
Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven - ColinWright
http://ifixit.org/blog/6882/why-i-drilled-holes-in-my-macbook-pro-and-put-it-in-the-oven/
======
digitalsushi
There is an alternate universe where every time he took his computer apart, he
skipped the reflow heat stuff and just put it back together... and it worked
identically for identical periods of time between failures. I'm not saying
it's this universe, I'm just saying there is one out there.

~~~
fein
Are you in my living room?

A few months ago I disassembled and cleaned a grape juice damaged MBP. Tried
it afterward and no dice. Tried it yesterday on a bored whim and I now have a
working MBP with a sticky keyboard. Why? I have no idea.

~~~
pm
Heh. I caught in the rain with my MacBook Air, and it worked fine for a day,
but then wouldn't boot up at all and wouldn't hold charge. Three weeks later
and rice and all that jazz and nothing. A couple months later, the charger
showed a light, but it wouldn't boot and never lit up green.

Six months from the first incident, and I randomly plugged it in and it booted
instantly - I was ecstatic. It lasted two weeks before it wouldn't boot up
again. A week later, it booted up again, and has been fine ever since.

Beats me man. Apple "Geniuses" wouldn't touch it and wanted me to buy a new
one.

~~~
xenophonf
One weird trick I remember from alt.hackers was using WD-40 to remove the
water from soaked electronics, and then using high-purity isopropyl(?) alcohol
to clean off the WD-40. (You'd want to remove the WD-40 since it would attract
dust.)

~~~
Alupis
That's interesting, I'd think you'd just use rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) of
>95%, since it will evaporate very rapidly by itself, taking any moisture with
it. It also has great cleaning properties by itself (often used to eat the
thermal paste gunk off heatsinks). Isopropyl alcohol is what "Swimmers Ear
Drops" are mostly made of (for when you get water stuck in your ear).

------
uptown
My early 2011 MBP has had one logic board replaced so far at my own expense a
short while after AppleCare expired. This site has been compiling relevant
information to those experiencing the same problem, and the #mbp2011 hashtag
on Twitter is also a good resource for those affected:

[http://mbp2011.org/](http://mbp2011.org/)

[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mbp2011](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mbp2011)

~~~
jerrytsai
Yes, this problem is widespread and unacknowledged by Apple.

[https://www.change.org/p/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-
all-2...](https://www.change.org/p/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-
all-2011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure)

It's ludicrous that to attempt to fix this problem, you would have to go so
far as to bake your laptop.

It cost me over $US 500 to get this fixed at an Apple Store.

~~~
some1else
Had two 2007 MacBook Pro's break down that way. Local Apple Care Service
providers didn't want to apply Apple-mandated extended warranty. I was pretty
disappointed to find out that later models exhibited similar flaws, because
the soldering issue of 2007 models was blamed on nVidia.

When a friend was buying her mother a christmas present iPad, I went with her
to examine which models handle the tablet workload better. We ended up picking
an older generation, non-retina model. A few previous generation retina
models, presumably running latest iOS updates, had ridiculously high
temperatures just idling on the shelf.

~~~
Zak
Nvidia made a run of defective GPUs somewhere around 2007-2008. Tom's Hardware
claims[0] that _all_ G84 and G86 GPUs other than warranty replacements
produced in late 20008 are defective.

It's not a BGA solder issue like we've seen on numerous laptop GPUs over the
years, but a problem with the internal interconnects. Heating it, as if to
reflow a BGA does temporarily solve the problem, but in my experience, the
period of time it keeps working after heating gets shorter each time.

[0] [http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-g84-g86-chips-
overhe...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-g84-g86-chips-
overheating,6121.html)

------
ortusdux
I always recommend looking into having laptops covered through your insurance
company. I have state farm, and my wife and I have our laptops under personal
article policies. The coverage is better, broader, and cheaper that anything
else I've seen. My wife recently got a surface pro 3 to use during her forest
soils PhD, and I was adamant we get nice insurance if she was going to be
using it in the field. Two years of no deductible spill, drop, and malfunction
coverage through squarespace is 280$. I get the same coverage plus theft and
loss for 40 a year through my insurer. And it is a 3 block walk to the office
where I can eat pastries and drink coffee while I file a claim. I have only
had to file one claim, but it was for a head crash and they covered a new hard
drive w/out question.

I'm not saying it is a good fit for everyone, but it works out well for me. I
do recommend squarespace for individual parts of a self-built tower pc. I
spent 120 on a motherboard and on the third replacement spquarespace upgraded
me because it turned out that model had an almost 50% failure rate in the
first year.

~~~
Nitramp
Don't buy insurance for things that won't ruin you.

The insurer will calculate the risk of whatever happening, and obviously
charge more than likelihood * cost.

So unless your risk is higher than average, you're losing money. And keep in
mind that the average insurance taker probably has higher risk than the
overall population.

~~~
matthewmacleod
This is awful advice!

Losing a smartphone isn't going to ruin me, but it sure would piss me off to
have to fork out £500 or whatever because it gets jacked. Similarly, someone
could break into my house and clean it out. Not going to ruin me, but I'd
rather not have to replace everything.

The whole point of insurance is collective risk-spreading. Yes, this means
that the majority (by value) of people with insurance will have 'wasted'
money, in the sense that they purchase insurance without claiming. But that's
not what they're purchasing – they're trading off a small, certain cost for
the elimination of a large, uncertain cost. That's a purchase of 'certainty'
or 'stability' – and it's what they get.

In other words, since you have no reliable way to understand risk and
likelihood of a particular event happening, it's not possible to decide if you
are at a higher risk than average.

~~~
WalterBright
Over time, you're probably paying 2x or 3x in insurance premiums compared with
what the loss would be.

Consider also the overall effect if you invested the premiums instead of
paying them.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
This is also nutty. The guy is clearly risk-averse, which means if he did
invest he would go for a risk-free rate, which is.... 0.90% right now?

~~~
jamiepenney
I've had this conversation with friends before. Some people can't see outside
their own risk profile.

------
spost
Just a note to anyone here who may be having this problem: I had an early 2011
MBP, the GPU died three times in three months. Apple charged me $300 to fix it
the first time, did it for free the second time because it was still under
repair warranty, and then replaced the machine entirely with a brand new 15"
MBPr the third time. Obviously, the fact that it failed three times in as many
months is unacceptable (and probably uncommon) but if you're struggling with
this, do set up a genius bar appointment and see if they can do anything for
you.

