Hi guys,

Yesterday, thanks to Jedda, I replaced the thermal paste on my MacBook Air. He replaced Apple's silicon thermal paste with IC Diamond 7 thermal paste and the drop in temperature is amazing.

Although you won't feel the change in temperature, you may notice that applications run smoother and the system on the overall is much more stable by having a low thermal ceiling. The processor doesn't shut off one core anymore when running processor intensive tasks like playing WoW. Here are some screenshots of my MacBook Air undergoing a stress test:


Before reapplication of thermal paste


After reapplication of thermal paste

interesting....so was it difficult for him to do?

Funny thing is, the picture size is larger :P

Nothing is difficult for Jedda. Fantastic bloke.

Can be located @ Streetwise

long way from arnhem land!!

oh well, maybe next time i am down visisting mum.

Apple (and its manufacturer's) use of white beryllium thermal goo is just another example of cost cutting measures ... and the goo is applied by hand, not by machine, so the amount is usually a stupidly large dollop from something that looks like it'd be used in an elephant IVF program.

All Apple laptops, not just the Air, will see a similar huge drop in operating temperatures if the white paste is removed and replaced with a very fine layer of a quality thermal compount (Arctic Silver is the most common recommended by PC-builders and modders). I've seen a second-gen MacBook go from idling at 60+ and the fans going constantly to sitting at 65 C running flat out with the fans barely ticking over, simply by removing the huge goop-pile, cleaning up the resulting mess, and applying a pinhead's worth of Arctic. Dramatic results.

Here's iFixit's snapshot of the MacBook Air logicboard.



Note the two main chips at the top edge of the board. You can see that there is a white-ish stain around the edges of the actual chip-die in the centre of each processor, which is the usual sign of ten times as much thermal paste as is actully needed.

Thermal paste (no matter what type) applied properly should never overspill the die, except for a very small 'lip'. If there's paste on the die-carrier's board, then there is far too much.

Yeah not a problem for Jedda at all. Did it all in 20 mins. It's pretty absurd how much thermal paste Apple applies onto the chip. Even with an Acer or Dell, the thermal paste application seems to be more reasonable than that dollop.

Anyone find it interesting that the fans are going faster (not by much) after the application :P

You think Apple themselves would know how do apply thermal paste properly, but oooo, no, you're wrong. These images, now removed, used to be in Apple's own Service Source guides for the MacBook and MacBook Pro, on how to apply thermal paste:


WRONG!


WRONG!

And here's a gallery of Apple / AUO's other thermal cockups, as they've arrived from the factory after the coolers have been carefully removed:


WRONG!


WRONG!


WRONG!

... and there's hundreds more like it out there on the web.

Here's some examples of the correct amount of thermal paste should be used:


CORRECT!


CORRECT!


CORRECT!

In short, you need the tiniest amount -- its purpose is to fill the incredibly tiny gaps formed during the manufacturing process of both the silicon dies and the cooler blocks. Even for a large chip like the Core2Duo, a pinhead's worth or about half a rice-grain, is sufficient. Apply to the centre of the silicon and spread with your fingertip or toothpick, you don't need to cover the entire surface evenly as the pressure of applying the cooler will ensure that it spreads and fills all the gaps.

NB: Some image content of this post is © Apple, Inc

Would be a nice little earner for people to come in, drop their laptop off, get some proper thermal paste applied and given back. Charge $50 for it

Factory application was exactly like Brain's shots. The thermal paste that I was given to apply is really sexy. Much thicker, and not as sticky as Arctic Silver 5. I like it.

Not to rain on the parade, but if they were in the Service Source guides then republishing them here might be breaking confidentiality agreements as to where they were obtained form.

I agree, sometimes I wonder wtf with regards to some of the thermal paste I've seen applied

Jedda, what would you charge if i delivered a MBA to you to do?

(PM me if you dont want to discuss in public!)

Would this void warranty?

Technically yes, unless an certified Apple Tech does it . But how would Apple ever know?