Repaste Your MacBook
90 comments
·July 11, 2025gdbsjjdn
volkl48
Kind of a thing that isn't uniquely difficult if you've ever worked in a laptop before, hard if you've never done it.
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The ZIF connectors for those fans aren't different or much more fragile than the ones in most other laptops.
The adhesives on certain cables tend to trip people up a bit with causing them to pull more than they should and damage things.
Gently working under and releasing the adhesives on those fan cables with the spudger (or a fingernail) before you even start trying to move/unplug them will work a lot better for not tearing things than grabbing them with tweezers will.
The TouchID cable is fragile. Still shouldn't be any serious risk of breaking if you know to treat it with caution, but that would always be the one to take the most care with and watch the most closely while you're working around it.
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The secondary challenge is pretty much just making sure you have all the cables out of the way when you're putting the board back in, because you've got a dozen or more that you need to watch the positioning of and/or tape out of the way.
danieldk
I changed/replaced a bunch of things in my ThinkPad T14 without any issues, it's very easy, it is clearly made to open up and update. I wouldn't dare to do that with my MacBook Pro.
tlavoie
That "made to open up and update" aspect is exactly why I switched when my 2013 (Retina) MBP crapped out. I had just spent $300 CAD to replace the battery, which involved the glued-together mess of battery, top case, keyboard and trackpad. So when the charging circuit died on motherboard right after, I was not keen to spend much more to just get back to baseline. They wouldn't even countenance the idea of my giving them more money, so that I could get a board with more soldered-on RAM.
Switched to a P50 with twice as much RAM, and that's just one socket of four. Since upgraded to the max, with bigger SSD, it's still a beast.
Compare with Apple's use of glue and special screws, when Lenovo provides detailed service manuals on its web site.
teaearlgraycold
I normally use an M3 MacBook Air, but I still have my T430 from college and I love how upgradable and hackable it is.
What I've done so far:
* Maxed out the RAM to 16GB (using lower voltage DIMMs to increase battery life)
* Swapped to a larger 9 cell battery
* Upgraded the CPU (and thermal paste) from a 2 core/4 thread i5 to a 4 core/8 thread i7
* Flashed a custom BIOS to remove the WiFi card whitelist and installed an Intel 7260 WiFi AC + Bluetooth card
* Replaced the stock 1600x900 TN panel with a 1920x1080 IPS display
* Replaced the barrel charging port with a USB-C connector (requires a 20v USB PD power supply, but those aren't super rare or expensive)
* Replaced the HDD with an SSD
* Replaced the optical drive and a 2.5" drive enclosure and installed a second SSD
Future projects:
* Flash Coreboot
* Upgrade to a faster i7
* Upgrade to a 1440p IPS panel
* Swap to a T420 keyboard
jchw
Honestly I think this is overstating things, most connectors on most laptops and phones are surprisingly robust. I've opened god knows how many laptops and phones, including some iPhones, and really those tiny ribbon cables have surprised me. Funny enough the one time I did break a ribbon cable it was actually the right joycon rail on a Nintendo Switch and it was quite an unreasonable amount of force I applied (by accident, of course...) I always smile a little seeing people on YouTube with super fine pliars carefully and tenderly taking off connectors, I usually use a butter knife or something like that to get them off and then replace them just using my finger. I actually worry more about carelessly creasing them too much rather than ripping them. Some of those things feel like they would require quite a lot of force to actually outright rip.
The actual issue I have with phones isn't that the connectors/cables break apart if you look at them funny, it's actually the god damn screens are insane to deal with and replace, with all of that adhesive crap.
This all to say, I think Apple is doing poorly here, their ribbon cables should probably be more robust on these often quite expensive devices. I know they can do it because I've experienced Apple devices with pretty robust internals... (and also similarly, have seen and heard of Apple devices where they've mysteriously cheaped out on components like voltage regulators and made their devices totally unnecessarily worse and more failure prone.)
diggan
To be fair, compared to the typical Apple experience of modifying stuff, that is quite friendly.
