Apple forgot to add a heatsink to the new MacBook Airs. Users found a budget solution
Miscellaneous / / July 21, 2022
But it's still annoying that a $1,200 laptop needs modifications to protect it from overheating.
The new MacBook Air with the M2 processor went on sale on July 15, and complaints about this device have already begun to appear on the Web. We already toldNote that the laptop in Midnight scratches more easily than other colors. Now iFixit experts discovered the problem is more serious: the lack of a heat dissipation system. Of course, there is enough thermal paste and graphite tape inside, but Apple regretted the radiators.
This is both bad and good news at the same time. It's amazing that a computer is able to show excellent results in benchmarks without any adequate cooling system. But practice shows that under a serious load, the processor quickly overheats and drops performance.
Youtuber Max Tech solved this problem with a silicone thermal pad. Although he used a fairly thick silicone, the lid closed without any problems, and the blogger proceeded to the tests to find out how efficient the laptop became.
It took the modified laptop a minute and 56 seconds to export 50 images at 42 megapixels via Lightroom Classic. By comparison, a MacBook Pro M2 with active cooling took 2 minutes to complete the same task, while a MacBook Air without thermal pads completed the same task in 2 minutes 55 seconds.
During the CineBench stress test in 9 tests (about 20 minutes), the case warmed up to 47 ° C, and the processor began to slow down due to overheating. However, CineBench simulates maximum CPU usage, which is difficult to achieve in everyday use, so this shouldn't be a problem.
But the results of the benchmark itself are impressive: the MacBook Air with thermal pad scored 8684 points, while the standard Air and Pro - 8551 and 8557, respectively.