[HN Gopher] Repaste Your MacBook
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Repaste Your MacBook
        
       Author : speckx
       Score  : 145 points
       Date   : 2025-07-11 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (christianselig.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (christianselig.com)
        
       | zdw wrote:
       | If you have any of the Air models which lack fans, there's a
       | common hack of putting thermal pads between the CPU heatspreader
       | and case, effectively turning the bottom case into a large
       | heatsink, and giving your system a longer maximum performance
       | before throttling.
       | 
       | The downsides is that this makes the bottom of the case quite hot
       | on a place you can touch, but putting a plastic hardshell over
       | the entire laptop deals with that, and also gives protection.
        
         | evanjrowley wrote:
         | Thanks for that info. I've been interested in this hack and use
         | plastic hard shells, but have been concerned that the plastic
         | covering might prevent proper heat dissipation. It sounds like
         | the tradeoff is worth it.
        
         | ianferrel wrote:
         | Making the bottom case a heatsink and then putting a plastic
         | insulator around it seems to defeat the purpose of the whole
         | attempt?
        
           | delusional wrote:
           | I take him saying:
           | 
           | > a longer maximum performance before throttling.
           | 
           | As implying that the purpose is to increase the thermal mass,
           | not necessarily the dissipation. It should still be able to
           | reach maximum performance for longer, it will then just also
           | take longer to settle back down again.
        
             | zdw wrote:
             | This is the correct interpretation - you get a bit longer
             | max clockspeed due to the thermal mass (and thus more heat
             | overall).
             | 
             | Is the added plastic shell case a "bandaid on a bandaid"
             | sort of solution to deal with that heat? Absolutely. But
             | you might want that case anyway - I've had several laptops
             | that would have had broken screens or were yanked off a
             | desk by an attached cable and survived by the sacrificial
             | plastic shell taking the impact.
             | 
             | Like all things, it's a tradeoff to consider.
        
             | ianferrel wrote:
             | Makes sense.
        
           | manaskarekar wrote:
           | It's pulling the heat away from a concentrated region into a
           | larger region.
           | 
           | Performance numbers reflect the optimization. I personally
           | haven't done it for fear of affecting the battery lifespan
           | (and possibly other components' lifespans.)
           | 
           | Really hard to resist due to its simplicity and noticeable
           | improvements.
        
           | exe34 wrote:
           | Reminds me of the advice given for outdoor electronics: make
           | sure your enclosure is absolutely watertight, and then drill
           | a hole in the bottom to drain any residual buildup from
           | humidity.
        
           | fph wrote:
           | Not to mention paying premium for an extra-thin computer and
           | then making it thicker with a plastic hardshell.
        
         | phoronixrly wrote:
         | I hope apple engineers see this and cringe as hard as I do each
         | time people have to come to such hacks to work around their
         | infamous thermal design...
         | 
         | Take the product expected to have top-notch design with best in
         | its class UX and discover you need to open it up and make a
         | hardware modification and then cover its metal body with a
         | cheap-looking plastic case...
         | 
         | If you run Asahi on it as well, at this point why even bother
         | with Apple...
        
           | Retric wrote:
           | Price discrimination, MacBooks aren't their top of the line
           | product so it's intentionally less powerful than it could be.
        
       | gruez wrote:
       | The author should benchmark a few months afterwards. A common
       | problem with using "PC" thermal pastes (for lack of a better
       | word) is that they experience more pump out than whatever they
       | use for laptops, so a few months later the performance might end
       | up worse than before he changed the paste.
        
         | LorenDB wrote:
         | Maybe thermal pads then? I use PTM7950 in my desktop.
        
           | bn-l wrote:
           | That's pcm. A thermal pad is a thicker thing.
           | 
           | I use the same one in my pc and it's awesome.
        
             | LorenDB wrote:
             | Out of curiosity, where did you get your PTM7950? I bought
             | from LTT but I'd be interested to know if there are other
             | good sources.
        
               | craftkiller wrote:
               | I'm not the person you asked but I got all of my PTM7950
               | from moddiy[0]. I've put it in my laptop, desktop, and
               | steam deck. Benchmarked my desktop and laptop before
               | putting it in and both of them saw improved performance
               | and lower temperatures.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.moddiy.com/products/Honeywell-PTM7950-SP-
               | Super-H...
        
