This is an interesting story from an iFixit programmer who attempted to fix his overheating MacBook Pro—an issue that many users have—by drilling a ring of holes in the MacBook’s body to increase airflow under its fans.
With a 1/16” bit, we drilled holes in the bottom case, under the fans (we figured out where the blades of the fan were exposed based on the dust pattern stuck to the inside of the bottom case). The speed holes worked: The boot chime rang. The screen glowed. The fans blew.
It’s too early to know if the fix will help long term, but initially the holes have decreased temperatures to an average in the 40s and 50s opposed to an average between 80º and 90º C and as high as 100º C before the modification.
The holes came only after trying a number of methods of fixing the dead MacBook, including baking the logic board in an oven, which temporarily provided some relief: “I cracked open the back of my laptop, disconnected all eleven connectors and three heat sinks from the logic board, and turned the oven up to 340º F. I put my $900 part on a cookie sheet and baked it for seven nerveracking minutes… After it cooled, I reapplied thermal paste, put it all back together, and cheered when it booted. It ran great for the next eight months. Temperatures averaged in the 60s and 70s C—although recently, they began creeping up again.”
The full story of how the overheating MacBook Pro was saved is on iFixit’s blog here.
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Apple’s obsession with ‘clean’ design is the sole reason for the overheating. But I can’t complain, I love the design of all MacBooks!
hope it fixes the issue permanently ’cause this is not an elegant solution.
In before someone inevitably drills holes into their MacBook while it is still assembled. And then proceeds to sue Apple because of their startling level of stupidity.
The real question is 60 holes necessary. Could have 6 holes (like for the speaker on the iPhone 6) accomplished the same desired results? Should have done incremental increases to see at how many holes the “hack” became successful.
Agreed with hole number and hole size. I’m sure they could have been a little more precision with this “hack,” too. Ah well.
if i overheats, then it is designed to overheat!! Let it break and buy a new one!
I see you’ve been talking to the Genius Bar again…..:)
Oven temp listed in °F, comp temp listed in °C. ಠ_ಠ Just Fahrenheit please.
I’ve never heard of quite literally baking a logic board to solve overheating.
Excuse me, but Fahrenheit is completely previous century!
Uhh no, it isn’t. It is a current, widely-used measurement unit in the US.
Maybe he should have tried to clean the vents before drilling holes to it. Dust blocks the air flow and overheats the MBP.
The problem is there is no real intake, only exhaust. The holes likely create a way for the fans to intake air from outside of the machine, creating a logical airflow. It would probably make more sense to make the holes a bit away from the fan, that way the hot air that is being exhausted gets replaced by room temperature air creating a constant flow of cold air.
I just found this: http://splurgebook.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/how-the-macbook-pro-13-cools-itself/
I think that on my A1260 MBP (Early 2008) the keyboard also acts an an air intake. Not so sure though…
I see in the photos that the user made the holes in the center of the fans… fans are used to take all the warm air of the computer, and blow it to the exterior, if you drill holes in the side where the fan gets the air… it is getting the air directly from the outside, not the warm air inside.
A better solution could have been to drill the holes in the case just in the area in between the battery and the motherboard.
Considering his solution halved the temperature of his computer, I’d say you’re wrong.
If you actually read the post, he says that he did that.