aftermarket bottom cover with vent holes for mbp 13

[xxcysxx]

hi folks,

i was wondering if there is an aftermarket bottom cover with some kind of perforated vent near the fan area for cooling?

i'm so tempted in buying a extra spare bottom cover and drill some small holes near the fan area for better air flow circulation. but if there exist an aftermarket bottom cover that already has perforated holes to serve this purpose it would save me some time. a carbon fiber replacement would be even better!

i'm talking about the bottom cover that cover the mbp internals and battery. not some kind of plastic cover that just simply snap on like the incase or speck hard cover.

thanks folks

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Some guy already did that.

Honestly I think you're both nuts

 

[Prodo123]

Why are you even tempted to do this? You'll ruin the elegance of the design.

 

[ZZ Bottom]

OP your not the only one that would value the cooler temps (assuming it would work). I think a bottom plate with holes like on the speaker vent of the iPad 2 would look decent. Also I don't get the obsession with what the bottom looks like.

 

[randomrazr]

macbook pro is designed to run with holes on the botton

there are actual vents behind the hinge

yeesh go ahead and wrek ur machine than

 

[xxcysxx]

well, i thought the clearance distance between the bottom cover and the centrifugal fan is not that much, therefore the fan is not working as efficient as it should. air has to circulate into a very narrow area between the bottom cover and the logic board to get to the fan duct. it's not getting as much air as it needs to get to blow onto the fins to cool it. if it has more air moving through the fins, the fins would cool more rapidly and the fan wouldn't have to run as hard and as loud.

i don't think i will do any damage to the macbook. after all, i said i was going to buy a spare bottom cover to experiment. if it don't work out i'll just throw it away and put the original bottom cover back on. it will not hurt resale value at all.

cheap innovation like this i thought ebay would be flooded with them by now. i think its a cheap up grade for computer enthusiast who appreciate better performance and like to think outside the box a little.

if no one response with a useful resource in a few days, then maybe i'll go ahead and order a spare bottom cover to play with.

 

[stordoff]

You can try it, but I'd be surprised if it made much of a difference. You might actually find temperatures go up, as the airflow might be disturbed by the extra outlet.

 

[Young Spade]

You can try it, but I'd be surprised if it made much of a difference. You might actually find temperatures go up, as the airflow might be disturbed by the extra outlet.

There is another thread where somebody did the actual mod and saw severe drops.

Ignorance runs rampant here.

Rampant.

 

[Takashi]

There is another thread where somebody did the actual mod and saw severe drops.

Ignorance runs rampant here.

Rampant.

Young Spade is in dire need of self esteem as his ego was destroyed in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1278510/

 

[matthewscott661]

The MacBook/MacBook Pro line seems to have always been designed to draw air through the keyboard instead of the bottom as in most PC laptops.

If you put the fan up to the maximum RPM and put your hand near the keyboard you can feel the air being drawn in. Introducing vents to the bottom won't hurt anything except maybe aesthetics, but I don't believe it's all that necessary.

 

[Young Spade]

*sigh*

And how does all the hot air leave the machine? Again I refer to the old vent problem and my experiences personally.

Cutting a hole below the vent would help tremendously; while using with the bottom completely off, I see 10C drops or more across the board.

 

[Adamantoise]

*sigh*

And how does all the hot air leave the machine? Again I refer to the old vent problem and my experiences personally.

Cutting a hole below the vent would help tremendously; while using with the bottom completely off, I see 10C drops or more across the board.

Exactly.

Someone in the other thread is trying to tell me that the laptop cools better with the bottom cover on and so removing it won't aid in cooling.

As far as I'm concerned the more access to ambient air the machine has, the better it will cool. So making vents in the bottom cover of the laptop helps the machine cool down.

While I personally wouldn't do it to my computer (it never gets hot enough to bother anyway), I don't understand how people don't think that the airflow can be improved.

 

[Young Spade]

Exactly.

Someone in the other thread is trying to tell me that the laptop cools better with the bottom cover on and so removing it won't aid in cooling.

As far as I'm concerned the more access to ambient air the machine has, the better it will cool. So making vents in the bottom cover of the laptop helps the machine cool down.

While I personally wouldn't do it to my computer (it never gets hot enough to bother anyway), I don't understand how people don't think that the airflow can be improved.

This board seems to attract the "know it all but still not that smart" kind of crowd. Things get out of hand pretty easily and it's hard to resolve differences due to a large swarm of random comments at either party during it.

Ugh.

 

[matthewscott661]

Laptops use centrifugal dans for cooling. These fans draw air in through the top/bottom and expel it through the side past the heat sink. Cutting holes in the bottom of the case will not allow better hot air release past the heat sink. The vent is what it is. Taking the bottom off will just mean that heat gets dissipated through air instead of aluminum.

 

[BrickbookPro]

I don't know that's I'd want to suck in dust through the new holes that were cut.

Seems like a good way for stuff that shouldn't be in the machine to make it in.

Mine has never had heating issue playing Cod 4, MW2 or Black Ops. No issues when editing in photoshop, etc.

Mine will be staying the way it is...