       | dsego wrote:
       | I recently paid 60 euros to get my 14" m1 macbook cleaned, it was
       | extremely dusty inside, so much so that the left fan started
       | making strange squealing noises and then a pinging sonar-type
       | sound every few seconds. Luckily with the combination of the fan
       | control app and the built in apple diagnostic tool I managed to
       | determine it was probably the fan and brought it to the local
       | service shop to disassemble and clean. Now the only things left
       | are to replace the original battery which is at 75% and replace
       | the rustling speaker which was damaged by ants getting inside
       | through the vents and chewing on it.
        
       | gdbsjjdn wrote:
       | I love "the process was quite friendly" coupled with "two of the
       | connectors broke when I looked at them and one costs hundreds of
       | dollars to replace".
        
         | diggan wrote:
         | To be fair, compared to the typical Apple experience of
         | modifying stuff, that is quite friendly.
         | 
         | Although author seems to have broken the TouchID sensor and
         | button in the process, which is less neat and maybe not so
         | friendly even for Apple.
        
           | pier25 wrote:
           | > _that is quite friendly_
           | 
           | Maybe if you're referring to iPhones and iPads.
           | 
           | The Intel Macbooks were always super easy to open for cleanup
           | or replacing parts. I did it for years and never broke
           | anything.
        
             | diggan wrote:
             | > Maybe if you're referring to iPhones and iPads.
             | 
             | Or the new laptops ;) They're no longer Intel Macbooks, and
             | compared to laptops from other brands, the new Apple
             | hardware seems way harder (although I'd confess to not
             | having the experience of picking any of the M* models apart
             | personally). https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-
             | repairability-sc...
             | 
             | Didn't the latest iPhones have some sort of "repairability"
             | push or something? Don't remember exactly, but seems to
             | have given me the idea that Apple is moving towards making
             | it easier to repair the iPhones specifically.
        
               | pier25 wrote:
               | > _Or the new laptops ;)_
               | 
               | Yeah that was obvious from the OP :)
        
               | fckgw wrote:
               | Yes, they moved all their batteries away from glued
               | adhesives to "Command Strips" pull-tab style adhesive
               | pads. Same pads have been on the laptops for a bit as
               | well. The latest iPhone also rotated the guts to where
               | the battery is easier to get to and does not require
               | removal of the logic board.
               | 
               | https://www.ifixit.com/News/100693/more-modular-than-
               | ever-be...
        
               | sokoloff wrote:
               | I'm something like 3 for 20 lifetime in getting those
               | CommandStrip style adhesives to release completely, no
               | matter how many videos I watch for technique.
        
               | 05 wrote:
               | Yeah at this point I don't even bother, just heat up the
               | phone with a hair dryer until it's hot to touch and then
               | rip out the battery, never got one out in anything else
               | but a horribly bent condition. Pro tip: discharge the
               | device to 0% before, so that if it's accidentally pierced
               | during that delicate process it won't set everything on
               | fire. If I ever need to do the same thing with a laptop,
               | I'll try to get my hands on a barrel of sand just in
               | case..
        
         | volkl48 wrote:
         | Kind of a thing that isn't uniquely difficult if you've ever
         | worked in a laptop before, hard if you've never done it.
         | 
         | -----
         | 
         | The ZIF connectors for those fans aren't different or much more
         | fragile than the ones in most other laptops.
         | 
         | The adhesives on certain cables tend to trip people up a bit
         | with causing them to pull more than they should and damage
         | things.
         | 
         | Gently working under and releasing the adhesives on those fan
         | cables with the spudger (or a fingernail) before you even start
         | trying to move/unplug them will work a lot better for not
         | tearing things than grabbing them with tweezers will.
         | 
         | The TouchID cable _is_ fragile. Still shouldn 't be any serious
         | risk of breaking if you know to treat it with caution, but that
         | would always be the one to take the most care with and watch
         | the most closely while you're working around it.
         | 
         | -----
         | 
         | The secondary challenge is pretty much just making sure you
         | have all the cables out of the way when you're putting the
         | board back in, because you've got a dozen or more that you need
         | to watch the positioning of and/or tape out of the way.
        