~~~
snowwrestler
I was sitting in an Apple store getting the battery replaced on my MacBook
Air. It only lasted 300 cycles instead of the 1,000 it is supposed to. My
battery replacement was free despite being outside the 1 year warranty.

Next to me a woman had brought in her laptop because of problems (did not
overhear what), and they replaced it for free despite it being 3 years old.

I definitely agree that the first step with Apple stuff is to see what they'll
do for you. Hitting the Apple store is the best way to do that, but they're
not everywhere. I wonder if the mail-in folks have as much latitude to please
the customer. (And of course if you mail it in, you're missing your computer
for at least a week or two.)

~~~
mgkimsal
If you go to the store, you're missing it for days as well. I was told a
repair would take 3-5 biz days after I dropped it off - drop off on Monday,
Tuesday is first biz day, etc. So.. effectively up to 1 week no computer, out
min $300, and no replacement in the meantime.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
It probably depends on where you go and what the problem is.

I've had 1 day turnaround from my local Apple store on a repair. On another
repair (replace failing SSD) they fixed it in a few hours.

They also replaced an iPhone 5C screen in a few hours.

------
Perdition
> _I had a hunch that the problem was related to the thermal paste: When I
> disassembled it the first time, I had to scrape some thermal pads from under
> the Thunderbolt controller and the system hub. This left a large gap between
> the heat spreader and the chip. I’d tried to fill the gap with an extra big
> gob of thermal paste, but I suspected that the paste hadn’t gotten a good
> seal._

Well yeah, that's a problem as thermal paste is only meant to fill in the
microscopic irregularities of the contact surfaces and isn't some magical
thermal bridge. Thermal paste has thermal properties on par with most
condiments. Thermal pads are particularly bad. I would use a metal shim to
bridge such a gap, not just more thermal paste.

------
gkop
I've said it before and I'll say it again: while the "giant aluminum heatsink"
idea generally works _pretty_ well for the MacBooks and has for some time,
it's _not the same_ as if Apple were to really fix the thermal engineering in
their machines: The machines could run downright _cool_ if only Apple were to
steal some ideas from Lenovo and Asus.

As a side benefit, Apple could begin referring to the machines as "laptops"
again in their marketing from time to time (which they have abstained from for
at least the last 5+ years).

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
To your second point, I doubt anyone will call anything a laptop ever again
unless it runs at or below room temperature. There is a volume of evidence[0]
that hot objects placed on the male genitals for an extended period of time
can have a negative impact on fertility (and who knows what else, e.g. birth
defects? Since it is likely damaging the semen).

The liability issues are just too great. We're talking class action levels of
expenditure.

[0][http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-
reproduction/news/20041...](http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-
reproduction/news/20041208/laptop-computers-may-affect-male-fertility)

~~~
jamesaguilar
> ever again

I don't understand this claim. They are still calling hot devices laptops
_today_. Do you mean that at some point in the future they will stop, and then
they will never again call these devices laptops?

~~~
matthewmacleod
I don't think Apple ever calls any of their machines 'laptops' – that's the
point.

~~~
ocb
That's true, but I have a hard time believing it has anything to do with the
fact that their laptops can get really hot. It's clearly marketing to
differentiate themselves from their competitors.

------
unvs
I have the same laptop model and I'm on my 4th logic board. Luckily, we have 5
years of warranty for hardware failures by law where I live.

~~~
mrweasel
That must annoy the hell out of phone manufacturers. Even the two years in the
EU is pushing it for a large number of phones.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Well, as a consumer rather than a phone manufacturer, I certainly appreciate
living in the EU. For a several-hundred-€ phone to not be expected to last two
years is a pretty depressing position.

~~~
sokoloff
It also probably keeps you from being able to buy a €20 phone. There are
trade-offs in nearly anything.

~~~
madawan
What are you talking about? I can get a €20 Samsung in any place that still
sells dumbphones. I got a €30 Nokia 5 years ago and it still works splendid.

~~~
morganvachon
This is what drives me insane about the state of modern electronic device
quality. It seems the less you pay, the longer it lasts. This is completely
the opposite of how it is with traditional goods like furniture, utensils,
tools, and so on. Maybe it's over-engineering, maybe it's forced obsolescence,
maybe it's something beyond my comprehension. But it stinks.

~~~
MrJagil
Well, a more expensive phone has way more (hardware) features, and thus way
more points of failure. Makes perfect sense to me, though I do understand your
position.

Snow Leopard has been praised as the best OS X release for focusing almost
solely on bug fixing. I wish releases such as this were more common both in
soft- and in hardware.

~~~
morganvachon
> Well, a more expensive phone has way more (hardware) features, and thus way
> more points of failure.

That's an excellent point. Nokia of old was often associated with build
quality, but the more advanced you got, the more stuff would break. Their
cheaper Symbian phones tended to last forever, but the N-series, especially
the N900, had more hardware issues than their cheaper brethren. Given that the
N900 was basically a full fledged computer in a phone form factor there were a
lot of potential points of failure, the biggest of which was the faulty USB
port.

> Snow Leopard has been praised as the best OS X release for focusing almost
> solely on bug fixing.

That's the last version of OS X I have used on a daily basis, and from what
I've heard I missed out on a ton of new bugs introduced in Lion and up. Of
course my aging Mac mini CoreDuo, even with a Core2Duo upgrade, is no longer
fast enough for daily use and won't take a newer OS anyway. I'm not buying
another Mac for a long time (if ever) as I can't justify the expense, but
given what I've heard about Yosemite's stability maybe that's a good thing.
OpenBSD runs great on my current self-built system so I don't really have a
need for OS X anymore.

~~~
72deluxe
I really enjoyed using Snow Leopard, skipped the Lion and Moutain Goat
upgrades but did go with Mavericks, had no problems whatsoever, plus Yosemite
has been fine for me, if not a teeny bit sluggish for me. But what widespread
stability issues have you heard of? I haven't had any problems.

I am still on Mavericks at work, thank goodness for the fix for multiple
screens as Mountain Lion would be useless!

------
biot
Shame that the holes are drilled so haphazardly. If only for the aesthetics,
print out a template with the holes drawn on a circle, evenly spaced. Then use
that as a guide to drill. Or find a local hacker group with a CNC drilling
machine which will drill the holes with perfect alignment. Done right, it may
have looked little different than a case with holes machined that way by the
manufacturer.

~~~
post_break
He probably drilled them while filled with rage. Which is probably what I
would have done. I was surprised the holes were so small. I would have just
went over kill.

