Swapped thermal paste on a 2012 MacBook Pro, huge difference
Had a customer in Austin with a laptop hitting 105C just opening Chrome. Used Arctic MX-4 after trying some cheap generic paste, temps dropped to 78C under load. Anyone else seen that much spread between pastes, or was the old stuff just baked solid?
105C is insane, that old paste was probably powder by then. I've seen MX-4 drop temps like that too, mostly when the factory stuff was cooked for years.
Wow, that's wild. Did you check what kind of paste was in there before you swapped it, or was it just completely crusted over? @oscarwright mentioned the powder thing, and I've had that happen on older MacBooks too, but 27 degrees is a pretty massive swing even for that. Curious if the heat sink was also loose or if it was really just the paste itself.