           | jchw wrote:
           | Honestly I think this is overstating things, most connectors
           | on most laptops and phones are surprisingly robust. I've
           | opened god knows how many laptops and phones, including some
           | iPhones, and really those tiny ribbon cables have surprised
           | me. Funny enough the one time I did break a ribbon cable it
           | was actually the right joycon rail on a Nintendo Switch and
           | it was quite an unreasonable amount of force I applied (by
           | accident, of course...) I always smile a little seeing people
           | on YouTube with super fine pliars carefully and tenderly
           | taking off connectors, I usually use a butter knife or
           | something like that to get them off and then replace them
           | just using my finger. I actually worry more about carelessly
           | creasing them too much rather than ripping them. Some of
           | those things feel like they would require quite a lot of
           | force to actually outright rip.
           | 
           | The actual issue I have with phones isn't that the
           | connectors/cables break apart if you look at them funny, it's
           | actually the god damn screens are insane to deal with and
           | replace, with all of that adhesive crap.
           | 
           | This all to say, I think Apple is doing poorly here, their
           | ribbon cables should probably be more robust on these often
           | quite expensive devices. I know they can do it because I've
           | experienced Apple devices with pretty robust internals...
           | (and also similarly, have seen and heard of Apple devices
           | where they've mysteriously cheaped out on components like
           | voltage regulators and made their devices totally
           | unnecessarily worse and more failure prone.)
        
           | danieldk wrote:
           | I changed/replaced a bunch of things in my ThinkPad T14
           | without any issues, it's very easy, it is clearly made to
           | open up and update. I wouldn't dare to do that with my
           | MacBook Pro.
        
             | tlavoie wrote:
             | That "made to open up and update" aspect is exactly why I
             | switched when my 2013 (Retina) MBP crapped out. I had just
             | spent $300 CAD to replace the battery, which involved the
             | glued-together mess of battery, top case, keyboard and
             | trackpad. So when the charging circuit died on motherboard
             | right after, I was not keen to spend much more to just get
             | back to baseline. They wouldn't even countenance the idea
             | of my giving them more money, so that I could get a board
             | with _more_ soldered-on RAM.
             | 
             | Switched to a P50 with twice as much RAM, and that's just
             | one socket of four. Since upgraded to the max, with bigger
             | SSD, it's still a beast.
             | 
             | Compare with Apple's use of glue and special screws, when
             | Lenovo provides detailed service manuals on its web site.
        
               | LtWorf wrote:
               | A disk broke in my thinkpad under warranty. I told them I
               | preferred to change it myself because I needed the
               | computer. They just sent the new disk and I did it by
               | myself.
        
               | tlavoie wrote:
               | Right? That's awesome. With a spare bay, I got an adapter
               | for my Mac-specific SSD, so still have that working in a
               | not-dead, fixable device.
        
             | teaearlgraycold wrote:
             | I normally use an M3 MacBook Air, but I still have my T430
             | from college and I love how upgradable and hackable it is.
             | 
             | What I've done so far:
             | 
             | * Maxed out the RAM to 16GB (using lower voltage DIMMs to
             | increase battery life)
             | 
             | * Swapped to a larger 9 cell battery
             | 
             | * Upgraded the CPU (and thermal paste) from a 2 core/4
             | thread i5 to a 4 core/8 thread i7
             | 
             | * Flashed a custom BIOS to remove the WiFi card whitelist
             | and installed an Intel 7260 WiFi AC + Bluetooth card
             | 
             | * Replaced the stock 1600x900 TN panel with a 1920x1080 IPS
             | display
             | 
             | * Replaced the barrel charging port with a USB-C connector
             | (requires a 20v USB PD power supply, but those aren't super
             | rare or expensive)
             | 
             | * Replaced the HDD with an SSD
             | 
             | * Replaced the optical drive and a 2.5" drive enclosure and
             | installed a second SSD
             | 
             | Future projects:
             | 
             | * Flash Coreboot
             | 
             | * Upgrade to a faster i7
             | 
             | * Upgrade to a 1440p IPS panel
             | 
             | * Swap to a T420 keyboard
        
         | axoltl wrote:
         | I'm actually very surprised this happened. I've dis- and
         | reassembled dozens of iPhones (from the iPhone 4 all the way up
         | to the iPhone 16) and I've never torn a single flex cable.
         | 
         | You just have to be careful not to pull on the flex, but the
         | connector instead. This logic applies as much to pulling a plug
         | out of a wall socket as it does a thin flex with a board-to-
         | board connector.
         | 
         | That said, would I characterize disassembling any Apple product
         | as "quite friendly"? No. Do not attempt unless you're either
         | familiar with how things go together or you're willing to spend
         | the money to replace the parts you broke. If those aren't
         | options, find a local repair shop.
        