------
rcthompson
I had a mini-ITX case where the AGP port (yes, it was a while ago) was right
up against one of the walls, so the GPU fan was pinned against the wall. As
expected, the machine crashed every time I started up a game. We fixed it by
drilling holes in the wall right where the GPU fan faces it. The next version
of the same case came with an array of holes drilled in that exact same spot,
so I guess we were on to something.

------
caycep
This is one of the philosophical beefs I've developed against discrete GPU's,
particularly in laptops. I've been using 13" unibodies with iGP's (Sandy, Ivy,
Hassy vintages) and haven't had any of these problems. Bad stick of RAM, sure,
but I blame samsung or whoever their supplier was. But most of the MBP deaths
I've heard about from friends have been with AMD/nVidia GPU daughter cards on
the 15's. My rMBP 13" also has side vents and vents under the screen which are
very much unblocked and unobstructed.

It might be also I don't game on laptops...I save that for a desktop with a
GTX670 card and plenty of fans..

~~~
forrestthewoods
Why the beef against discrete GPUs? Shouldn't the complaint be against cases
not properly designed to house them? MacBooks also use, quite frustratingly
so, damn near the slowest Nvidia mobile GPU you can buy! A newer model might
actually run faster and cooler.

~~~
puckmunch
Discrete GPUs are soldered to boards using ball-gate arrays, a technique which
was invented with lead solder balls in mind. The patent holder died before the
EU mandated non-lead solders.

The reason this matters is because the process by which those solder balls are
made does not check for the presence of voids in them. At least 10% of these
balls (regardless of composition) x-ray as having voids.

GPUs go through the most radical thermal shifts of any surface mounted
component. Lead has a sense of humor about that kind of temperature change;
tin alloys do not and begin to crack after a sustained number of shifts. This
happened on my 2011 MBP which was not used for gaming.

It's worth noting that the iMacs made the same year, where the discrete GPU
was a replaceable daughtercard, had a voluntary recall for exactly the same
reported video problems. The irony here is that the average cost of having a
GPU reballed is about $150US, with a high rate of reliability compared to
reflowing. Part of that reliability comes from reballers refusing to use
anything but lead.

The EU is directly responsible for this problem but Apple is responsible to
its users and with a cash reserve outstripping the US Treasury's, could have
absorbed the cost of repairing these MBPs easily.

~~~
caycep
Yes, happened to my iMac. The good folks at the Genius Bar ended up replacing
my entire computer w/ a Haswell one.

------
dghughes
I wonder if it's worth the effort sure it may reflow solder if it's hot enough
but the high temp lead-free solder or whatever Apple uses may require very
high temperatures to get it to melt even a bit.

I've changed enough capacitors on power supplies to know the damn things have
solder that's practically indestructible, our old Pace solder station iron
cranked to something like 850F and still I'm sitting there 5 or 10 minutes
cursing it all the time, and nine more caps to go x two leads each.

Plus that heat would degrade the life of components too so who knows if it's
ever worth it. But I guess cheaper than spending thousands on a new Macbook
Pro.

~~~
sfeng
Often the issue is the component is sinking most of the heat away from the
joint. If the giant chunk of metal your heating can dissipate the power of
your soldering iron, you're not gonna heat much up.

~~~
dghughes
True but even with the component removed and trying to clean up jagged solder
on legs it's tough stuff to get to melt.

This is the solder that comes from the factory we just use the lead-free
regular stuff when it goes back in.

------
gnarbarian
This is what happens when function plays second fiddle to form.

~~~
techrat
You'd think after 10 years having model after model of aluminium built
laptops, Apple would have found a way to solve the heat issues they always
have... but nope, they still think it's a good idea to put the heat exhaust
vent right up against the bottom lip of the screen where it is still blocked
when the machine is in use.

~~~
chroma
Where else can one put air vents on a laptop? The sides are taken up by
expansion ports and speakers. The front is blocked by the battery. The bottom
is often obstructed by blankets, clothing, etc. The top is for the keyboard,
trackpad, and palm rest.

Putting vents at the hinge actually makes the most sense. It guarantees
ventilation ports won't be fully obstructed. The vents face away from the
user, reducing fan noise. Air ducts are short, since that area is close to the
CPU/GPU.

It's hard to cool a laptop that can generate 85 watts of heat. Moreso if one
cares about it looking nice and being thin. You may not like the trade-offs
Apple chooses, but they put a lot of thought into their industrial design.

~~~
mike-cardwell
My Thinkpad has air vents on the left hand side, and also on the back. Except,
the ones on the back aren't blocked like they are on Macbooks, because the
Thinkpads design is based on what is sensible rather than on what will make
the thinnest possible computer.

~~~
Kurtz79
I don't know what model you have, but my old T61p with dedicated graphics had
the same heating issues as my newer Macbook Pro.

~~~
mike-cardwell
A T420 with no heat issues whatsoever.

[edit] Not a great image but you can see where the vents are on the back and
the left hand side on this image:

[https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSpIDoMt_OkYzjIF9E6...](https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSpIDoMt_OkYzjIF9E6HRSEJ0dMcaAVqUEgAurzsRjaF6kzLNKYGg)

Doesn't matter how far I fold the screen back, the vents aren't blocked by it.

~~~
pwnna
How did you get your T420 to have no heating issues? What processor/GPU combo
do you have?

I have a T420 and have major heating issues with it playing games. I've tried
everything: thinkpad fan control that turns the fan up to 7000RPM, clearing
everything out with compressed air, replacing the thermal paste..

After a few years of observations, I think the problem may lie in software..
It seems like when I'm playing games and what not my CPU gets turboboosted,
which stays there until it reaches about 90C, when it gets severely throttled,
killing framerate and all. I use linux, so right now I have several scripts
that goes and disables turbo boost. However, even at that point, it still will
boost the CPU when running certain GL applications... Not sure why.

In fact, I've noticed this issue on all Sandybridge laptops I own/have
encountered: the 2011 MBP, a dell inspiron... Ivy bridge computers seems to
have no issue with this (W530, 2012 MBP).

~~~
freehunter
My wife uses my older T420 with a dual core i7 and an nvidia workstation GPU
of some sort as a Sims 3/4 machine with Windows 8 and never has heat issues.
I'm currently using a W530 with Red Hat 6 for work and it gets hot
occasionally but never enough to feel more than mildly uncomfortable to the
touch and certainly never enough to cause any short term problems. Granted, I
only ever use it for running a few VMs, not for any games.

