Has the thermal paste issue been corrected?

[Geeky1]

Has the thermal paste issue been corrected on the latest macbook pros? I'm considering a 17" model but the one I looked at in the Apple store still run horrifically hot, and looking through the service manual isn't filling me with any real burning desire to take it apart the machine and fix it myself.

 

[chat19]

nope, still hot. also it does not help that it is aluminum, conducts heat and makes it feel even hotter.

 

[Geeky1]

*sigh* That's what I figured. The aluminum construction is-and has been, since the first TiBooks-an integral part of the thermal management system for the computer, as far as I know. Theoretically, this allows Apple to use smaller heatsinks, and thus create a computer with a smaller footprint and/or a lower profile.

Nice idea, if it works. It doesn't appear to work so well on this machine though. There's a very, very large discrepancy between the TDP of a G4 and that of a Core2, even a mobile C2. So. It looks like I'm going to have to "fix" this machine-just like I've had to with every other notebook I've owned in the past 5 years (all of which have been PCs...). The least they could've done would be to use copper for the fins on the heatsink, but it doesn't look to me like they did. =/

 

[Kash]

The least they could've done would be to use copper for the fins on the heatsink, but it doesn't look to me like they did. =/

It's harder to dissipate heat from copper than from aluminum, so if they had used copper, the thermal benefits would last a couple of seconds before the aluminum casing got hot from the slow air movement. In fact, the laptop would function pretty similarly to an aluminum heatsink with a copper core

 

[Geeky1]

I'm afraid that's a myth; it is not harder to dissipate heat from copper. Copper has a higher thermal conductivity than aluminum.