it always runs at room temperature!), and take it to an Apple Store and ask them to diagnose and quote you for a repair.

 

[srkirt]

Who wants it for the screen or exploded view ... I sell it for € 400

 

[IngerMan]

Does it come with a 90 day warranty 😂

 

[srkirt]

[QUOTE = "IngerMan, publicación: 28558133, miembro: 543032"]
¿Viene con una garantía de 90 días?
[/CITAR]

Does it come with a 90 day warranty 😂

This Mac here in Spain has a 2 year warranty but that is unfeasible since it is modified everywhere ... you can neither return it nor take it to Apple because they will see the damage I have caused.
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Remove the screen from the Pro and connect it to a monitor. Sure, it's no longer portable but it's useable. Then as carefully as you can put your MBA back together again, removing all your changes (which, ironically, now mean it always runs at room temperature!), and take it to an Apple Store and ask them to diagnose and quote you for a repair.

I hardly use the Pro and it is only for recording in the studio. The Air used it in bed, I will buy a Huawei and run hahahaha.

 

[kazune_karin]

[QUOTE = "IngerMan, publicación: 28558133, miembro: 543032"]
¿Viene con una garantía de 90 días?
[/CITAR]

This Mac here in Spain has a 2 year warranty but that is unfeasible since it is modified everywhere ... you can neither return it nor take it to Apple because they will see the damage I have caused.
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I hardly use the Pro and it is only for recording in the studio. The Air used it in bed, I will buy a Huawei and run hahahaha.

Yes, a repair will not be free. But it may have a chance to be cheaper than buying a new one.
Native macOS is very future proof.

 

[vyruzreaper]

I decided to run GB5 again now that I am a few weeks into the mod. Almost hit 4k MC on my i5.

Ran on less than 10% battery without it charging.

I'm really tempted to open up again and optimize the mods but it's yielding good results so don't want to break anything lol.

How's everyone else's MBA doing post mod?

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I got my MBA i5/16/512 yesterday, let it update, and index last night.

Nice machine, its quiet, solid feeling, love the keyboard.

Ran a couple benchmarks just now.

Idle Temp 42-43C (70F office space)
Cinebench 1025 (max temp 95C, Max Fan 6000)
Geekbench 1184 / 3109 (max temp 62C, Fan - 0) - so I don't know what to think of this one. I did not hear the fan. It seems to be throttling before even trying hard.

Still waiting for my shim from Looq. I will probably use the machine stock for a week or 2 and then do the shim. I am feeling pretty good about the machine as stock. I need to play with some videoconferencing still though.

Gotta run it back to back.

Most of us who were testing earlier in the thread would run GB 3-5 times back to back, and note all results. Sustained performance will be evident then.

 

[fcracer]

I decided to run GB5 again now that I am a few weeks into the mod. Almost hit 4k MC on my i5.

Ran on less than 10% battery without it charging.

I'm really tempted to open up again and optimize the mods but it's yielding good results so don't want to break anything lol.

How's everyone else's MBA doing post mod?

View attachment 923950
[automerge]1592098779[/automerge]

Gotta run it back to back.

Most of us who were testing earlier in the thread would run GB 3-5 times back to back, and note all results. Sustained performance will be evident then.

Your GB results are great! Have you noticed a sustained improvement in performance when using the computer for those real world tasks like photo exporting or video exporting? I’m wondering how much gain there is in real world tasks.

 

[SeñorNewton]

Did you test your Air with the fan at full blast? At the minimum fan speed (~2.7k RPM) the airflow through the heatsink might not have been that significant.

I guess the thin sponge on the back case is for thermal insulation and maybe to prevent the heatsink from hitting the back case.

I didn’t mess with the fan speeds. Just left them at the system’s default.

 

[HopelesslyConfused]

OP (@ilikewhey) can you please, please update the first post to help people?

If you could please just add useful things like Robotronic's initial copper mod, @kinchee87's blog post, and actual guides and discussion on how to do this. The work has already been done, people shouldn't have to wade through 1000+ posts to find it.

It will be way more useful for people just coming here. Half of the posts in this thread are of a dude slowly bricking his 2019 MBA.

Posts with actual information in them are way more useful than 'I upped my Cinebench score by 4!'