I wonder how many of these Macbook issues stem from popularity. If you look at
any vendor's forums, you will find a bunch of posts about issues that a lot of
people are having. They never make news, though, because how many people own
an HP 5370-2wt20 laptop? A lot of people own HP laptops, but they don't have
one model that makes up a large percentage of the laptop market. Macs, on the
other hand, have a single (ish) model that makes up a large percentage of the
laptop market. If there is an issue that affects 1% of HP 8209-c50mg buyers
versus 1% of Macbook Pro buyers, only the Macbook numbers will be large enough
to make news.

~~~
72deluxe
Not real Red Hat 6 though right? I used 6.2 all those years ago.

Do you mean RHEL 6? :-)

~~~
freehunter
Yup. Sorry, I have a tendency to use Red Hat and RHEL interchangeably.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release 6.5 (Santiago).

------
andrew_wc_brown
I owned an early Macbook Pro 2011 model. I had the logic board replaced 4
times and the 4th time paid out of pocket. After that one burnt out I gave up
and bought a new computer. Simply the worst computer I ever owned.

~~~
puckmunch
For what it's worth, Hewlett-Packard had a very similar problem with a line of
theirs using the same GPU (and the same lead-free solder), and Microsoft's Red
Ring of Death is fundamentally the same problem.

The fact that you can only get a discrete GPU'd MBP now if you buy the most
expensive model while the Iris Pro is capable of doing <i>everything</i> a
discrete GPU did indicates that Apple's cut their losses with this technology.
The motherboard's fine. The decision to accede to EU environmental mandates
was the point of failure.

No one in the industry sufficiently tested leadfree solder in GPU BGA mounts
before going into production and to be fair, it was a year before people
started noticing failures. Apple's dismal head-burying response only made it
worse.

------
proveanegative
I have question related to this issue. Which MacBook model, new, refurbished
or used, should I buy if I want it to last as long as possible and be useful
for doing OS X-specific programming tasks?

~~~
driverdan
2010 MBP were very good, 2011 MBP had the issues highlighted in the article,
2012 MBP seem to be ok.

2012 Retina MBP are generally good but have some known issues (eg LG display
losing pixels). Mine's currently getting a bunch of things fixed which will
probably end up being a new keyboard, logic board, and another LCD.

2013-2014 rMBP seem to have the 2012 issues fixed.

Airs are ok so long as you don't intend on flogging them. They can have
overheating issues too.

~~~
72deluxe
I have a 2012 MBP (non retina). Never ever had any problems with it at all,
runs cool and I compile all day long (C++). Not much gaming going on, but when
I do (under Windows on it) it goes mental with the fans. It is the top i7 one
with the dedicated nVidia GPU in it, but I have no complaints about it (so
far).

EDIT: I must also state that it has a plethora of ports on it that are lacking
on the retina models. Gigabit ethernet (with AVB for audio, hurray),
Thunderbolt (or Mini DisplayPort for driving a screen/TV with audio over it
for HDMI too) FireWire (for audio interfaces), two USB3 ports, SD slot, mic
input, audio out (headphone or optical S/PDIF), button to indicate amount of
battery remaining (so you don't have to turn it on to find out) and a DVDR/CD
drive. Can't beat them in my opinion.

I chuckled observing the MacBook Air user with his bag of appendages for
ethernet and powering a display. Sort of defeated having the super slim
device!

------
meburns
I had almost the exact same issue with my 2009 17' MacBookPro and when it
finally wouldn't boot up anymore I took it to the closest Apple store near me.
They told me they could do an out of warranty fix of the damaged part
(whatever it was, something on the logic board) and it would be around $300. I
agreed and they sent it in to their warehouse to get fixed, a few days later I
get a call telling me that the part that was needed was severely backordered
and I could either wait or they would give me a refurbished 2013 15'
MacBookPro with comparable specs to my old MBP plus AppleCare and a bunch of
other nice things. Needless to say that was the best $300 I ever spent, had
they not been able to do anything with it I suspect I would be trying more
things like drilling holes in the case ;)

------
zekkius
This guy works for iFixit and is unaware that using a large amount of thermal
paste is a terrible idea? Large amounts make heat transfer worse, not better.
I guess you can't expect too much from a site that hawks its tools/repair over
accurate reporting...

------
joeblau
This story is awesome. It would be hilarious if the OP ever tried to sell his
laptop. I can imagine him trying to explain to a layperson why all of the
drilled holes in the bottom are _actually_ a benefit and not a problem.

~~~
wingerlang
"They increase the airflow, making the computer never overheat and die"

It's not that hard to understand.

~~~
Morphling
"But they are ugly and now everyone is teasing me about them. I want a refund"

------
jfroma
I think the picture in the header says it all, on one side I can see very
dirty fans and on the other side the improved design.

The first thing I would have tried is to replace the fans. I had to do this
with other laptops I have had in the past (HP mostly) but never with the two
models of MBP (and I run pretty hard too), so I guess it has to do with the
model as he mentioned.

While I sympathise with the idea of improving the design of a product
massively consumed, I first try to think that the engineers did a well design
and try to look for the malfunctioning component to replace.

------
hoffer
I too had a late 2011 MB Pro with over-heating issues that led to 3 bad GPU's
over three years (only paid for one of the repairs). Just last month I parked
my ass in my local Apple store and told them I wasn't leaving without a brand
new replacement. It did not take very long for the store manager to cave and I
walked out with a brand new 2014 MB Pro. They won't formally acknowledge that
their is an inherent issue with the 2011 models but I got the impression they
just need you to make a big enough stink before they can replace.

~~~
bluedino
Isn't it so much the GPU being defective and not the laptop overheating?

------
berkut
I've got an early 2011 MBP which has exactly the same issue - I'm on the third
logic board (GPU and a chipset both went on separate occasions within 3-year
warranty) and second battery (battery wasn't due to heat though, just
capacity), I use it heavily for programming (compiling) and rendering, so CPUs
are often maxed out.

I try and make sure it's ventilated properly (when I use it on my lap I often
hold it in the air when the CPUs are busy and the temp is rising), but I'm not
convinced the design is good for cooling in general.

~~~
hoffer
Do not replace the logic board a 4th time. Any Apple store manager is
authorized to replace with a brand new 2014 model after three repairs
especially for 2011 model owners. I just got my brand new replacement last
month.

------
lateguy
Irony, I am in apple repair center while writing this. I have a 9 month old
macboook within span of 6 months the connector cable between hard disk and
logic board got corrupted, I have no idea why this happened twice (even the
apple customer rep. are also clueless) . As they don't have any warehouse in
New Delhi(India), they order it from Bangalore(India) and take 5 days to
replace it last time and same this time,. Anyone having idea why this hard
disk cable corruption issue is happening again and again?

