Just like every other Macbook Pro user, I’ve been watching the various reports of massive amounts of thermal paste being applied to the chips, which is apparently was the cause for the really bad heat that can get generated on the bottom of the case. To be honest, I thought the Macbook felt "hot", but it wasn’t too insane compared to my Thinkpad, so it never really bothered me. Last night I decided to check the temperature using the recently released kernel extension, and I was registering around 56C after an hour or so running on the battery and using WiFi.

Like any self-respecting geek, knowing that there was a "cool" (literally) hack, I decided to head over to CompUSA, pick up some Arctic Silver 5 paste, a T6 Torx and a #0 Phillips and rip open the laptop and reapply a normal amount to see if it would improve things.

After an hour of very careful disassembly, cleaning and reassembly, I’m amazed at the results. Sitting idle I’m now at 33C, and after an hour or so of wireless on the battery it’s registering around 42C. So, im really happy at the results. (Disclaimer: results may vary, if your MacBook explodes, don’t blame me).

You’ll also want to grab iFixit’s Macbook disassembly instructions if you decide to attempt it.