Here, I collected them for you:

2020 i3/i5/i7 mod guides:

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

So here's the update for my v2 heatsink mod. For those of you late to the party, read my original mod post first. I ordered this set of shims from Amazon. The 0.3mm shim turns out to be the best thickness for 2020 heatsink. The set I ordered was only 15x15mm square, which is actually too small...

forums.macrumors.com

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

So I bought a second 2020 Air base i3 for my wife. Did the heatsink mod on this one right out of the gate, and took the opportunity to get some good pics of the stock thermal paste application. Also worth noting, the paste on this thing is unlike any I've ever seen. First of all its black, and...

forums.macrumors.com

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

MacBook Air 2020: i7/16GB/1TB My blog posts on the three types of mods I have done Wind channel mod Heat sink mod Heat pad mod (update) Finally, here are pictures of what was underneath my heat sink! Processor The "2 cm" marking is aligned to the inner edge of the heatsink padding: I...

forums.macrumors.com

2018/19 mod guide:

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

Thanks Jordi for the inspiration to do this update to the MBA 2018. As you can see the performance for Cinebench has increased from 604 originally to 698. The biggest difference is that the fans don't hit full blast and sit around 4.5 - 5k and temp is solid 96 deg (97 on second run) with full...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[BLiT_Racing]

I decided to run GB5 again now that I am a few weeks into the mod. Almost hit 4k MC on my i5.

Ran on less than 10% battery without it charging.

I'm really tempted to open up again and optimize the mods but it's yielding good results so don't want to break anything lol.

How's everyone else's MBA doing post mod?

View attachment 923950
[automerge]1592098779[/automerge]

Gotta run it back to back.

Most of us who were testing earlier in the thread would run GB 3-5 times back to back, and note all results. Sustained performance will be evident then.

So... who in here said the i5 couldn't break 4000?

MacBook Air (Early 2020) - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a MacBook Air (Early 2020) with an Intel Core i5-1030NG7 processor.

browser.geekbench.com

 

[nill1234]

Congratulations!!!
That was me because the majority will get 3800-3900 i just got 3968 will try to get more than 4000 . A score over 4000 is pure luck after those mods there is no throttling anymore my temperatures stay below 80C and the frequencies follow always the same paths. But overall a stable and reproducable result of 3900 is very good but let the benchmark race begin .

Just rebooted and let it cool down on a cold box of spinach out of the fridge then rerun the test . Will do the test without cooling it down but I think a fresh reboot will mostly improve the score.

 

[ilikewhey]

OP (@ilikewhey) can you please, please update the first post to help people?

If you could please just add useful things like Robotronic's initial copper mod, @kinchee87's blog post, and actual guides and discussion on how to do this. The work has already been done, people shouldn't have to wade through 1000+ posts to find it.

It will be way more useful for people just coming here. Half of the posts in this thread are of a dude slowly bricking his 2019 MBA.

Posts with actual information in them are way more useful than 'I upped my Cinebench score by 4!'

Here, I collected them for you:

2020 i3/i5/i7 mod guides:

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

So here's the update for my v2 heatsink mod. For those of you late to the party, read my original mod post first. I ordered this set of shims from Amazon. The 0.3mm shim turns out to be the best thickness for 2020 heatsink. The set I ordered was only 15x15mm square, which is actually too small...

forums.macrumors.com

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

So I bought a second 2020 Air base i3 for my wife. Did the heatsink mod on this one right out of the gate, and took the opportunity to get some good pics of the stock thermal paste application. Also worth noting, the paste on this thing is unlike any I've ever seen. First of all its black, and...

forums.macrumors.com

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

MacBook Air 2020: i7/16GB/1TB My blog posts on the three types of mods I have done Wind channel mod Heat sink mod Heat pad mod (update) Finally, here are pictures of what was underneath my heat sink! Processor The "2 cm" marking is aligned to the inner edge of the heatsink padding: I...

forums.macrumors.com

2018/19 mod guide:

2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

Thanks Jordi for the inspiration to do this update to the MBA 2018. As you can see the performance for Cinebench has increased from 604 originally to 698. The biggest difference is that the fans don't hit full blast and sit around 4.5 - 5k and temp is solid 96 deg (97 on second run) with full...

forums.macrumors.com

done

 

[Guilherme Oliveira]

Can someone now please test increasing the TDP limits to 20W on Intel XTU?
I'm still waiting for my Core i5 MBA 2020 and I'm thrilled to see if we can narrow the gap between MBA and MBP 13 inch, cause the Core i5 MBP 13 is just the same processor that is in MBA, but MBA is in the class of Y low power CPUs, and Intel artificially limits their TDPs out of the box, if we could unlock them like some people did on the GPD win 2 and on the core M MBA, we could expect like 30 to 40% more performance if it doesn't throttle to bad.
Thanks for your work!