~~~
jwcrux
Put the macbook in an oven - should solve the problem./s

On a serious note, I'm not sure what it means for a cable to be corrupted..
wouldn't this just mean a bad cable? Could you elaborate?

~~~
lateguy
Yes, bad cable.

------
anigbrowl
I'm all for the repair ethic of iFixIt, but I wonder about the economy of this
- besides the huge amount of time and uncertainty (that wouldn't be a good
trade-off for anyone who isn't a professional repairer), I'd rather not know
what sort of fumes rise off a circuit board when broiling it with a heat gun
or taking it out of a hot oven.

Also, at what point is he willing to acknowledge that maybe this thing is not
all that well designed, especially going by how widespread this problem seems
to be?

~~~
ansible
_I 'd rather not know what sort of fumes rise off a circuit board when
broiling it with a heat gun or taking it out of a hot oven._

Shouldn't be much in the way of fumes. The circuit board goes through a
similar process at manufacturing time. After that, the board is washed to
remove excess flux and other gunk. Assuming the OP didn't leave any stickers
or such on the circuit board, it should be fine.

As a note to anyone thinking to do something like this... you should only try
to reflow the board itself. Take everything apart. Do not, under any
circumstances, heat up any kind of battery, or else bad things will happen.

------
jokoon
I have a mid 2009, 13" macbook pro, and when I use it in my bed, I make sure
to put it on something that doesnt bend, like a slim large book with a hard
cover, or a plastic tray.

I don't really know why it gets hotter over the year. I guess fine dust end up
clogging it, and since laptops are very slim, everything is packed, so it
might be pretty hard to remove that dust. Some dust can stick to some
surfaces, but I'm not sure.

One thing for sure is that I wont use it for gaming or anything that might get
it hot.

------
pkolaczk
I have an old Dell Precision m4600 laptop. Big, bulky and heavy, but cooling
is excellent, even though it has air intake on the bottom. Discrete Nvidia GPU
running at full clock (because of an external UHD display) and temperature
constantly about 60 degrees Celsius. And cleaning the fans/heatsinks is dead-
easy and can be done in 10 minutes. Do newer MBPs have those overheating
problems solved? I was thinking of buying one as my next laptop.

------
azinman2
I wouldn't want to eat any food out of that oven....

~~~
wldlyinaccurate
Most (all?) component manufacturers use lead-free solder these days. Lead
alloy solders are harder to come by since they're generally only used by
hobbyists who find them easier to work with.

~~~
lostlogin
The board would bother me more.

~~~
azinman2
Well that and everything else too. There are any number of toxic
chemicals/elements all across that board, from inside the ICs (does any of it
vaporize out?) to the plastic PCBs, whatever is in the solder, etc etc. It's
hardly meant to be 'food safe'.

------
mmastrac
Exact same thing happened to me. I'd turn on an old 2009 era MBP and get a
white screen, no chime and the whole thing would run really hot. Tried
everything including firmware updates, PRAM resets and nothing would do it.

Instead of putting it an oven, I turned it upside down, put a heating pad on
it and placed the whole thing under a blanket for an hour. Turned on just fine
after that.

------
dba7dba
I worry about heat in my apple computers.

Heat/GPU issue killed my first 17" Apple Macbook Pro. Just as 3 year AppleCare
ended.

Heat seems to be the reason ethernet in my mac mini randomly dies every few
days and the fix is rebooting the switch it's connected to.
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1341108?start=45&tstart...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1341108?start=45&tstart=0)
I believe a heat sensor either correctly or wrongly detects high heat and
disconnects ethernet. It's never shutdown completely though.

My last iMac screen was burned in just as 3 year warranty ended due to high
cpu heat over the 3 years. The burn in happened right where the cpu was
located.

And current imac is even thinner, meaning less space for air to flow, which is
why I'm forced to buy Mac Pro for my video editing. iMac would be more than
enough for my need but I know the monitor will get burn in after 3 years and
so i will just go for mac pro. At least it has good cooling system or so I
hear.

Well played apple. Well played.

------
fluffyhip
I used to work for an import/export packaging place and the owner was a really
into high-end electronics. He showed me a trick where you place a waste
damaged device into a sealed bag with molecular sieve (kinda like silica but
way better) and 24-48 hours later is dry inside and out. I do regular (every 6
months or so) drying maintenance on all my daily use electronics (phone,
laptop, etc.) Plus I've fixed many friends phones and laptops using molecular
sieve and a mylar zip seal bag. Putting electronics in the oven is risky biz.
Rice sometimes works but actually can do more harm than good. Best
alternative... through it in the vegetable crisper in your refrigerator. It
usually is the least humid place, best for drying.

------
ah-
On a related note, I've been looking at GPU switching on Macbooks, mostly to
get it working better on Linux.

This work might also be useful to keep 2011 MBPs with a damaged dedicated GPU
working with just the Intel card. If you have a 2011 MBP and are willing to
spend some time developing a software workaround that at least lets you use it
with Intel only, check out [https://github.com/ah-/gmux-
scripts/issues/1#issuecomment-68...](https://github.com/ah-/gmux-
scripts/issues/1#issuecomment-68378770) and
[https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus/issues/150](https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus/issues/150)

------
robertnealan
To anyone who has had extensive issues with MBP's, I managed to get my 2007
replaced for free back in college with a new version by Apple after several
unreasonable repairs (2x logic board, 3x LCD, 1x left IO board, 1x top case,
1x touchpad, 1x DVD drive).

Granted, it took a lot of "let me speak to your manager" and I believe needs
to still be under Applecare in most instances, but it's always an option to
pursue if you have the time and patience.

Thankfully the 2010 I received lasted until this year with no issues, and I
finally replaced it after beating it to hell with a 2014 retina MBP that's
been running smoothly so far.

~~~
wyager
Same. After 7 or 8 repairs to the same machine, I managed to convince Apple to
give me its purchase price in store credit.

------
stephen_g
My early-2011 MacBook Pro died a few weeks ago after almost four years of
quite heavy use. It actually took hardly any convincing to get the people at
the Apple store to replace it at their cost - I'm not sure if that's because
of Australia's stronger consumer protection law or because they knew how
common a problem it is.

