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Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

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Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#301

Post by techrat »

chroma wrote: post #26
gnarbarian wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Latitude E5430 has them on the left side near the back, and two places on the bottom (the rear left side and the front middle).

That laptop is twice as thick as a rMBP and puts out less than half as much heat. Even if Apple put vents in those places, it wouldn't cool adequately; the vent area would be half that of the Dell. To get the same temperatures, airflow would have to be 4x faster than in the Dell. And as I said before, vents on the bottom increase the risk of overheating when used on a bed or carpet. Critics hold Apple to a higher sta…

> Apple makes quality hardware. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be able to charge so much.

How's that Kool Aid taste?

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#302

Post by georgemcbay »

eli wrote: post #275
tzakrajs wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put those few bucks each month into some interest bearing account and then it can be used for many purposes instead of just a new laptop?

Insurance is about pooling and distributing risk. What you describe might be the right move on average . But people live in the world of specifics, not long-term averages. If your new laptop suddenly breaks a few months after purchase and the replacement cost would cause you distress, then the $20 you have saved in an account doesn't help much. By this logic, nobody should buy life insurance because the insurance com…

"Insurance is about pooling and distributing risk."

It is also about making insurance companies fabulously wealthy.

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#303

Post by tbob22 »

digitalsushi wrote: post #99

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.

I can assure you that it does work. Not sure about 340f though.

I baked a Nvidia GTX470 at 390f for 10 minutes and it eliminated the artifacts/crashing and has been working fine for months.

It probably won't work forever, but it is at least a temporary fix.

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#304

Post by cheepin »

rconti wrote: post #194
Nitramp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I generally agree. However: If you are risk pooling with much lower-risk devices and people, then you can still come out ahead. For example, maybe most people buying that kind of coverage are buying it for devices that rarely break or are lost/damaged -- they might be simply insuring against theft while you're using the damage coverage.

Reminds me of this clip from Seinfeld: http://youtu.be/-Jy5R0XjKC8?t=1m30s

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#305

Post by bbcbasic »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #188
Nitramp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 wi…

House always wins.

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#306

Post by slantyyz »

grandalf wrote: post #286
slantyyz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just use them on my lap and have never had heat problems with any of my macbooks. Yes, but have you ever specifically had a 2011 MBP like in the article? It's a very specific set of models that have the heat issue. Mine could easily hit 90C under load (it just bricked itself last week). Which mean it was quite hot to the touch. After I changed the thermal compound, it would hit the low 80s (C) at peak, but even t…

I haven't had that model. Apple has clearly had some thermal design problems in the past, but my sense is that they have been resolved in newer models.

Looks like they may not be. In this article today, some people think the new Mac Pro's issues are thermal related:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/30/apples-latest-mac-...

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#307

Post by mmazing »

swimfar wrote: post #289
zymhan wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a source for that? According to Wikipedia, 340F is not far from the melting point for solder. Depending on the solder used, it may have melted, or just gotten soft enough to heal any gaps or cracks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder#Lead-free_solder

The link you attached lists a few different lead-free solder alloys with the lowest melting at 412F(211C) well above 340F(171C). Eutectic tin/lead solder has a melting point of 361F(183C), also above 340F. I'm not sure whether or not cracks can heal at temperatures below the melting point, but I would be surprised if that were possible.

So it turns out that home oven manufacturers don't care too much about precision when it comes to oven temperature (and it doesn't matter usually).

A high end home oven will easily swing between +- 25 degrees of the temperature that you have dialed in, and that's if it's well calibrated.

If he didn't dial in "340" quite right, and his oven was average, I can easily see it hitting temperatures of 412+, and that could also account for his varied results.

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#308

Post by mikeash »

gkop wrote: post #150

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" a…

I think "laptop" is one step below "luggable" on the list of uncool things to call a portable computer. I doubt they'd want to return to using that word.

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#309

Post by egypturnash »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #95
Kurtz79 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this review ( http://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-thinkpad-t420/ ): "Thick and bulky, with a keyboard studded with enough auxiliary buttons to look like a space shuttle control panel, the T420 is as old-school as a laptop can be." I mean, it's all a matter of trade-offs, as the parent says. Personally I have been using my Macbook mostly as a desktop replacement, so in hindsight I would probably trade the small f…

I don't get this recent idea that a laptop needs to be as thin and light as an envelope to be "mobile". I have as much "mobility" with this Thinkpad as someone with a Macbook air. Next you'll be telling me I'm sacrificing mobility with my phone because it's twice as thick as an iPhone 6. This argument seems like it would only come from somebody who has sacrificed usability for thinness and needs to come up with a way…

As someone who's gone from boxy laptops to an Air... yes, there is a difference in "mobility". I take my Air out to a cafe or a park or whatever to get work done a LOT more than I took my old Powerbooks.

Heavier computers are something I had to make a decision to go out with. I knew I would be lugging it around on my shoulder and feeling grumpy. But the Air? It, plus a Wacom tablet next to it, takes up less room than the hardback sketchbooks I used to haul around as a matter of course. And I can sit out under a tree on a nice day and do finished, full-color art with a lot less mass than hauling a paint box around. (The fact that a full charge lasts most of a day helps a lot, too. I only take the power brick when I'm going out of town.)

Now, I will admit that I do also care about how stuff looks. I'm an artist; it's my job. But my experience is that there is something really, really different about having a laptop that does everything you need, and weighs less than a hardbound book.

Re: Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven

#310

Post by ansible »

anigbrowl wrote: post #168

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 al…

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.

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