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Mid 2012 model, A1278 / 2.5 GHz i5 or 2.9 GHz i7 processor.

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Still overheating after thermal paste replacement.

I have a mid 2012 MBP 13" and I have noticed that it tends to spike up to 100c almost immediately on any sort of semi-intensive task so I decided to reapply the thermal paste but the highs are still uncomfortably hot. The lows are better dropping from staying in the high 60s to dropping to about 55 at idle. Even if I manually set the fan speed to 100% it still gets hot. The whole die was covered with the paste when I smeared it out and all the mounts are tight. Do these Macs just have bad thermals or is there another underlying issue? I have a 2012 Mac mini with almost identical hardware and even with the stock paste from 2014 it still runs cooler than this MacBook. Thank you.

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Hi

I have used a 2012 13” and I never really saw it get too hot under heavy use (85deg c or below )

Have you tried a different heatsink to see if that helps the issue?

Thanks:-)

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@hellomacos I have not tried another heat sink. I can order one to see if that helps but that may be a few weeks. Thank you.

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@thequacker

Might be worth a shot!

Also what sort of tasks are you doing on you Mac that cause these temps

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@hellomacos Mainly playing light games such as Roblox and other low end games but sometimes just watching YouTube will get it pretty hot especially with an external monitor (1440p). And mind you this is with fans on full blast and not on the stock fan curve.

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@thequacker

Yeah that shouldn’t cause temps that high

Iv seen macs do blender renders and only hit 90 deg c

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Hey, Duck.

I would suggest installing a new or lightly used heat sink and testing the laptop under moderate-difficulty tasks. You may also want to check that the fan is properly spinning at a sufficient rate.

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Look for a greasy looking reside on the logic board right where the crimp is on the heat sink, this will tell you that it has leaked and needs replacement.

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@hellomacos @russellrepairs First thing I would like to say is sorry for reviving such an old thread and not updating it. So I replaced the heatsink+fan and put new (and higher quality MX-4) thermal paste and it has made little to no difference under load. The idle temps may be slightly lower (but that can be difficult to measure) but it still spikes up and throttles at 103ºC when doing anything intensive (gaming, running VMs, editing, etc) even with the fan set at full blast. It is the base i5-3210M not the i7 variant if that is a variable. I am running patched Ventura but it still gets unreasonably hot under load with Mojave and Windows so I don't think that is a major factor.

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So my (mmmabey early 2015) MacBook pro A1502 has been overheating AFTER changing out the stock thermal paste (go figure). After closing everything back up and booting my computer I got upwards of 79 darn degrees C!! it would jump while executing moderate tasks like watching videos and coding. So I cracked it open applied less thermal paste (enough to still cover chip but still thin). I then download an app to control my fan speeds at will (like a a god would lol) which is "Macs Fans Control" from Mac Update. https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/47386/... Experiment with fan speeds, tinker. Oddly enough I get the BEST TEMPS when turning the FANS ALL THE WAY DOWN and, I don't know, letting the heatsink do its thing, I dunno ^\_(-n-)_/^. I am typing this at a steady 40c while running three youtube videos simultaneously. Hope I wasn't too late!

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Thanks for the reply. For me it ended up being a bad heatsink. I sold the MacBook a few months back since I got a newer one but thanks for the reply.

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