           | diffuse_l wrote:
           | I tried to repair a macbook air, and did manage to tear the
           | microphone cable, because I didn't notice the connector :|
           | 
           | Like you said, you need to be careful, but you better be
           | prepared to pay dearly (or manage without) for your
           | mistakes...
        
             | mh- wrote:
             | Maybe I'm not adventurous enough, but I would never open an
             | Apple product without a teardown video/instructions at
             | hand. iFixit is a fantastic resource if they have covered
             | your device previously.
        
       | jeron wrote:
       | this read more like "Do Not Repaste Your MacBook". There's no way
       | this was worth 5 degrees and 100 points in cinbench (sic)
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | I mean, even the title very clearly says "(but don't)".
        
           | meatmanek wrote:
           | For some reason, the HN title has had that part removed. I
           | think it used to contain it, so I guess the mods edited the
           | title after the fact? Or maybe I'm misremembering.
        
       | rglullis wrote:
       | "Once you ignore that it lost Touch ID and will have to pay
       | _hundreds of dollars_ to Apple for the privilege of repairing it,
       | the process was quite smooth ".
       | 
       | The Stockholm syndrome is strong with this one.
        
         | kstrauser wrote:
         | Also, the sarcasm.
        
         | speedgoose wrote:
         | By the way, the Stockholm syndrome isn't scientifically a
         | thing.
        
           | xandrius wrote:
           | Still drive across a point.
        
           | carlosjobim wrote:
           | It is a particular and well documented event, which happened
           | in physical reality on this planet. You can easily find all
           | the evidence you could ever ask for.
        
             | moi2388 wrote:
             | Did you actually read about it? Because the entire story is
             | more a warning for malpractice of the psychiatrist in
             | question than an actual effect.
             | 
             | The government told the woman to find solace in dying on
             | the job. The woman was critical of this so the psychiatrist
             | claimed she had sexual attraction to the hostage taker
        
             | LtWorf wrote:
             | I think not wanting to die killed by police doesn't
             | automatically mean you're in love with your captors.
        
         | agloe_dreams wrote:
         | It was a joke...also the Author is a bit of a software legend -
         | he is the dev behind Apollo for Reddit, the app that reddit
         | killed that caused the whole revolt. A one man show that made
         | an app so much better than a multi-billion dollar company that
         | people literally would prefer to quit the site than switch.
        
           | bigyabai wrote:
           | "Software legend" might be stretching it. His app was
           | popular, and when Reddit pulled the plug there was
           | discontent, but nothing was really ever resolved. It's more
           | of a software parable against being overly reliant on a
           | single centralized company that can kick your revenue out
           | from underneath you at the drop of a hat. *glares at Tim
           | Cook*
           | 
           | They say you either learn history or are doomed to repeat it.
        
             | hu3 wrote:
             | Yeah, with due respect, calling a popular app developer a
             | "software legend" is a disservice to the likes of Fabrice
             | Bellard (FFmpeg, QEMU, QuickJS).
        
             | rglullis wrote:
             | He could've easily taken down Reddit if he wanted. He just
             | needed to port Apollo to Lemmy and get people to migrate. I
             | personally offered him help to set up as many servers
             | needed to get the migration going.
             | 
             | But not only he refused, he went on to mock the other
             | developers who were implementing an Apollo-like client for
             | Lemmy (Voyager) and went on to work on a YouTube viewer for
             | the Vision Pro.
             | 
             | It seems like some people just _enjoy_ being put in a cage
             | and get constantly abused.
        
