FYI: Fixing your own Thermal Paste Problem

Well I hate to rain on your parade but I spoke with Tier 4 support (good luck on that one), and he confirmed not only on his own either that it will infact void the warranty.

C'mon now, you know apple they have a different opinion on every little piece of hardware. Just so happens that on the MacBook they are strict.

Also this does create a "significant" change in opeartion to the MacBook Pro.

Apple apparently built, tested, certified, and approved this machine to have insulating thermal paste, and not actually have it conduct heat. As that being the case by us "fixing" the problem, not only are we changing the operation of the fans (running faster and louder), we are lowering battery life, increasing heat transfer to the heat tube, and also making the notebook run cooler.

Perhaps the intended market was the former USSR/antartica/greenland and the intent was to keep the residents/users in those regions warm. We will never know, all I do know is without written permission from apple if you fix it, kiss the warranty/applecare bye bye.

Mr. PurplePirate,

I again must disagree with you. As far as apple is concerned this modification (not "opening the case") voids the warranty. As per the terms and conditions of said warranty they have final say.

All that being the case even if this ONLY voids say the logic board warranty, yea still no thanks.

Also your analogy is incorrect:
Tere is a good bit of established case law on this topic, especially from auto manufacturers attempting to deny warranty claims because of aftermarket modifications to their cars, however, just as with computers, the manufacturer must demonstrate that the particular modification caused the failed or defective product.

Do you think apple is going to take the time to demonstrate that fixing the thermal paste isnt what damaged your CPU 8 months later? Or that the fact the heat is now dissapating differently inside of your case than as designed (yes the gobs are to design spec) that the DVD rom, or RAM, or Hard Drive failing couln't have been caused by that? No, they arent. They are going to say item (e) says you cant change design, well you did. Tough.

Also unlike a car say that after your fix the CPU fails. You cant just gob on the paste then send it back in for repair and have them be all ahh okay now theres thermal paste to spec, lets fix this. No.

Trust me I have been dealing with this individual at apple for a few months now on various items, he knows what he is talking about, and he knows what resouces to check.

I honestly don't care what others do to their machines. I for one am not going to make any changes w/out written permission from Apple or have Apple resolve the problem themself. This machine is too critical to me, my education, and my business flat out. Yes it gets hot as ****, but it works and if the current design end up burning out the CPU in a year and a half, the warranty is there and they have to fix it.

I have delt with the Consumer Affairs department before... infact I have an issue with that thats been open and unresolved for the past year. I think id rather not play by their rules because, well thats not the quickest.

Id rather not void my apple warranty/support because I cant go over a year w/out a working machine. So basically if I want to be guaranteed of my warranty I have to play by their rules.

Want to hear something even more amusing?

According to Sr. Technical Support the internal temperature for the thermal shutdown to occur is...

drum roll please....


60C!

HAH Whatever! These sensors must be insulated and on the other side of the case than the logic board. Probably have to have a 100C ambient internal temperature before they think its only 60C.

Im so sick of this heat crap. Apple wont let me correct a design flaw with my equipment because of their BS warranty terms. They then release an "SMC" update with no details and other 2.16 users (as myself) claim its capping them at 1GHz (no note on number of cores). All this stupidity when the problem is clear. You know why right? Its because its a lot cheaper to screw the machine up even more in firmware than it is to recall or suggest everyone send it in for repair.

Way to go apple. Im totally losing faith in this product, and moreso your hardware in general. My Powerbook was a heap as well, and now this MacBook is a flaming one.

RSS

Are you done being stupid now? Really. Come on.

Its quite easy to use speed stepping to step down the CPU.

Its quite stupid on apples part to even consider overclocking the systems. Since A they are already scorching hot, B the CPU Clock multiplier is fixed, and C you have the perfect mentality to work for apple support.

No your observation is not valid. That all aside there are more than one person reporting this AND your "claim" is a hardware impossibility w/out breaking limits and apple probably really ******* off intel and theirs is simply software controlled.