Comment by zdw
2 days ago
If you have any of the Air models which lack fans, there's a common hack of putting thermal pads between the CPU heatspreader and case, effectively turning the bottom case into a large heatsink, and giving your system a longer maximum performance before throttling.
The downsides is that this makes the bottom of the case quite hot on a place you can touch, but putting a plastic hardshell over the entire laptop deals with that, and also gives protection.
Making the bottom case a heatsink and then putting a plastic insulator around it seems to defeat the purpose of the whole attempt?
It's pulling the heat away from a concentrated region into a larger region.
Performance numbers reflect the optimization. I personally haven't done it for fear of affecting the battery lifespan (and possibly other components' lifespans.)
Really hard to resist due to its simplicity and noticeable improvements.
I can't say I am tempted. When I played a game on an M1 Air, the underside became unbearably/worryingly hot anyway. I accept it's not for sustained load.
I still have pads left over from trying my damnedest to reduce fan noise on a Dell XPS. Used pads on every hot stop and didn't help.
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I take him saying:
> a longer maximum performance before throttling.
As implying that the purpose is to increase the thermal mass, not necessarily the dissipation. It should still be able to reach maximum performance for longer, it will then just also take longer to settle back down again.
This is the correct interpretation - you get a bit longer max clockspeed due to the thermal mass (and thus more heat overall).
Is the added plastic shell case a "bandaid on a bandaid" sort of solution to deal with that heat? Absolutely. But you might want that case anyway - I've had several laptops that would have had broken screens or were yanked off a desk by an attached cable and survived by the sacrificial plastic shell taking the impact.
Like all things, it's a tradeoff to consider.
Makes sense.
Reminds me of the advice given for outdoor electronics: make sure your enclosure is absolutely watertight, and then drill a hole in the bottom to drain any residual buildup from humidity.
The air box in your car has holes to drain any water that finds its way in there…, not great for deep water crossings
Not to mention paying premium for an extra-thin computer and then making it thicker with a plastic hardshell.
How is buying the cheapest Mac laptop paying a premium?
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Thanks for that info. I've been interested in this hack and use plastic hard shells, but have been concerned that the plastic covering might prevent proper heat dissipation. It sounds like the tradeoff is worth it.
I hope apple engineers see this and cringe as hard as I do each time people have to come to such hacks to work around their infamous thermal design...
Take the product expected to have top-notch design with best in its class UX and discover you need to open it up and make a hardware modification and then cover its metal body with a cheap-looking plastic case...
If you run Asahi on it as well, at this point why even bother with Apple...
There's nothing nefarious about this. The whole point is to not make the bottom too hot when you rest your super thin laptop on top of your lap.
Price discrimination, MacBooks aren’t their top of the line product so it’s intentionally less powerful than it could be.