           | rglullis wrote:
           | Yeah, I am familiar with Chris. He is the one that developed
           | a popular application for someone else's platform (Reddit)
           | and was rewarded by it by getting the CEO accusing him of
           | extortion attempts.
           | 
           | Then, after realizing that Reddit's management was just using
           | him as a scapegoat and to justify the API closing off, what
           | does he do? He could've used his influence to get people out
           | of Reddit and porting Apollo to some other alternative, he
           | went on to spend a good part of an year working on, you
           | guessed it, an YouTube client for Apple's Vision Pro.
           | 
           | Sorry, but a sibling comment has it right: Chris does not
           | suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. It's full-on Battered Wife
           | Syndrome.
        
         | attentive wrote:
         | how does he turn it on without a power button?
        
       | maz1b wrote:
       | While I can appreciate the intent of this blog post.. I don't see
       | how the title should be "repaste your Macbook" when touch ID
       | breaks and the button stops working.
       | 
       | Doesn't Apple offer this service if you have AppleCare+? or even
       | if you dont? that way its on them?
        
       | pram wrote:
       | A nice and unexpected thing about the current MBPs is they
       | usually have their fan completely turned off. There was barely
       | any dust in my M1 Max MBP when I looked.
        
       | moribvndvs wrote:
       | > The fan was incredibly easy to swap out (hats off there,
       | Apple!)
       | 
       | After reading this, an Apple middle manager is gathering an
       | emergency meeting to figure out who fucked up
        
       | smallpipe wrote:
       | I remember doing it on a thinkpad. I didn't break any cables, I
       | didn't need a guide, and it got significantly quieter afterwards.
       | Macbooks are pretty, they've got a great CPU, but the
       | repairability is just rubbish
        
         | thewebguyd wrote:
         | Same with most dell laptops I've owned. Pop off the back panel
         | and everything is there, easily accessible, standard screws.
         | Just did this on an Inspiron I have, just about 8 screws, pop
         | the heat sync off, repaste, reassemble and done. Took like 15
         | minutes. Plus the RAM and SSD are also easily accessible and
         | replaceable, as is the battery in a matter of minutes.
        
           | sethhochberg wrote:
           | The part I have a hard time with as a corporate purchaser is
           | that the failure/repair/replacement rate on our small number
           | of Dell machines is upwards of 50%. We've only got about a
           | dozen in use, and less then half of them have just worked
           | reliably. At a certain point I don't really care how
           | repairable the Macbooks we buy for almost everyone else
           | are/aren't because the failure rate on those is trivial by
           | comparison.
           | 
           | I'm glad the Dell repair guy who gets sent out has a pleasant
           | experience when he replaces the guts of a machine but my team
           | still has to spend time and money shipping around
           | replacements and dealing with warranty repair at a rate we
           | just don't see with the Apple gear.
           | 
           | Once upon a time our entire corporate fleet was all Macbooks
           | but the only thing we had worse luck with than these Dells
           | was training nontechnical users on how to get to their Excel
           | or specialized actuarial/compliance software through
           | virtualization
        
             | thewebguyd wrote:
             | No argument there. Where I work (I'm in infrastructure, not
             | a dev) we've switched almost entirely to MacBooks and
             | experienced the same when were a Dell shop. Horrible
             | reliability. We've been on Macs since ~2023 and I've yet to
             | need to send one off for repair or RMA.
             | 
             | I keep them for use at home as Linux machines because of
             | the repairability and ease of upgrading, but my main
             | machine is still a Mac.
             | 
             | I'd love MacBook level of hardware quality combined with
             | easy access to repair and swap parts.
        
               | jorvi wrote:
               | IBM saw their internal tech support requirement plummet
               | when they switched to MacBooks.
               | 
               | I've never understood companies that cheap out on
               | laptops. Even if you only pay someone minimum wage
               | (EUR1800), a high end laptop is ~1 month wage, and you
               | get a tax write-off on it too.
               | 
               | Even if that person only works there for 2 years, that's
               | 4.2% of the cost of employing them.
               | 
               | Even worse is when management doles maxed out iPhones and
               | MacBooks Pros out to themselves, but the main workforce
               | has to make do with EUR650 craptops and cheap Samsung
               | phones. For me that's always a double red flag because it
               | tells me management is both inept and greedy.
        
         | reddalo wrote:
         | > repairability is just rubbish
         | 
         | I wonder if something will change for the better in the future,
         | given that the EU will force (from 18th February 2027) every
         | computer sold in the EU to have removable and replaceable
         | batteries.
        