They must have applied the heat transfer compound better than before, because
with SMCFanControl running a bit higher than normal I haven't seen it go above
65 degrees C much now (admittedly I haven't done much heavy lifting with it
yet) and feels cooler to the touch up the top.

------
joshontheweb
I once spilled an entire glass of water into the keyboard of my macbook while
it was on. It automatically shut off. I thought I was hosed. I almost smashed
it on the table in fury. Luckily I didn't. I quickly removed the battery, took
the computer COMPLETELY apart, and blow dried it for a few hours. It came back
on and has been working ever since like a charm. Its been over 5 years now.
Same with an iPhone 5s. I dropped it into a glass of water. It didn't work for
awhile but came around after a few days and worked fine afterwards.

------
petercooper
_One time I saw it climb as high as 102º C—hot enough to boil water._

If doing anything slightly intensive, my 15" MBPR is the same; I've had it
hover at 100-105C for periods. Why not scale down the CPU at crazy
temperatures? Intel CPUs have a cutout, but the entire machine needs a more
gradual solution. Running at 90C+ is not viable long term.

Now it's over 2 years old, I might just buy a entry level MBP instead rather
than maxing out as I usually do. They seem fast enough now and what's the
point if I can't even use the full power?

~~~
Kurtz79
Same here. I bought the version with dedicated graphics for some light gaming,
but the GPU throttles almost immediately, I doubt I'm getting better
performance than I wold have with just Intel integrated graphics.

I have reapplied thermal paste (which improved things a little bit), used a
cooling laptop stand (useless), fiddled with smcfancontrol and other
applications, to no avail.

But I'm not drilling holes on the case, as someone said it would be hard to
explain when reselling it :).

~~~
petercooper
My problem is more with the CPU than GPU. However, there's an app that lets
you switch to using the integrated graphics only (which is fine for most
situations, unless you plug in an external display) which is well worth
trying.

------
gpvos
Is it normal in the US to use Celsius for computer inside temperatures, and
Fahrenheit for the oven? Aren't you converting back and forth the whole time?

~~~
ars
Yes, pretty normal.

For temperatures near 100C the conversion is easy.

Ovens report temperatures in F, computers in C, shrug.

In general you use F for human temperatures (air temperature, fever, and
cooking), and C for everything else. F has a better range for air and body
temperature anyway.

Maybe Europeans will switch to F, and Americans will switch to Km :)

(In case you wonder why F is better: The coldest temperature normally
experienced by people is 0F and the typical temperature is near 100F. Unlike C
where you go negative, and the typical is 20.)

~~~
pedalpete
I've always hoped we'd move to a 0-100 scale where the scale is the
temperatures people can relate to. 0 is cold, 100 is hot. How hot is 100? Same
as 100 farenheit. We know that's hot. How cold is cold? Same as 0 celsius, we
know that's cold.

Of course, for science and cooking we need more dynamic range, which F and C
work well for, but just for our daily experience, we need something new.

~~~
sjwright
> I've always hoped we'd move to a 0-100 scale where the scale is the
> temperatures people can relate to.

That's exactly what Celsius is, except it pegs 0 and 100 at non-arbitrary
temperatures that are both scientifically precise and exceptionally relevant
to everyday use.

~~~
Dylan16807
100C is not important to everyday use. The fact that water boils when heated
is important, but that could go anywhere from 70 to 200 and the change would
barely get noticed.

Only 0C is relatable.

~~~
gpvos
I don't know about you, but I boil water several times every day. I don't go
outside to freezing temperatures every day. So this is all relative.

In fact, the heater I have at work has a nice digital temperature display, and
it works nicely as an indication how long to wait, a bit like a
charging/loading indication...

~~~
Dylan16807
You boil water but you don't directly experience the temperature. All you see
is a number that starts near zero and counts to 100. If water boiled at twice
the temperature and had half the specific heat you wouldn't notice it.

Ice temperature, room temperature, body temperature, these are things you can
directly experience and use as a high quality reference point. For the average
person the boiling point of water is just 'hot', with a rough idea of how long
it takes their particular heater to get there.

------
abakker
I have a 2011 MBP, but the 17 inch model. Have had zero problems with it, even
though I use my computer for heavy amounts of RAW photo editing in Aperture,
photoshop, etc. This problem may be relatively common, but I doubt it is
universal.

Of course, the people on this board are probably running generally more
punishing tasks on their computers than the average, so if anyone was going to
find this problem, it would be us.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
I don't know if RAW editing is the best example of heavy load. RAW editing in
Lightroom and Photoshop (don't use Aperture) don't really test my machine at
all unless I am "publishing" and that seems to be more IO bound than CPU/GPU
bound (on an one year old i5).

Gaming and BitTorrent (e.g. Battle.net launcher) are the only things that
"upset" my machine heat/utilisation wise. Maybe full virus scans but that is
more IO again.

------
skynetv2
i had to replace logic board on my mid 2010 mbp 15" after applecare expired.

i also noticed my mbp also runs very hot even when i am not doing anything
fancy. the most i have is 15 chrome tabs open. i know chrome is a hog but hey
... its a powerful system, should be able to handle it without heating my like
an oven ready to bake chicken.

compressed air many times .. no use i had to run smcfan but still its pretty
hot.

------
brendannee
I did a little holiday baking myself this year - fixing my old Samsung 30"
display in a similar way: [http://blog.bn.ee/2014/12/22/sometimes-you-just-
need-to-bake...](http://blog.bn.ee/2014/12/22/sometimes-you-just-need-to-bake-
your-monitor/)

------
packetized
This problem/issue is nearly identical to the Red Ring of Death: overheating
of a BGA-packaged Nvidia chip.

------
dimitris99
What a fantastic way to deal with the problem. Whereas most people would have
gone and paid money to some repair place, you took matters into your own
hands. I love the iFixit approach to problems. (although I do understand why
many people may find this a bit too much). What else can you hack?

