Some photos of my thermal mod of a 2015 retina MacBook

[Dochartaigh]

I'm going to try this on my 2017 i5 (only 217 battery cycles so hopefully lasts a lot longer!). Have a bunch of questions though (even after reading this topic and the one on Reddit).

1.) Wondering if mine is damaged beyond just old thermal paste. After initial boot where it ONLY loads my login items (anti-virus, Adobe Creative Cloud, TeamViewer, iStat Menus), which literally probably takes 3 MINUTES SOLID to load by itself, it's already up to 94-98ºC. After those load, and I exit out of them, with NOTHING running (except iStat) it idles at 60º. Just seems SO hot for no reason...

2.) I see two people mention "grounding tape", but can't find out what/where that is. Does it have to conduct electricity or the computer won't run? What to watch out for? Is there an electrically conductive glue you use if that tape won't go back on (or buy new tape)? Only mention of "ground" I see is on iFitIt where is says "2015 models have a silver GROUNDing clip with two foam pads directly under"

3.) I bought 20x20x0.3mm copper plates. Is it ideal to cut those to the EXACT size of the CPU die itself? Or is bigger better? - i.e. more thermal mass. So whatever I can fit under the existing stock heatsink plate is good to go? Even if they stick out a bit (again, more mass = greater heat dissipation in my mind, right?) - as long as they don't interfere with getting the logic board back in of course.

4.) Might have missed it, but what thickness thermal pads for between the stock heatsink and the case? 0.5mm one video mentions... my kit comes with 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2mm - which is ideal? (since I won't be able to see what sort of gap is there once it's put back together).

5.) Where the heatsink/thermal pads touch the case there's a black sticker/coating there. Some leave it, others remove - which is better? I'm perfectly fine taking a while scraping it off with a razor blade if it'll work better. Think I read somebody used copper plates + paste there instead of thermal pads? Seems like copper conducts literally 30x more heat than those pads do... so is that better still (it'll be messy with all the thermal paste... but I can stack 2x0.3mm plates=0.6mm)? I have a 20-pack of those plates...

6.) Kinda out of the realm of this topic, but what macOS are you all running for the best performance? I triple-boot Windows, Mojave, and Ventura (latest mine will take w/out hacks) because I thought Mojave ran WAY faster than Ventura... but I'm not so sure anymore. I literally only need for web browsing/YouTube/Discord, and maybe ancient version of Lightroom Classic for quick/non-complex camera RAW edits. I even turned off all the transparency effects, dock effects, window animations, etc. to help since it's been SO slow...

Fun rando fact: this thing is still VERY snappy in Windows 10 believe it or not... so much so I've been using Windows more than macOS due to MacOS just running unbearably slow due to thermal throttling constantly...

 

[Dochartaigh]

Nobody replied so I said screw it and still did the mod lol. Had to re-open to re-seat the combo keyboard/trackpad ribbon cable since it initially booted up without those working, but all in all a pretty easy mod (just make sure you have ALL the bits/drivers it calls for - I ordered the pentalope and the tri-whatever one the iFixIt tutorial mentions, but still needed to break out the Wiha precision torx set).

I DID use the 2x 0.3mm copper plates (about 2.5 of them) instead of the thermal pads due to their WAY better heat transfer. Cut/scraped the black backing off too. The plates seemed to sandwich nice and tight (but not too tight to flex the board - like the opposite side screw was maybe 1mm high - no issue) - but I am a little worried the dual layer of plates might shift over time since that thermal paste is pretty slimy (or maybe it'll solidify once more heat bakes it in – who knows lol). If I were to do it again I would have done the same but put little strips of 0.5mm thermal pads kinda surrounding the copper plates to keep them in place no matter what - but should be fine - just new thermal paste will do wonders by itself.

My temp went from (literally just from booting up and loading the background anti-virus, Adobe Creative Cloud, TeamViewer, & iStat Menus) 94-98º, and idling at 60º constantly with NOTHING running - to a MAX of 62º when I was running a CPU stress test (3x series of 5-minutes each, front-to-back) along with a GPU benchmark at the same time. Back of the case did get up to 52ºC (126º F), so def wouldn't want that to sit on a bare leg for long, but I'm usually at a table or with it on a pillow on my lap. With a couple tabs open in Chrome and Safari was right around 45º - HUGE difference.

Oh, and I saw that some people had issues with the battery getting hotter? I only stress tested for 15 minutes, but mine is perfectly fine so far.

 

[mutetourettes]

Very tempted now to try this with my 2017... has anyone gone as far as sticking a heatsink to the outside - maybe one of those RAM heatsinks? or something low-profile but wide...

like maybe one of these low-profile raspberry pi 5 heatsinks (without the screws, just thermal glue...):

https://thepihut.com/products/low-profile-heatsink-for-raspberry-pi-5

 

[Jauso]

I don't understand why the 2 copper shims are needed in between the heatsink and the CPU. They were not needed before repasting the CPU, why are they needed afterwards? Thanks

 

[jema68]

I don't understand why the 2 copper shims are needed in between the heatsink and the CPU. They were not needed before repasting the CPU, why are they needed afterwards? Thanks

To raise the heat sink and allow to touch the body to spread the heat over the body of the MacBook. Will do that in the next days to 4 of the machines.

 

[Jauso]

To raise the heat sink and allow to touch the body to spread the heat over the body of the MacBook. Will do that in the next days to 4 of the machines.

but why not just use a thicker thermal pad instead?

 

[sup123a]

I decided to mod my MacBook 12" 2017 i5 8/512 today.
The result is good. I live in tropical zone. Normally my MacBook temp is about 50-60c and can go up to 90-100c during boot and peak load.
after mod, idle temp is about 40-44c. and in peak load is about 70-75c, rarely go to80c. I browse Facebook and watch YouTube FullHD in 3 tabs simultaneously and temp is only about 55c and no throttle.

Bottom case in heatsink area, and speaker grill are hot but it is ok considering this laptop is old. I do not care about battery. It will die anyway after next few years. And no more OEM battery from apple anymore. So I will just buy an aftermarket battery it needed.

Also I accidentally break head of one heatsink screw. It is very tiny and fragile. Now I glue it and hope I will never open and re-paste it again in next 3-5 years, which maybe at that time, laptop will eventually be dead from SSD age/failure or other components failure, or CPU is too slow to run future web page standard.

 

[jema68]

About to do the same. One already prepped.