Although author seems to have broken the TouchID sensor and button in the process, which is less neat and maybe not so friendly even for Apple.
pier25
> that is quite friendly
Maybe if you're referring to iPhones and iPads.
The Intel Macbooks were always super easy to open for cleanup or replacing parts. I did it for years and never broke anything.
diggan
> Maybe if you're referring to iPhones and iPads.
Or the new laptops ;) They're no longer Intel Macbooks, and compared to laptops from other brands, the new Apple hardware seems way harder (although I'd confess to not having the experience of picking any of the M* models apart personally). https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc...
Didn't the latest iPhones have some sort of "repairability" push or something? Don't remember exactly, but seems to have given me the idea that Apple is moving towards making it easier to repair the iPhones specifically.
axoltl
I'm actually very surprised this happened. I've dis- and reassembled dozens of iPhones (from the iPhone 4 all the way up to the iPhone 16) and I've never torn a single flex cable.
You just have to be careful not to pull on the flex, but the connector instead. This logic applies as much to pulling a plug out of a wall socket as it does a thin flex with a board-to-board connector.
That said, would I characterize disassembling any Apple product as "quite friendly"? No. Do not attempt unless you're either familiar with how things go together or you're willing to spend the money to replace the parts you broke. If those aren't options, find a local repair shop.
diffuse_l
I tried to repair a macbook air, and did manage to tear the microphone cable, because I didn't notice the connector :|
Like you said, you need to be careful, but you better be prepared to pay dearly (or manage without) for your mistakes...
mh-
Maybe I'm not adventurous enough, but I would never open an Apple product without a teardown video/instructions at hand. iFixit is a fantastic resource if they have covered your device previously.
moribvndvs
> The fan was incredibly easy to swap out (hats off there, Apple!)
After reading this, an Apple middle manager is gathering an emergency meeting to figure out who fucked up
rglullis
"Once you ignore that it lost Touch ID and will have to pay hundreds of dollars to Apple for the privilege of repairing it, the process was quite smooth".
The Stockholm syndrome is strong with this one.
agloe_dreams
It was a joke...also the Author is a bit of a software legend - he is the dev behind Apollo for Reddit, the app that reddit killed that caused the whole revolt. A one man show that made an app so much better than a multi-billion dollar company that people literally would prefer to quit the site than switch.
bigyabai
"Software legend" might be stretching it. His app was popular, and when Reddit pulled the plug there was discontent, but nothing was really ever resolved. It's more of a software parable against being overly reliant on a single centralized company that can kick your revenue out from underneath you at the drop of a hat. *glares at Tim Cook*
They say you either learn history or are doomed to repeat it.
rglullis
He could've easily taken down Reddit if he wanted. He just needed to port Apollo to Lemmy and get people to migrate. I personally offered him help to set up as many servers needed to get the migration going.
But not only he refused, he went on to mock the other developers who were implementing an Apollo-like client for Lemmy (Voyager) and went on to work on a YouTube viewer for the Vision Pro.
It seems like some people just enjoy being put in a cage and get constantly abused.
hu3
Yeah, with due respect, calling a popular app developer a "software legend" is a disservice to the likes of Fabrice Bellard (FFmpeg, QEMU, QuickJS).
rglullis
Yeah, I am familiar with Chris. He is the one that developed a popular application for someone else's platform (Reddit) and was rewarded by it by getting the CEO accusing him of extortion attempts.
Then, after realizing that Reddit's management was just using him as a scapegoat and to justify the API closing off, what does he do? He could've used his influence to get people out of Reddit and porting Apollo to some other alternative, he went on to spend a good part of an year working on, you guessed it, an YouTube client for Apple's Vision Pro.
Sorry, but a sibling comment has it right: Chris does not suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. It's full-on Battered Wife Syndrome.
hashishen
craziest part of this is i completely forgot about the vision pro
kstrauser
Also, the sarcasm.
speedgoose
By the way, the Stockholm syndrome isn’t scientifically a thing.
xandrius
Still drive across a point.
carlosjobim
It is a particular and well documented event, which happened in physical reality on this planet. You can easily find all the evidence you could ever ask for.
moi2388
Did you actually read about it? Because the entire story is more a warning for malpractice of the psychiatrist in question than an actual effect.
