4 ms·

I've modded my M1 air and have seen and measured the improvements but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Yes, it throttles less and things like renders and exports

by mrtksn 4y ago

I've modded my M1 air and have seen and measured the improvements but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Yes, it throttles less and things like renders and exports take less time but this machine already has about 10 minutes of "buffer" before it throttles and as a result you don't see the benefits before pushing the device beyond what's reasonable for an ultraportable laptop. I would rarely do anything that lasts more than 10 minutes of full CPU/GPU load and when I do it would be something like half an hour and the thermal pad mod will give me back 5 minutes. If I'm going to render something that takes hours, I would not do it on my machine that I use for everything. I would do it on some desktop with Nvidia graphics or I will rent a machine build for the task. I don't think it's necessary. On the other hand, I also modded my girlfriends 2020 Air with Core i5 and the improvements were much more noticeable. Unexpectedly, the battery life improved too.

SmellTheGlove 4y ago
Could you point me to any resources on the mod for the 2020? I also have an i5 MBA and am interested in this. Google gave me trash results!
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Haven't done it myself, but here's a Reddit thread where someone walks through it: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/ud73ve/thermal_pad_mod_on_the_2020_intel_macbook_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/ud73ve/thermal_...
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Here are a few videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_JGTbAg2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_JGTbAg2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIB6npHBL2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIB6npHBL2M However I did not follow a tutorial, I wasn't planning to mod that one but since I had leftover thermal pad, decided to give it a try. Remember how YouTubers made a big deal about the "heat sink is not connected to a fan"? Well, they simply didn't know what they are talking about. The air flows from that heatsink even if the fan is at the other end of the laptop. Which means, you should be careful not to block the airflow when doing the mod. I put a thermal pad that is about half of the size of the heatsink.
gnicholas 4y ago
> Unexpectedly, the battery life improved too. Is this because the fan isn't used as much? I generally assume that anything involving moving parts uses lots of energy, comparatively speaking.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mrtksn 4y ago
  The laptop that used to last 6 hours when watching videos now lasts about 8. The fans were not spinning up to full blast at that use case bore the mod too, so I don't know how much the fans are responsible for the difference. My speculation is that the CPU is using less power when cooler due to the relationship between temperature and conductivity.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    CPU stays cooler for longer -> Processes throttle less -> Processes finish faster -> CPU can return to idle state faster This is particularly noticeable in burst-y workloads like web browsing or software development.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      Maybe. That laptop is mostly used to watch Youtube and streaming movies and sometimes to do online shopping(she is using the company laptop for work, so no actual work done on this device since a year at least).
- unixfg 4y ago
  https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep
- nsteel 4y ago
  Static power (leakage) increases exponentially with temperature. Although, static power should be relatively small compared to dynamic power for TSMC's latest nodes.
ghostly_s 4y ago
Where can you rent a desktop? Or do you mean cloud services?
- mrtksn 4y ago
  So in my particular case I simply spin up a Linode or DO node when I will do something that will require hours of data processing. Maybe they are not the fastest options but at least lives my personal computer alone when processing. There are also services that rent Macs or PCs with serious GPUs but I have no experience with those. AFAIK, for people who render 3D stuff there are render farms but I also don't have experience since it's not something I do professionally. When I render something that will take hours, I would ask for a remote desktop connection to my friends gaming PC.
hedgehog 4y ago
I run my Air most of the time with the lid closed in a vertical stand and for this scenario the thermal pad mod brings the temperature under moderate load way down. Why does looking at LinkedIn or Redfin push the CPU up to 60C? Who knows but the thermal pad helps it not be worse.

by mrtksn 4y ago

SmellTheGlove 4y ago

Could you point me to any resources on the mod for the 2020? I also have an i5 MBA and am interested in this. Google gave me trash results!

mikeyouse 4y ago
Haven't done it myself, but here's a Reddit thread where someone walks through it: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/ud73ve/thermal_pad_mod_on_the_2020_intel_macbook_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/ud73ve/thermal_...
mrtksn 4y ago
Here are a few videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_JGTbAg2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_JGTbAg2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIB6npHBL2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIB6npHBL2M However I did not follow a tutorial, I wasn't planning to mod that one but since I had leftover thermal pad, decided to give it a try. Remember how YouTubers made a big deal about the "heat sink is not connected to a fan"? Well, they simply didn't know what they are talking about. The air flows from that heatsink even if the fan is at the other end of the laptop. Which means, you should be careful not to block the airflow when doing the mod. I put a thermal pad that is about half of the size of the heatsink.

gnicholas 4y ago

> Unexpectedly, the battery life improved too. Is this because the fan isn't used as much? I generally assume that anything involving moving parts uses lots of energy, comparatively speaking.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mrtksn 4y ago
The laptop that used to last 6 hours when watching videos now lasts about 8. The fans were not spinning up to full blast at that use case bore the mod too, so I don't know how much the fans are responsible for the difference. My speculation is that the CPU is using less power when cooler due to the relationship between temperature and conductivity.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  CPU stays cooler for longer -> Processes throttle less -> Processes finish faster -> CPU can return to idle state faster This is particularly noticeable in burst-y workloads like web browsing or software development.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    Maybe. That laptop is mostly used to watch Youtube and streaming movies and sometimes to do online shopping(she is using the company laptop for work, so no actual work done on this device since a year at least).
unixfg 4y ago
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep
nsteel 4y ago
Static power (leakage) increases exponentially with temperature. Although, static power should be relatively small compared to dynamic power for TSMC's latest nodes.

ghostly_s 4y ago

Where can you rent a desktop? Or do you mean cloud services?

mrtksn 4y ago
So in my particular case I simply spin up a Linode or DO node when I will do something that will require hours of data processing. Maybe they are not the fastest options but at least lives my personal computer alone when processing. There are also services that rent Macs or PCs with serious GPUs but I have no experience with those. AFAIK, for people who render 3D stuff there are render farms but I also don't have experience since it's not something I do professionally. When I render something that will take hours, I would ask for a remote desktop connection to my friends gaming PC.

hedgehog 4y ago

I run my Air most of the time with the lid closed in a vertical stand and for this scenario the thermal pad mod brings the temperature under moderate load way down. Why does looking at LinkedIn or Redfin push the CPU up to 60C? Who knows but the thermal pad helps it not be worse.