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egutin · May 24, 2006, 07:27 AM

Since it sounds like some of you have already taken this baby apart, how tough is it? I have experience taking apart and putting back together both the original blue/white iBook and the iBook G4. This one loks easier, but I think messing up something this expensive in the first wek or so is a bad move.

Also, what are the recommendations for what to replace the thermal grease with? Is Arctic Silver the concensus?

thanks.

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 08:09 AM

Here's a link that I made that shows how: http://home.comcast.net/~jasonn/macbook/MacBook.html

mexicali100 · May 24, 2006, 08:22 AM

Originally Posted by Star-Fire

Here's a link that I made that shows how: http://home.comcast.net/~jasonn/macbook/MacBook.html

What kind of temperature differences did you find after applying aftermarket thermal grease?

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 08:42 AM

After turning on, it will slowly creep up to 49-50º at idle and max out at 77ºish at max with fan running at full. When I say slowly I mean slowly, talking 30 mins to get up to 50º Hopefuly the thermal compound will only get more effecent.

Maflynn · May 24, 2006, 10:23 AM

This link that I pulled from another thread is quite informative and while the focus if the article is the MacBook Pro, I believe its applicable to the Macbook
Macdevcenter

The conclusion from the article? while it appears the thermal greese applied by apple is more then you would expect re-applying had only a small marginal effect and even that effect could be explained away as they failed to baseline the computer before the operation.

I like the perspective that the author took, that apple has been building laptops for years and so they should know something about applying thermal grease. I'm not expert and the arguments for too much thermal grease makes sense but in this specific case the reapplication did not result in a huge difference.

My MB runs around 60c after about a half hour to an hour on under normal usage, so I don't I think I'll take a chance of taking my laptop apart. Heck, I've never applied thermal grease before so what makes me think I could do a better job.

Mike

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 11:22 AM

Yeah by all means if you don't feel comfortable opening your Macbook, don't! I've built and repaired many computers so I have no isues with opening up a computer, I'm sure most Macbooks will be fine the way they are, I just like to tinker

Maflynn · May 24, 2006, 11:34 AM

I used to do that myself back in the day, though I never applied thermal grease and to be honest, I'd rather not gamble a 1000 bucks and brick my macbook, though your website seems to indicate the disassembly is a lot easier then the MBP in my link, can you confirm deny that?

Also what's the fan constuction like, the author of the article I linked was impressed with the fan for his MBP not sure if apple is using the same for the macbook (I hope they are).

Regards
Mike

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 11:51 AM

It is much easier, becasue on the MBP you had to remove the logic board to access the heat pipe and CPU, on the Macbook they are on top of the logic board and do not require removing the board, only the fan and heatpipe. The fan in the Macbook looks to be almost the same the ones used in the MBP.

Maflynn · May 24, 2006, 12:26 PM

Thanks for the update.

Did you notice a marked descrease in temperature after reapply artic silver ?

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 01:13 PM

Yes, dropped about 9º at idle and about 6º at max, also many people report mooing sound at 69º, I have to run quite a bit now to get to that temp, when running a few apps that are a bit more CPU hungry, it tends to stay lower then that. It always runs cooler even without the paste then my MBP did and for the most part just as fast, hopefully faster then I get my 7200RPM drive in there today.

Maflynn · May 24, 2006, 01:21 PM

Yeah,
I was going to wait to get the 7200rpm drive, but I think I'll jump on it sooner then later
which model did you pick up seagate or hitachi?

I have to say your convincing my to undertake the operation myself

I'll hold off though, as my temps are around 60c but it would be nice to see that drop to the 50s

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 01:51 PM

I'm hoping it will get better with time, since the compound does set up a bit, I got the hitachi, from what I've seen it has slightly better performance and it was cheaper too. Have heard the seagate might be a bit quieter, but it's negligible.

Star-Fire · May 24, 2006, 08:02 PM

Well got my 7200 Hitachi in, boots as fast as my iMac now, still gotta see how it is for daily use, but the space is nice