           | xandrius wrote:
           | Waiting for that day to come before even considering buying
           | my own macbook. Let's see.
        
       | thimabi wrote:
       | I wonder if Apple itself offers repasting services via AppleCare.
       | For someone like me, with little experience in handling
       | electronics, it might be better than trying to fiddle with the
       | MacBook's internals.
        
         | reddalo wrote:
         | Offering such a service would be an admission by Apple that
         | their products are not God-tier.
        
       | t1234s wrote:
       | I had to do this to my 2012 MBP (along with fixing the gpu solder
       | problem) and I found it wasn't that hard to disassemble /
       | reassemble. Also replacing the battery, upgrading the ram/storage
       | was very easy to do. Contrast this to my 2017 MBP which has to
       | score on the top 10 list of worst apple products of all time as
       | far as quality and ease of repair go.
       | 
       | Have these new M3/4 MPBs gone back at all to being easy to
       | dismantle or change the battery in? The OP with their M1
       | mentioned tearing overly thin ribbon cables.
        
         | jpalomaki wrote:
         | I replaced battery and did repaste on Intel MacBook Pro (with
         | Touch Bar). Quite tedious process. So many extremely tiny
         | screws with different sizes and all those small connectors.
         | Having been mostly opening ThinkPads before I wasn't really
         | prepared for it. Also did the mistake of not reading the full
         | instructions before starting. The process took way longer than
         | I expected and with zillion teeny tiny half millimeter screws
         | on table I was afraid to take a break.
        
         | hengheng wrote:
         | I was tempted to do that with my first-gen Intel MacBook
         | because it just wouldn't run quiet when idle, that is until I
         | discovered by how much I could undervolt that chip with a
         | random tool that I could just download. I believe I went from
         | 1.26V to 1.03V, or at least these are the numbers still etched
         | into my brain.
         | 
         | Ratio of the squares of those numbers is 2/3, and so the laptop
         | was certainly quiet without having to open it up. But I was
         | surprised at Intel's product back then.
        
         | lisnake wrote:
         | I fixed the eGPU disconnecting issue on my 2012 MacBook Pro by
         | placing the entire motherboard inside an oven for 10 minutes (a
         | rather unconventional solution for reballing). So, yes,
         | MacBooks from that era were not as fragile as they are now. By
         | the way, that laptop still works.
        
           | RattlesnakeJake wrote:
           | I cut my Apple-repairing teeth on an iBook G3 that would lose
           | its BGA-soldered GPU if it overheated. The "fix" was to use a
           | heat gun, propane torch (my choice), or even burning alcohol
           | to gently reflow the solder:
           | 
           | https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/repairing-
           | ibook-g3-grap...
           | 
           | I did it at least three times before that laptop died. Fun
           | times.
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | > Have these new M3/4 MPBs gone back at all to being easy to
         | dismantle or change the battery in?
         | 
         | No.
         | 
         | They're not as bad as the touchbar era (which was truly awful)
         | but they're still a lot worse than the unibodies: ifixit scored
         | the unibodies at 7/10, the apple silicon generation get 4/10
         | (although the criteria have changed a bit so the comparison is
         | not quite 1:1 this matches my impression: while I've not yet
         | had to dive into my M1P's guts what I've seen of it don't seem
         | easy, while I was able to easily dive in and out of my 2010 and
         | replaced the ram, the battery, the drive (twice), the
         | superdrive (by an HDD tray, then put the superdrive back a few
         | years later), the fans, ...
         | 
         | And the Unibody was a step down from my previous polycarbonate
         | macbook in terms of accessibility (the battery could just be
         | popped out, and let you access the RAM and HDD without even
         | having to unscrew the case).
        
       | haiku2077 wrote:
       | Don't use regular thermal paste or pads in a Mac. They're not
       | suitable for non-pressure mounted applications.
       | 
       | You can buy TCRS Carbon Black if you really need to repaste a Mac
       | part instead of swapping a new part that was pasted at the
       | factory.
        