The government told the woman to find solace in dying on the job. The woman was critical of this so the psychiatrist claimed she had sexual attraction to the hostage taker
LtWorf
I think not wanting to die killed by police doesn't automatically mean you're in love with your captors.
attentive
how does he turn it on without a power button?
t1234s
[flagged]
zdw
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.
ianferrel
Making the bottom case a heatsink and then putting a plastic insulator around it seems to defeat the purpose of the whole attempt?
manaskarekar
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.
fph
Not to mention paying premium for an extra-thin computer and then making it thicker with a plastic hardshell.
exe34
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.
delusional
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.
zdw
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.
ianferrel
Makes sense.
evanjrowley
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.
phoronixrly
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...
Retric
Price discrimination, MacBooks aren’t their top of the line product so it’s intentionally less powerful than it could be.
dclowd9901
>But where I also really notice it is in idling: just writing this blog post my CPU was right at 46°C the whole time, where previously my computer idled right aroud 60°C. The whole computer just feels a bit healthier.
I get this same feeling whenever I change the fluids on my cars. I know from a practical perspective, it's very little changed, but I can't help feeling like the car just feels like it's in a better place. Which I guess it is? But I know it's entirely mental.
t1234s
I had to do this to my 2012 MBP (along with fixing the gpu solder problem) and I found it wasn't that hard to disassemble / reassemble. Also replacing the battery, upgrading the ram/storage was very easy to do. Contrast this to my 2017 MBP which has to score on the top 10 list of worst apple products of all time as far as quality and ease of repair go.
Have these new M3/4 MPBs gone back at all to being easy to dismantle or change the battery in? The OP with their M1 mentioned tearing overly thin ribbon cables.
masklinn
> Have these new M3/4 MPBs gone back at all to being easy to dismantle or change the battery in?
No.
They're not as bad as the touchbar era (which was truly awful) but they're still a lot worse than the unibodies: ifixit scored the unibodies at 7/10, the apple silicon generation get 4/10 (although the criteria have changed a bit so the comparison is not quite 1:1 this matches my impression: while I've not yet had to dive into my M1P's guts what I've seen of it don't seem easy, while I was able to easily dive in and out of my 2010 and replaced the ram, the battery, the drive (twice), the superdrive (by an HDD tray, then put the superdrive back a few years later), the fans, ...
And the Unibody was a step down from my previous polycarbonate macbook in terms of accessibility (the battery could just be popped out, and let you access the RAM and HDD without even having to unscrew the case).
lisnake
I fixed the eGPU disconnecting issue on my 2012 MacBook Pro by placing the entire motherboard inside an oven for 10 minutes (a rather unconventional solution for reballing). So, yes, MacBooks from that era were not as fragile as they are now. By the way, that laptop still works.
RattlesnakeJake
I cut my Apple-repairing teeth on an iBook G3 that would lose its BGA-soldered GPU if it overheated. The "fix" was to use a heat gun, propane torch (my choice), or even burning alcohol to gently reflow the solder:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/repairing-ibook-g3-grap...
I did it at least three times before that laptop died. Fun times.
hengheng
I was tempted to do that with my first-gen Intel MacBook because it just wouldn't run quiet when idle, that is until I discovered by how much I could undervolt that chip with a random tool that I could just download. I believe I went from 1.26V to 1.03V, or at least these are the numbers still etched into my brain.
Ratio of the squares of those numbers is 2/3, and so the laptop was certainly quiet without having to open it up. But I was surprised at Intel's product back then.
jpalomaki
I replaced battery and did repaste on Intel MacBook Pro (with Touch Bar). Quite tedious process. So many extremely tiny screws with different sizes and all those small connectors. Having been mostly opening ThinkPads before I wasn't really prepared for it. Also did the mistake of not reading the full instructions before starting. The process took way longer than I expected and with zillion teeny tiny half millimeter screws on table I was afraid to take a break.
gruez
The author should benchmark a few months afterwards. A common problem with using "PC" thermal pastes (for lack of a better word) is that they experience more pump out than whatever they use for laptops, so a few months later the performance might end up worse than before he changed the paste.
haiku2077
Don't use regular thermal paste or pads in a Mac. They're not suitable for non-pressure mounted applications.