 

[adrianstuartt]

i don't think unlocking the TDP would be a good idea for this MBA unless you frankenstein a better HSF to the die. I think at best, you might be able to snag a few more points with a very slight undervolt.

 

[adrianlondon]

Just rebooted and let it cool down on a cold box of spinach out of the fridge then rerun the test .

Interesting mod. I expect coffee bars to soon be full of people with cool boxes and bags of frozen veg.

 

[nill1234]

without vegetables i just got 4007 Multi and 1203 Single. Hope thats my last test 😃 i am really addicted by the possibility to reach almost mbp speed.

 

[IngerMan]

Hey you i5 owners breaking 4000, it does not count running it on frozen vegetables or in your fridge. 😂😂😝

 

[kinchee87]

To be honest, I'm also not sure I want to be force-feeding frozen vegetables to my Air just to get healthy benchmark scores 😜

 

[vyruzreaper]

Hey you i5 owners breaking 4000, it does not count running it on frozen vegetables or in your fridge. 😂😂😝

my 3995 ran on my couch. 4k is possible.

 

[adrianstuartt]

i'd like to take the heatsink off an i5/i7 model to put on my i3, anybody have ideas on how to source one?

[edit/] help me break into the 1200 club xD

 

[IngerMan]

Im going to try a Gelid 1.0mm Thermal Pad 12w/mk. I seen my 1.5mm Artic pad 6w/mk was pushing enough against the bottom cover pad to leave an impression. So I want to see the difference between 1.0mm and 1.5mm. I put it back to stock a few days ago. I won't get the new pad for a week. I have plenty of the 1.5mm to duplicate again. I will report back my update.

BTY 5Y owners I don't care how much pad and frozen vegetables you sit on. You will never be in the Single Core 1300 club. 1300 owners please enter here. 😉

 

[kazune_karin]

I started to be confused whether I am now in a MBP 2020 base model thread 🤣😂🤣😂
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Can someone now please test increasing the TDP limits to 20W on Intel XTU?
I'm still waiting for my Core i5 MBA 2020 and I'm thrilled to see if we can narrow the gap between MBA and MBP 13 inch, cause the Core i5 MBP 13 is just the same processor that is in MBA, but MBA is in the class of Y low power CPUs, and Intel artificially limits their TDPs out of the box, if we could unlock them like some people did on the GPD win 2 and on the core M MBA, we could expect like 30 to 40% more performance if it doesn't throttle to bad.
Thanks for your work!

I have thought of this too but no way and no parameters to test. Any idea on that?

 

[HopelesslyConfused]

Can someone now please test increasing the TDP limits to 20W on Intel XTU?
I'm still waiting for my Core i5 MBA 2020 and I'm thrilled to see if we can narrow the gap between MBA and MBP 13 inch, cause the Core i5 MBP 13 is just the same processor that is in MBA, but MBA is in the class of Y low power CPUs, and Intel artificially limits their TDPs out of the box, if we could unlock them like some people did on the GPD win 2 and on the core M MBA, we could expect like 30 to 40% more performance if it doesn't throttle to bad.
Thanks for your work!

Intel XTU isn't compatible with these chips, they're locked down very tight. I tried it on my i5 before I returned it and it simply said 'not compatible'. So I don't think you'd be able to, and even if you were able to I don't think you'd want to because, even with all the mods, you just don't have the right cooling to prevent chip failure.

 

[adrianstuartt]

Intel XTU isn't compatible with these chips, they're locked down very tight. I tried it on my i5 before I returned it and it simply said 'not compatible'. So I don't think you'd be able to, and even if you were able to I don't think you'd want to because, even with all the mods, you just don't have the right cooling to prevent chip failure.

obligatory

 

[kazune_karin]

Intel XTU isn't compatible with these chips, they're locked down very tight. I tried it on my i5 before I returned it and it simply said 'not compatible'. So I don't think you'd be able to, and even if you were able to I don't think you'd want to because, even with all the mods, you just don't have the right cooling to prevent chip failure.

Yeah, but using VoltageShift too, you can change PL1 and PL2 power limit and turboboost time.
So theoretically, you can adjust the base PL1 TDP. But those values are unknown unless you run on the respective machines, I am curious what are the values for MacBook Pro 10th gen and Air i7.