You may have seen my recent video
about the thermal mod on M1 MacBook Air.
Well, if you haven't already watched that
I'll briefly recap it for you.
By applying thermal pads to the heat sink of the M1 chip,
I was able to get a 15% overall increase in performance
with up to a 30% increase in render times for my videos.
In this video,
I'm going to show you exactly how to do this mod
on your very own M1 MacBook Air
and the equipment you will need.
I do recommend doing some benchmarks before you do this mod
so you can see how much performance improvement you get.
Run a few CinemaBench benchmarks
and maybe a few renders and try it all again
once you've done the mod.
Now, just a quick disclaimer before we get started
there's no guarantee that this mod will
or will not affect the warranty.
Although you aren't technically changing anything,
you're just sticking removable thermal pads onto the back
of the heat sink.
If something does go wrong with your Mac,
Apple may not cover it under warranty.
Proceed with this mod at your own risk.
The other thing to note is that the back case
will get very hot
when you're pushing the Mac hard, such as rendering a video.
I was hitting about 61 degrees Celsius
after a 30 minute render in my previous video.
Now, 61 degrees can be quite hot for some people.
So just make sure you're aware of that before going through
with this mod.
But if you're like me and you don't care about any of this
and you're okay with it, let's get started.
Okay, guys. Here, we have the M1 MacBook Air.
So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you
what you need to do to complete this mod.
And also how to take the back cover off,
apply the thermal pads
and then obviously, reapply the back cover.
Now obviously, you will need some equipment
and some tools for this.
So as you can see here
I have some thermal pads just off Amazon.
This is the 1.5 millimeter one.
This is going to be going
on the top section up here, because this is the thinnest.
And then we've got a thicker three millimeter pad.
And this is going to be going here
which is a little bit of a recessed portion.
And the aim of the game is you want these pads
to actually make a connection
between the heat sink and the back aluminum case.
Now I will link these things in the description below
so if you are interested in doing this mod, you can.
The other thing you're going to need
is some kind of screwdrivers set.
So I've got the IFIXIT kit here.
It's a pretty decent one.
So it's got pretty much everything you're going to need
including all the screw heads.
You're only going to need one for this mod, by the way.
This video isn't sponsored by IFIXIT or anything like that.
I just like their stuff.
If you haven't got one of these,
they are relatively inexpensive.
Again, I'll link it in the description.
Now I am also using this magnetic screw placeholder
also from iFIXIT.
You don't need this
but it's just a handy thing to have to keep the screws on.
Now the screwdriver head you will need
is a P5 Penta lobe.
Again, this is going to be in most of the iFIXIT kits.
And then the next thing you want to do
is you want to take out the screws
that are attaching the back case to the Mac.
Okay. So all of these screws have now been taken off.
You might be able to see here
but some of the screws are actually different lengths.
So I've put, obviously the ladder of the screws here
matches the back of the MacBook.
So it's very easy for me to put back on when the time comes.
And as you may be able to see in the camera
the top screws are longer
and the bottom six screws are the shorter ones.
So we'll put this to the side
and we'll get started on cracking open at the back.
So now, you obviously want to get the back case off.
Now you can use the tools from IFIXIT
which is the suction cup and the spatula to make this easier
So I'm just going to be using this again.
I'll link all this stuff in the description.
(spatula screeching)
Okay. There we go.
Now, as you can see immediately on the back,
there's some black sort of material there.
Now I have seen in some videos
that some people actually scratch that off.
I don't recommend doing that.
I recommend just leaving it.
So we'll put this to the side and as you can see here,
we have the interior of an M1 MacBook Air.
So as you can see, really nice and neat looking.
It's been done very, very well.
And this is what we're actually going to be applying
the thermal pads to.
Now, you might be able to see from this angle,
I'll see if I can lift it up a bit further,
but this particular part is a little bit higher
than this part, which is actually recessed.
And this is what we're going to be using,
the different size thermal pads for.
Now, the next step is to obviously cut down
the thermal pads to size.
This is how they will generally come.
You'll get like a 10 centimeter by 10 centimeter
or a 10 centimeter by five centimeter long strip.
This is obviously the thinner one.
This is 1.5 millimeters.
That's going to go there.
It's actually already pretty much a perfect size.
I might just trim it on the edges a bit.
And then the three millimeter version,
that's going to go here.
So, obviously I'm going to trim that down quite a bit.
It doesn't need to be exact measurements.
So you can probably just take a rough measurement,
maybe mark it with a pen or something, and then just cut.
So I'm going to do that right now.
Okay. So as you can see,
I've cut down the thermal pads to size.
Now it's not exact, as you can see,
there's a little bit of a gap there
and then not 100% a perfect fit,
but again, it doesn't really matter.
You just want to have as much of this surface area
covered as you can
because you just want to try to facilitate the heat transfer
up and onto the external back case.
So what we'll do now is we will just peel off the adhesive
on the back and we will pretty much just stick it down
onto the heat sink.
So as you can see there,
I decided to just quickly reposition the top part.
I just cut out a little section here
just because this technically isn't part of the heat sink.
So I wanted to cut around that
and I've also put a little strip there as well.
Just sort of cover it up a little bit.
Again, it's not pretty, but you just want to make sure
that the majority of this heat sink is covered
and is able to make contact with the back case.
So at this point, you want to make sure obviously,
all the protective covering is off,
and then you want to put the back of the case back on.
So you'll probably notice a little bit of resistance
when you try to push this down a little bit
and get the screws in.
That's good.
You don't want too much obviously
but a little bit is good because that means that
the thermal pads are definitely making contact
with the back of the case, which is what you want.
So let's put the screws back in and let's go from there.
And that is it.
You now have a thermal mod M1 MacBook air.
The great thing about this mod
is that you can reverse it at any time.
Just repeat this process and peel off the thermal pads.
And you're back to a stock MacBook.
Again, the links to the thermal pads and tools you'll need
are in the description of this video.
Stay tuned on my channel
cause I'll be doing a lot more videos on this topic,
including seeing if a laptop cooling pad
makes any additional difference.
Anyway, thanks for watching this video.
If you have any comments or questions,
leave them down below, but apart from that
I will catch you guys in the next one.