The All-New Apple Toaster

The heat is on - again.

Get It Try It

2006 has been the year of the rotten Apple. Everything started in February with the Oompa Loompa worm; then came a reminder that the three year old Opener hole took a year and a half to patch and that perhaps half of all systems were still vulnerable; then Rob Braun, former employee of Apple and cofounder of Open Darwin, accused Apple of not being true 'open source', only using the moniker to gain media attention, and basically breaking every rule in the book; and just when Apple's credentials in the software and security maneges couldn't have been worse, the stressed out company began releasing their 32-bit Intel notebooks and getting even more egg on face.

Excerpts from confidential Apple documents started turning up - more than confirming what early 'rev A' purchasers had already suspected: Apple were using thermal grease like it was mayonnaise. MacBooks were overheating and experiencing permanent damage.

Except people learn from their mistakes, right? So when the all-new iBook (now called the 'MacBook' without the 'Pro' suffix) was released, everyone assumed they wouldn't encounter the same clumsy issue.

Oh fools. It turns out the MacBook is being built in the same way - as if someone wants the danged things to self-destruct.

And then someone figured 'why not check the old PowerPC PowerBooks too' and lo and behold, yet another shocker.

A consumer warning is therefore required: do not purchase a notebook from Apple until the industry as a whole regard the issue as resolved.

MacBook with Mayo!

The following two photographs from Apple manuals come courtesy MacNN. They show how an obscene - and destructive - quantity of thermal grease is applied to the innards of the new MacBook.

PowerBook with Mayo

The following two photographs are of a PowerPC PowerBook. They show the mayonnaise scandal has been going on longer than anyone suspected.

Mayonnaise Quotes

Most of the following quotes come from MacNN where the Apple photographs were first published.

I'm not gonna order a MacBook sandwich until Apple figure out they're putting too much mayo on it.

I can't believe that the engineering, design, and QA groups at Apple, Asustek, and Quanta let - and are letting - this one slip by.

Holy shit! That is horrible! What are they doing to that poor machine? That's not a fucking sundae!

This is the hottest laptop I have ever owned.

It makes me laugh whenever I hear some Apple fanatic trying to defend Apple when they overdo the thermal paste. It will NEVER be OK to put that much thermal paste on a chip, because it TRAPS the heat in the CPU, which then spreads to the motherboard and other parts of the computer causing potentially permanent damage. You are only supposed to put half a grain of rice worth of thermal paste so it fills in the microscopic gaps and holes in the surfaces of the CPU and heatsink. There is supposed to be as much metal on metal contact as possible for maximum heat transfer. Trust me: this has been discussed many times in other forums. Once you redo the thermal paste correctly the temperatures will drop 20 C because the heatsinks will dissipate the heat properly so it doesn't build up inside.

Let me see if I can be clear: that is FAR TOO MUCH THERMAL GREASE by well over an order of magnitude. With that level of application it is ACTING AS AN INSULATOR. Yes, the thermal grease still conducts heat, but in comparison to metal surfaces it should simply be filling air gaps in it is a MUCH WORSE conductor of heat.

By every measure standard and practice that is far far far far too much thermal grease. The heat dissipates in an uncontrolled and unintended fashion instead of through the heat pipes, heat sinks, and associated fans as was intended.