You can buy TCRS Carbon Black if you really need to repaste a Mac part instead of swapping a new part that was pasted at the factory.
smallpipe
I remember doing it on a thinkpad. I didn't break any cables, I didn't need a guide, and it got significantly quieter afterwards. Macbooks are pretty, they've got a great CPU, but the repairability is just rubbish
reddalo
> repairability is just rubbish
I wonder if something will change for the better in the future, given that the EU will force (from 18th February 2027) every computer sold in the EU to have removable and replaceable batteries.
xandrius
Waiting for that day to come before even considering buying my own macbook. Let's see.
thewebguyd
Same with most dell laptops I've owned. Pop off the back panel and everything is there, easily accessible, standard screws. Just did this on an Inspiron I have, just about 8 screws, pop the heat sync off, repaste, reassemble and done. Took like 15 minutes. Plus the RAM and SSD are also easily accessible and replaceable, as is the battery in a matter of minutes.
sethhochberg
The part I have a hard time with as a corporate purchaser is that the failure/repair/replacement rate on our small number of Dell machines is upwards of 50%. We've only got about a dozen in use, and less then half of them have just worked reliably. At a certain point I don't really care how repairable the Macbooks we buy for almost everyone else are/aren't because the failure rate on those is so low by comparison.
I'm glad the Dell repair guy who gets sent out has a pleasant experience when he replaces the guts of a machine but my team still has to spend time and money shipping around replacements and dealing with warranty repair at a rate we just don't see with the Apple gear.
Once upon a time our entire corporate fleet was all Macbooks but the only thing we had worse luck with than these Dells was training nontechnical users on how to get to their Excel or specialized actuarial/compliance software through virtualization
thewebguyd
No argument there. Where I work (I'm in infrastructure, not a dev) we've switched almost entirely to MacBooks and experienced the same when were a Dell shop. Horrible reliability. We've been on Macs since ~2023 and I've yet to need to send one off for repair or RMA.
I keep them for use at home as Linux machines because of the repairability and ease of upgrading, but my main machine is still a Mac.
I'd love MacBook level of hardware quality combined with easy access to repair and swap parts.
Eric_WVGG
I wouldn’t trade a modern Macbook for an old one by any stretch, but man, you could really have some fun with those older models.
I gave my modded 17" 2009 "cafeteria tray" Macbook Pro to my father, and after using it for many more years, he brought it in for… something. I had replaced the internal optical drive with an SSD and reformatted it as a “Fusion Drive” (a kind of smart multi-drive partition that would put commonly-accessed things on an SSD and large rarely-used storage on an HD, identified as a single drive), apparently every Genius Bar employee crammed around the table because they had never seen any Apple computer like it :D
ravetcofx
Fusion was so terrible and unreliable in my experience. they were still selling fusion iMacs till 2020, and it honestly seemed faster to just disable the fusion and let it be HDD only. I saw so many failures and data loss with that.
dsego
I recently paid 60 euros to get my 14" m1 macbook cleaned, it was extremely dusty inside, so much so that the left fan started making strange squealing noises and then a pinging sonar-type sound every few seconds. Luckily with the combination of the fan control app and the built in apple diagnostic tool I managed to determine it was probably the fan and brought it to the local service shop to disassemble and clean. Now the only things left are to replace the original battery which is at 75% and replace the rustling speaker which was damaged by ants getting inside through the vents and chewing on it.
jeron
this read more like "Do Not Repaste Your MacBook". There's no way this was worth 5 degrees and 100 points in cinbench (sic)
I love "the process was quite friendly" coupled with "two of the connectors broke when I looked at them and one costs hundreds of dollars to replace".