       | dmsnell wrote:
       | Several years ago I replaced the thermal paste in my MacBook Pro
       | and I did it in two steps: first to high-end paste; and second to
       | liquid metal.
       | 
       | The results were impressive, and I think it's a bit veiled how
       | paste degradation over time impacts perceived laptop speeds. I've
       | been tempted to replace the paste on new devices but haven't
       | taken that plunge.
       | 
       | https://fluffyandflakey.blog/2019/04/13/increasing-thermal-h...
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Need to repaste and replace pads on my 3090 (appears to be
       | overheating) and dreading the process, especially the pads.
       | 
       | >[After] Max CPU temperature: 96degC
       | 
       | What? Is that normal for macs?
       | 
       | Vaguely unrelated I'm only buying thermal grizzly paste in
       | future...that factory tour they did was super impressive.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsIk_mMrt2w
        
         | dwood_dev wrote:
         | GPUs are quite easy to repaste. Just order the correct
         | replacement thermal pads in advance and the whole thing is
         | easy.
        
           | Havoc wrote:
           | Yeah I'm optimistic. Just anxious cause paying for a new 24gb
           | nvidia card is something I could do without in this GPU
           | market
           | 
           | Found a yt that for my precise card being repadded though so
           | should be ok
        
         | dontlaugh wrote:
         | It's normal for any CPU under load with correctly sized cooling
         | to be just under its maximum temperature, which is often 100.
        
       | ErrorNoBrain wrote:
       | someone made a youtube video not too long ago (i think was that
       | guy who made the 3rd party ssd upgrade kits?) he said that apple
       | uses a special type of thermal paste... not that its some super
       | awesome unique product, it's just that its not a paste in the
       | typical sense, like you'd use on a GPU or CPU. It's more like a
       | "putty".
        
       | drewolbrich wrote:
       | I have a 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro that I use every day, and I
       | don't hear the fans...at least not yet.
       | 
       | I wonder how my situation differs from Christian's.
        
         | mdasen wrote:
         | Same. One difference might be how much stress we put on the
         | machine. I believe thermal paste does degrade faster with more
         | heat and Christian says that he throws a lot at it: video
         | editing, code compiling, CAD models.
         | 
         | It might make a difference how much usage is being put on the
         | machine leading to degradation of the original thermal paste
         | faster or slower.
        
       | wyclif wrote:
       | Is it possible to clean the dust out of the M1+ models without
       | cracking them open?
        
       | hhh wrote:
       | I use my M1 Max every day and still have only heard the fans once
       | when it kernel panicked.
        
       | mrexroad wrote:
       | I remember having to do this with the 2006 MBP, the first Intel
       | books, when they were new.
        
         | amatecha wrote:
         | I got the first intel Mac Mini (Core Solo), and it only
         | survived a year or two before something on the logic board
         | literally burned up. Not a good first impression on the
         | switchover to the new architecture :(
        
       | dclowd9901 wrote:
       | >But where I also really notice it is in idling: just writing
       | this blog post my CPU was right at 46degC the whole time, where
       | previously my computer idled right aroud 60degC. The whole
       | computer just feels a bit healthier.
       | 
       | I get this same feeling whenever I change the fluids on my cars.
       | I know from a practical perspective, it's very little changed,
       | but I can't help feeling like the car just feels like it's in a
       | better place. Which I guess it is? But I know it's entirely
       | mental.
        
       | mxfh wrote:
       | Weirdest disconnect of content to headline. In short: If your M1
       | is still working fine, don't do what I did.
        
       | Eric_WVGG wrote:
       | I wouldn't trade a modern Macbook for an old one by any stretch,
       | but man, you could really have some fun with those older models.
       | 
       | I gave my modded 17" 2009 "cafeteria tray" Macbook Pro to my
       | father, and after using it for many more years, he brought it in
       | for... something. I had replaced the internal optical drive with
       | an SSD and reformatted it as a "Fusion Drive" (a kind of smart
       | multi-drive partition that would put commonly-accessed things on
       | an SSD and large rarely-used storage on an HD, identified as a
       | single drive), apparently every Genius Bar employee crammed
       | around the table because they had never seen any Apple computer
       | like it :D
        
         | ravetcofx wrote:
         | Fusion was so terrible and unreliable in my experience. they
         | were still selling fusion iMacs till 2020, and it honestly
         | seemed faster to just disable the fusion and let it be HDD
         | only. I saw so many failures and data loss with that.
        
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