------
jimbobimbo
Reminds me of my parents' Sony Trinitron TV. The thing is 20 years old. From
time to time TV starts misbehaving, they call up some local guy, who refreshes
soldering on TV's internal components and the TV just works after that. Twenty
years old - still can't believe this!

~~~
lostlogin
I bet it has a degause button too. I badly miss a good degaussing on a 32
inch+ monitor.

------
smrtinsert
This thread reaffirms my decision to stay on pcs. Substantially cheaper, and
it encourages competition.

------
jqm
I did something similar years ago with an HP laptop (direction from internet
of course).

Instead of the oven, I used a heatgun and a stack of nickles on top of the GPU
chip. I almost fell over in surprise when the laptop booted right up
afterwords.

------
marincounty
I had the same problem with a HP laptop a few years ago. HP denied their was a
problem. Long story short; I will never give that company any more money. As
to reballing a graphics chip, I would buy a kit off ebay, if made, and do it
right. You are still taking a chance because you most likely don't have a
proper heating station? I really like the additional holes. I would like to
know exactly where my fans are and make a proper template. I would then use a
very small gauge drill, and put in hundreds of holes. I would try to make it
look like it came from Apple that way? I use "I would" too much. I probally
won't likely do anything until mine goes dark? (I think the correct way of
drilling holes is dismantling the MacBook Pro, which has always scared me.)

~~~
spydum
i wonder why author choose to drill holes.. i'd think a cutting disk + slots
would be better for airflow, and could be made to look a little better
aesthetically

------
jdhawk
I'd like to see an aftermarket case bottom that doesn't look like shit. Water
Cut a nice and usefull pattern & let me bolt it on to the bottom of my
macbook.

------
jekrb
Off topic - The type looks so bad on this site using Chrome Beta on Ubuntu
13.10. Is there anything I can do to help render fonts better?

~~~
giarc
I'm at work (XP, Chrome) and the font looks terrible as well. The thickness of
the font changes within a single letter.

------
tonyjackson
I'll never understand those that insist on doing real work, or gaming, with a
laptop. When dealing with a GPU, and especially one made by nvidia, you're
battling with the laws of physics. Super hot things make other, nearby things,
super hot. Even _with_ proper cooling, nvidia chips overheat and die. Anyone
that has had nvidia already knows this. They have a lifetime of a year or two,
max.

Get a desktop already. At least then, when your fancy GPU has a meltdown, you
can salvage things from the wreckage.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
Not always possible. I can't speak to gaming, but I use a laptop for "real
work" almost exclusively. My reason is because I not only write code at home,
but often have meetings or go to a coffee shop to do a demo, etc. There's no
way I'm carrying a box and monitor to all those places.

What I trade for portability is performance and I replace the machine more. I
just keep everything important stored online and when my laptop dies I grab
another and keep going.

~~~
tonyjackson
real work = putting a load on the CPU, as in making the CPU do work. Your text
editor does not count.

In almost every instance of someone using a laptop for heavy CPU work, there
is certainly a better, more practical reason to use a desktop. There is no
need to sit at a coffee shop and make music, unless you do not have access to
a studio or even your parent's garage. Video editing will not be done out in
the field. It will, if done professionally, be in a quiet room with the proper
equipment. _Most_ of the time, someone that insists that doing either of these
is just fine on a laptop, is someone that is young, broke, and doesn't have
access to the proper tools for the job. Of course, the person pointing this
out will get many downvotes...

~~~
JeremyMorgan
I wouldn't downvote you, but real work for me is not my text editor, it's more
like:

Compiling Importing and Exporting from a database Photoshop load tests.

Also, I run a web server and database on my machine. It's just a personal
preference for me. I do have a mac mini at home that I use also for stuff like
video editing.

------
soheil
Among the many things that can go wrong on a circuit with millions of
components I never knew soldering would be a recurring one.

------
aceperry
The author shows a lot of love for his laptop.

~~~
lafar6502
Obviously. But some less popular laptop vendors have this 'next business day'
warranty where they send a technician to fix your laptop in your office or at
home. Much better idea than a baking owen imho, however there is something in
a scent of freshly baked mainboard ;)

~~~
madeofpalk
Fun fact: Apple also provides 'next business day' warranty with their consumer
AppleCare warranty!

But it sounds like his warranty has expired, hence the oven.

------
arsalanb
Well. If it adds to the value, the holes would also be a great conversation
starter at conferences and hackathons.

~~~
darkstar999
Such as "why are you looking at the bottom of my laptop?"

------
coherentpony
TLDR: Oven to re-set the solder if any of the connections were temperamental.
Holes for airflow.

------
Marcus10110
I really wish iFixit would do a formal root cause analysis every so often. As
an electrical engineer running a small manufacturing operation, I'm always
very interested in the failure rates and root causes that much higher volume
products see.

Lead free solder melts somewhere in the 200C-300C range. The solder we use
melts at 230 degrees, and we reflow our PCBs in a Vapor Phase Soldering oven,
which precisely limits the PCB temperature to 230C. Reflowing a PCB multiple
times risks solder paste flux exhaustion, and also risks parts on the bottom
side of the PCB falling off. Also, some parts are rated only for a very
limited time at these temperatures, even when they are not running. Cooking
these parts multiple times results in a dramatic reduction in lifespan.

It wouldn't surprise me if Apple did an x-ray inspection of every BGA part on
every device they produce. This isn't common practice in the manufacturing
lines that I know about, but I know that it's done in some cases. This would
help catch cracks or other defects that would result in a reduced lifespan of
the device, as well as detect show stopper issues.

There are a lot of other things that can fail on a PCB due to heat long before
the solder will melt on a BGA pin. My guess that this was a mechanical failure
inside the PCB. Either a through hole failure (such as a via disconnecting
from a PCB trace, since the PCB is undoubtedly a very high layer count
producing many fragile connections to long copper vias, which would expand
vertically and in radius during temperature cycles) or an inner layer
connection defect due to PCB or copper expansion. In either case, cycling the
temperature by a large amount could temporarily fix the problem by creating a
good enough connection for operation.

The bottom line is higher operating temperature always hurts mean time between
failure. This is well studied, and many manufacturers will include plots of
the operating temperature vs MTBF. Even though the laptop is working now, all
of the components have been exposed to additional extreme additional thermal
stress. Everything in the laptop is now much closer to failure. I don't expect
the laptop will last much longer.

I'm not familiar with the guts of a MacBook Pro, but if there was a larger
than normal gap between the chips and their heat sinks, then this would
definitely explain the higher than normal system temperature. Even if the heat
sink compound was able to bridge the gap with minimal air bubbles, it's still
a pretty poor thermal conductor. This may have been a manufacturing defect
that Apple could check for in the future. (Although I would hope they already
run the devices for some length of time in their final enclosures while
monitoring component temperatures)

------
dzhiurgis
Looks like the real issue is lack of cleaning the dust once a year.

Apple normally 'does not mind' if you open the case. Obviously you have to
know what you are doing, hence the special screws. If you know what you are
doing, you'll find where to spend $1 to get the correct screw driver.

