Like many of our users, I have a MacBook Pro laptop. It’s an older one (coming up on 3 or 4 years old), and it’s been driving me CRAZY lately with fan noise. Plus, working with Live and DNA at the same time, things were getting a bit tight on memory. So I thought I’d take care of these issues all at once. Adding memory was easy, and there’s plenty of how-to out there, so I won’t bore you with that.
Cleaning the fan, however, I think, could use some more details. I found these great links….
How to clean the fan
How to take apart the MacBook to get at the fan you need to clean.
…but when it comes to things like this, taking apart is easy. It’s putting it back together that illicits fear, despair, and cursing!
Here’s some strategies I used to make assembly as easy as possible. It’s really worthwhile to do this stuff yourself: there’s less computer downtime, and you will keep at least a hundred dollars in your pocket (probably more). With these tips, the process is really painless, and having a computer that works properly is awesome!
Don’t get screwed
As I followed the nice instructions on taking apart the case, I carefully set aside the tiny, easy-to-lose screws. After each step, I put the screws on a fat piece of masking (painter’s) tape, and wrote the related step and place of removal:
Had I not done this, I would have ended up with a pile of screws, many in different sizes and not really known which ones went where. But this made it really easy to backtrack the steps and use the correct screws. It also reduces the chance of spilling the screws on the floor where you will never find them all!
Dust in the wind
Once I got everything apart, I knew dust would be a big issue. The dust that ends up in computer cases tends to be extremely fine, gets everywhere, and is hard to deal with. However, masking tape will come to the rescue:
I used the masking tape to “suck” up all the dust at the vents, rather than use air to blow it all over my office. Similarly, I used tape to clean other areas of the case, using it like a dust rag. After I got all the big chunks mopped up, I then used the tape as a sheild, and directed compressed air into the tape to catch the rest of the dust.
When I took apart the fan to clean it, the blades needed a good dusting. What’s that? Masking tape again? Yup. I put the fan on the tape, and used my roommate’s an old toothbrush and brushed the dust onto the tape:
Keep it greasy
The article on cleaning the fan mentions that they used WD40 to lube the fan spindle. This could actually make thing really messy, and maybe make things worse in the future, since excess lube will ATTRACT dirt. I used TriFlow (you could use any silicon spray lube or even WD40, though), but to control the amount, I first gave a small squirt of it on some junk plastic, dipped a toothpick in to get a small drop of the stuff, and then inserted the toothpick into the fan’s hole, thereby applying a tiny amount of lube on a very small part.
Keep it tight
One final note…when you actually do put the screws back in (especially around the sides), it really helps to not tighten them all the way down until after they are all in. The tolerances are pretty fine on this thing, so if you tighten each screw all the way as you go, at some point, one of the screws just won’t fit right. So if you just fit all the screws loose, then finish up by giving them the last turn, your case will go together MUCH better.
I am much much happier now that my Mac doesn’t sound like a blender anymore, and I’m glad I didn’t take my computer into a shop where I undoubtedly would have paid for a new fan and a lot of labor, and, worse, been without my computer for a day!
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news by Peter
