Good results with MacBook (not Pro) thermal paste reapp...anyone else?

[FullmetalZ26]

So I bought my MacBook, a black week 21, last Saturday (7/1) from the Apple Store. I've kept an eye on CoreDuoTemp (in the menubar) since I got the machine, and with the machine 'stock' I never saw temperatures stabilize below 63°C. When the machine was being lightly used (with Safari or iTunes, for example), the temperature would stay around 66 to 70 or so, and idle temperatures never dropped below 63. Using the disassembly guide from iFixit, I took the machine apart a few days ago and reapplied AS5 on the processor and chipset.

Needless to say, I'm glad I did. 30 minutes after a cold boot, the machine idles around 51-56°C, and during light use it stays around 54-61. Under heavy load (2x yes>/dev/null) it still gets up to 81 or 82, but the fans kick up to full speed right away and keep the temperature in the 70's. I let the yes>/dev/null windows churn away for 5 minutes, and after closing them the temperature dropped back to 55 or so in about 10 seconds.

Lastly, the area of the underside of the case near the magsafe and the top-left edge of the keyboard still get rather warm, but it takes considerably longer (like a few hours of constant DVD ripping) for those areas to get as hot as they would previously get while browsing the web.

I know there's already a thread similar to this one about the Pro's, but I thought I'd start one just for MacBooks to see what kind of results others have been getting, and for anyone else considering doing this.

 

[brbubba]

I've been somewhat unimpressed using ceramique. It was ok for the first two weeks, but now with light usage (10-20%) on a table its been hitting 70-72, the dreaded moo temp. Probably going to reapply with AS5.

 

[Mackilroy]

Running five or more applications simultaneously, my MacBook never gets warmer than 66 centigrade. However, I'd be interested to see if they couuld go lower if I did reapply the paste…

 

[brbubba]

I reapplied with AS5 and part of the problem was my ceramique application. Unlike a typical CPU and heatsink less is not more in this case. The contact made in the macbook between the CPU and heatsink is so poor that you need to literally apply a glob, enough to fill the space. When I pulled off the heatsink the ceramique on the GPU was only making contact on half the die.

My temps are better now but not great. About mid-50's on idle and mid 60's on the 20% screen saver test. At least good enough again to prevent the annoying moo.

I think I am done with the thermal paste thing for a while now unless someone finds a way to get more pressure on the heatsink short of bonding the thing there. Apple probable should have just done that at the factory in the first place.

 

[Shoeguy]

Thinking different

So I took a gallon zip loc glad bag, put two cups of water in, followed by a teabag. Squeeze the extra air out and close. Put 'er under your MacBook, work for a couple of hours, and you've got a nice cuppa.. Should work with ramen and a Mac Book Pro.
Grilled cheese anyone?
Shoe

 

[FullmetalZ26]

I reapplied with AS5 and part of the problem was my ceramique application. Unlike a typical CPU and heatsink less is not more in this case. The contact made in the macbook between the CPU and heatsink is so poor that you need to literally apply a glob, enough to fill the space. When I pulled off the heatsink the ceramique on the GPU was only making contact on half the die.

This almost makes me want to take the darned thing apart again, even though I used a short-ricegrain sized blob on each die. Perhaps I should have applied it, installed the heatsink, then removed and checked the coverage before applying again and reassembling. It seems to me like it's a particularly bad idea to have 2 or more heatsink surfaces directly attached to each other, because there's no way there's going to be a perfectly flat metal-on-metal contact on the dies (at least, if the number of intel 'books with warped cases are any indication of tolerances...) While having 2 separate heatsinks, and probably 2 fans, would have taken more space (and probably placed them right under the F5-F7 keys), I'd bet that we'd be seeing lower temperatures with such a setup.

 

[brbubba]

This almost makes me want to take the darned thing apart again, even though I used a short-ricegrain sized blob on each die. Perhaps I should have applied it, installed the heatsink, then removed and checked the coverage before applying again and reassembling. It seems to me like it's a particularly bad idea to have 2 or more heatsink surfaces directly attached to each other, because there's no way there's going to be a perfectly flat metal-on-metal contact on the dies (at least, if the number of intel 'books with warped cases are any indication of tolerances...) While having 2 separate heatsinks, and probably 2 fans, would have taken more space (and probably placed them right under the F5-F7 keys), I'd bet that we'd be seeing lower temperatures with such a setup.

If you did the rice sized blob you should be just fine. That particular application of ceramique that resulted in only half coverage was done by evenly smoothing the paste across the cpu die in a very thin layer. I thought this would produce better temps than a glob, and it probably would have in a desktop CPU without heat spreader.