------
al2o3cr
"that’s how I saved my MacBook Pro with a drill and an oven."

Alternate ending sentence: "So that's how I ruined my MBP with duct-tape-level
thermal reengineering! Thermal resistance, wazzat?"

------
rebootthesystem
I apologize in advance for having to be harsh in my commentary.

As someone with over 30 years in electronics manufacturing the first thought I
had when reading this article was: This is an incredibly stupid idea.

Do not try to play manufacturing engineer with your kitchen oven. You will,
without a doubt, cause more harm than good. Not to mention coating the oven
where you cook your food with stuff you don't want in your food.

Modern high density RoHS electronics boards require higher temperatures in
precisely timed and controlled vapor phase reflow ovens. Components, solder
joints and the board itself will almost certainly suffer damage from
uncontrolled non-vapor profiles in a kitchen oven.

It is far more likely that components will be exposed to far greater
temperatures than rated as well as all kinds of imaginable differential
heating and thermal slew rates. You can destroy the vias and pads connecting
multiple layers of a multi-layer PCB simply by having differential heating or
high temperatures. You can also damage dielectrics in precise impedance
controlled boards. You can cause problems with solder that might very much
affect signal integrity in high speed signals (for example, around the memory
subsystem).

In general terms, you are very much opening Pandora's Box if you think you can
use a kitchen oven to reflow a modern mid to high complexity circuit board.

Beyond that, you don't have the necessary optical, x-ray and high-speed
testing equipment required to verify operation. You don't even have access to
design data needed to understand where critical paths might lie.

Sorry. This is a really dumb idea.

Then we move on to drilling holes for the fans. OK, great, yes, more cool air
molecules per unit time is what cooling is about. However, this design does
not have any air filtration mechanisms. So, by drilling a bunch of holes you
are far more likely to create a situation where you will coat the entire
inside of the computer with a layer of dust and dirt with the potential to
cause major issues.

If I had no choice but to cut holes on the bottom on one of these machines I'd
take the time to engineer a bolt-on filter plate with washable filters so that
the internals might be protected from contamination (within reason).

A far better idea might be (more on that later) to engineer the attachment of
a surface extension feature on the bottom of the machine rather than drilling
ventilation holes. "Surface extension" is what you commonly see on heatsinks,
in other words, fins. Anyone who's done thermal FEA quickly understands that
designing thermal management by eye only works if you have a lot of
experience. These machines probably have decent thermal design. Perhaps all
that is needed to make them a bit better is to add 10 mm of metal to the
bottom with a nice thick set of fins widely spaced in order to extend the
surface and promote thermal exchange with ambient air.

Final point on TIM's (Thermal Interface Materials) like thermal paste. Their
main purpose in life is to take two non-perfect surfaces and bridge the little
imperfections so that more molecules make a thermal connection between surface
A and surface B. If you could polish both surfaces to absolute perfection and
mate them to absolute perfection you would not need TIM's. When it comes to
thermal paste, you want as little as possible and you do not want any air
gaps. To some degree there's an art to applying these kinds of TIMs.

The author talked about buying some copper sheet in an attempt to fix the
problem. Again, horrible idea. You have have two layers of TIM, on one each
side of the copper sheet.

In the hands of those without the requisite knowledge or experience I feel
that ceramic sheet-based TIMs are far safer
([http://goo.gl/Q6e0Es](http://goo.gl/Q6e0Es)).

But I digress. The best idea would have been to walk the machine to Apple and
deal with it through their channel. That's what they do best.

The good news is that this kitchen-reflow machine is unlikely to make it to
the used market due to the drilling on the bottom. I would hope that the
author will be honest enough to disclose the amateur reflowing of the main
board if and when the machine is ever sold in the used market.

------
whitehat2k9
Another reason to not buy Apple and get a proper PC laptop/desktop.

~~~
hawleyal
Yeah, other computer manufacturers have never had heat issues.

------
kendallpark
Don't try this at home, kids.

------
mattmaroon
Apple: it just works.

------
mattmcegg
I have nearly the exact issues with temps around 80-90 on my 2010 MBP while I
produce in Ableton. I've done hours of research, and it sounded like a new
Logic board was the only answer ($700). I even had both fans replaced about 2
years ago. Speed holes here I come!

------
vishal0123
How in the world can heating a laptop repairs it.

~~~
darkstar999
The idea is that there is damaged solder connections, so heating the laptop
melts the solder and fixes the connections.

------
LeonM
I own the same laptop, I have it for about 2.5 years now and never experienced
such temperatures. During a normal workday, (programming, compiling, git etc)
I never once heard the fans spin up.

I have a BookArc[1] laptop stand, which is about the worst possible way to
keep a running MBP (lid closed, fan slots pointing down) and even with lots of
gaming, I have never experienced any problems.

Yes, I do clean the fans once a year, but all laptops need that. It goes to
show that thermal wise the MBP is actually very well engineered.

[1] [https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/bookarc-for-macbook-
pro-...](https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/bookarc-for-macbook-pro-retina)

~~~
PuffinBlue
Right...except for the tens of thousands of people with the 2011 machine
experiencing heat related damage to the GPU.

Your study size of one doesn't 'go to show' anything at all regarding the
MacBooks thermal performance. It shows that you yourself haven't experienced
any issues but that's where it ends.

I for instance have a 2010 i7 MacBook Pro and it will spin up and get
ridiculously hot (too hot to touch) simply watching a 1080p flash video on
YouTube. Not the greatest thermal design there with my study size of one :-)

What I will say though is that Apple seems to use the Aluminium case as a heat
transfer device, so it purposefully gets hot to disapate heat. That's great
until there is a fault with the solder being too thin to withstand the planned
temperatures like is happening to the 2011 MacBooks with the discrete GPU.

~~~
LeonM
You are right. I just wanted to share my personal experience, my English
writing is not good enough to express that intention...

Also, I didn't notice the MBP in the article is a 2011 model, mine is
mid-2012, so I guess I can't compare those.

~~~
slantyyz
The chips in the 2012 are significantly cooler running than the 2011. IIRC,
the chips in the 2011 models were the first generation Sandy Bridges.

------
dbg31415
Guessing the discussion at Apple was:

Engineer: "We can get the computer to half heat if we add a few more intake
holes..."

ArtsySalesDouche: "Nein! Nein! Nein! I don't want that! I know nobody sees the
bottom, but I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want
it!"

------
enigami
You are kidding rite? I don't think you really did that to your MacBook,
interesting story though