 

[Wafflausages]

Laptops use centrifugal dans for cooling. These fans draw air in through the top/bottom and expel it through the side past the heat sink. Cutting holes in the bottom of the case will not allow better hot air release past the heat sink. The vent is what it is. Taking the bottom off will just mean that heat gets dissipated through air instead of aluminum.

just wondering what fan doesn't use centripetal force ? unless your fanning with your arm or have a dyson lol. the macbook will run cooler with the cover off. i dont understand whats so hard to understand here. air is air its everywhere and will go everywhere it isn't isolated within your macbook, hot air is just more concentrated with the cover on, with the cover off more air is able to get within the macbook.

 

[matthewscott661]

just wondering what fan doesn't use centripetal force ? unless your fanning with your arm or have a dyson lol. the macbook will run cooler with the cover off. i dont understand whats so hard to understand here. air is air its everywhere and will go everywhere it isn't isolated within your macbook, hot air is just more concentrated with the cover on, with the cover off more air is able to get within the macbook.

There are several other fan types including axial-flow(most common) and crossflow. I never said taking the cover off wouldn't help it cool, it very well may. The CPU temp may read as cooler, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the computer is running more efficiently or is cooler overall.
I'd like to see iStat reading of all temps with/without cover. I'd do it myself but I don't have a unibody MBP. I don't know whether or not it will prove to make a difference overall, but it won't be for quite the reasons stated in many of these posts, that's all I was trying to point out.

 

[BrickbookPro]

just wondering what fan doesn't use centripetal force ?

I stopped here, because your use of "centripetal force" doesn't make sense in this context. I think you were looking for some other word.

 

[Adamantoise]

There are several other fan types including axial-flow(most common) and crossflow. I never said taking the cover off wouldn't help it cool, it very well may. The CPU temp may read as cooler, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the computer is running more efficiently or is cooler overall.
I'd like to see iStat reading of all temps with/without cover. I'd do it myself but I don't have a unibody MBP. I don't know whether or not it will prove to make a difference overall, but it won't be for quite the reasons stated in many of these posts, that's all I was trying to point out.

I'm pretty certain the computer should run cooler.

To keep things simple lets assume a Macbook Pro without dedicated graphics ... Besides the CPU and the onboard IGP ... I don't see any other significant sources of heat in the computer. So what else will be contributing to the heat?

 

[Young Spade]

There are several other fan types including axial-flow(most common) and crossflow. I never said taking the cover off wouldn't help it cool, it very well may. The CPU temp may read as cooler, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the computer is running more efficiently or is cooler overall.
I'd like to see iStat reading of all temps with/without cover. I'd do it myself but I don't have a unibody MBP. I don't know whether or not it will prove to make a difference overall, but it won't be for quite the reasons stated in many of these posts, that's all I was trying to point out.

I'm looking at a minimum of 10°C drop across the board. Before when I went games and on OS X I got temperatures of 90 c. Now it doesn't go over 77 c.

I'm using mine with the cover completely off.

 

[BrickbookPro]

I'm looking at a minimum of 10°C drop across the board. Before when I went games and on OS X I got temperatures of 90 c. Now it doesn't go over 77 c.

I'm using mine with the cover completely off.

Wait until you get dust and such in places where it shouldn't be, then you'll be looking at a 10C increase (minimum).

 

[Takashi]

I'm looking at a minimum of 10°C drop across the board. Before when I went games and on OS X I got temperatures of 90 c. Now it doesn't go over 77 c.

I'm using mine with the cover completely off.

Wait until you spill something on the table and the liquid get inside your computer. Better yet, a ball bearing rolls under the naked macbook and short circuit something inside.

Here's an example of someone who thinks he knows everything yet he doesn't.

 

[thundersteele]

Cooling alternatives:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/filtre/205716859/lightbox/

http://gizmodo.com/5088632/the-diy-mac-pro-mini-turn-that-broken-macbook-into-a-teeny-desktop

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/laptop-cooler

 

[theSeb]

I would suggest drilling holes all over the place and not just on the bottom cover. A good drill will do the trick.

 

[Patrickl79]

It does work

First off, sorry for the reviving a dead tread bit but I just had to drop my two cents in!!!

Being the fact that I think that Apple waste WAY to much time and resources in trying to make their toy's pretty and forgetting things like function I wasn't a bit afraid to take the bottom cover off my MBP and go after it with a drill. I simple used a ruler and a pencil to lay out where the fans where located then drilled 8 8th inch holes the go around the edge of the fan opening and 4 in the center of that circle. This provides 12 8th inch holes right over the fans. The final results........ Yes in fact the computer operates at lower temperatures, big surprise as if logic wouldn't tell you that cooler air will be able to cool better then recycled hot air. Before this mod my MB would not only run hot but actually under heavy use would shut down due to overheating. Since the mod I have pushed even harder on my system running streaming audio, max graphics and constant loads on my CPU with the Temp never rising above 78 - 80 deg C.

Now the only down side that I have found is that once every couple months you do need to drop the bottom cover and used air dusters to blow the fluff out of the fans. while yes this does require you to actually do something besides just stare blankly at your MacBook Pro and pretending to be doing anything of value. For my own opinion it is a mod that is well worth the effort. On a side note I would say, if you lack the willingness to risk trying something due to fear with out reasonable logic then you really need to stop reading any article about how to mod a computer and look for forums that are geared to the lame, lazy and scared. Sorry if I offend anyone but I can't stand when people want to say something isn't going to work just because they a fearful of trying.