Cleaning My MacBook After 16800 Hours of Use

This is something people often forget about with laptops. Between dust buildup and thermal paste degradation, performance will always slow over time due to rampant thermals. Even tech-savvy people often seem to think their laptop is simply “slowing down” and “too old” when the solution is often as simple as a can of compressed air.<p>I’d really recommend doing the dust cleanup every year or so. It’s usually easy enough to remove the bottom cover of any laptop without particularly special screwdrivers.<p>Desktops (especially the PCs with the case Windows) are a bit easier to understand because you’ll see the clogged intakes and dust buildup much more readily.<p>One thing I like about mechanical keyboards is that the keys can be removed making cleaning much easier. Six months is a better timeline for keyboard cleaning, these things get _nasty_ especially if you have pets.

So note #1: swollen batteries are not a normal state of the battery. This is a sign of a defect and battery that is swollen is a safety hazard and should definitely be immediately replaced. Do not throw batteries in a garbage can. I don&#x27;t know how it is done in US, here in Poland most large shops take used batteries for proper disposal.<p>Note #2: every breathing computer keeps accumulating dust and requires cleaning every couple of months of years. It is worth it if only to keep the noise down.<p>Note #3: it is not safe to vacuum the laptop as it can cause static discharge. Technically, even just waving a charged object over a piece of conductor can induce a current and damage susceptible component. The damage might not be immediately apparent and may cause various types of malfunctions. If you have no other way of doing it at the very least ensure it is done in humid environment (over 70% humidity but the more humid the better).

I’ve read a lot of the comments here.<p>I don’t see many people mentioning the amazing reliability of this laptop.<p>I’ve had a similar experience with MacBook Pro (7 years, only problem was some keys started going bad).<p>There was a time you could not keep a laptop 7 years without significant component replacement or just having to replace it because it was no longer able to run modern software due to slower cpu, not enough ram (and not upgradable enough)... basically hardware obsolescence.<p>Now the components last AND the hardware is still fast enough to be useful after 7 years.<p>What a wonderful world we live in!

A year ago, I opened up the kids’ 2012 MBP because it was overheating with the fan on all the time. (This machine has had a long, hard life, including requiring a new keyboard when a glass of water was poured on it, several hard drive cables, a couple of batteries, several power adaptors, and I forget what else)<p>I extracted a chunk of lint about 1&#x2F;2 cm thick and the consistency of felt from the fan intake.<p>After that, the fan didn’t turn on nearly as often, and thermal management during Minecraft was much better.

For anyone doing this, please do not use a vacuum hose (unless its anti static) as it can cause ESD discharge, especially on exposed PCBs<p>I wrecked a DVR doing this with a Dyson vacuum.<p>Compressed air or small piece of cotton cloth with rubbing alcohol is the way to clean exposed electronics.

I just replaced my MacBook Late 2013 after similar usage. No repairs, no hiccups or any component failure whatsoever except for a very badly degraded battery - it lasted about 1.5 hours on a full charge at the end. There’s a lot to be said about Apple but honestly I don’t see any other manufacturers that produce laptops that last so insanely long. Hopefully my new one will last as long as well :)

Side note on cleaning Apple products, may be of interest to iPhone users.<p>My 2017 6S wasn&#x27;t charging properly. Charge would start, then a few minutes later, sometimes less, it would stop. I found that many times, if I inserted the plug with a bit more force, it would start charging, but later, it would stop. As is common the cable was frayed near the plug, so I replaced the cable. The situation didn&#x27;t change.<p>I was at the point of deciding to replace the iPhone, since it was getting dated anyway, when my daughter suggested I clean the plug receptor.... the light bulb went on.<p>I grabbed a toothpick and started pulling out lint. Like your bellybutton lint. There was a lot of lint. It had become packed into the base of the receptor sufficiently to prevent the plug from making the contacts.<p>I had carried it in my pocket for 3 years, it likely gathered a few specks of lint each time I put it in there, and then I compacted the lint when I plugged it in next.

I&#x27;m on a maxed out 2013 Macbook Pro and I will fight tooth and nail to keep this laptop functioning for as long as possible. It has a decent keyboard, still powerful processor (2.3 GHz Intel Core i7), 16GB RAM, dual GPU. and MagSafe!!! Beloved MagSafe why on earth did they kill you I will never understand..<p>I had the Apple store replace the screen and battery about a year ago. The screen was suffering from the anti-reflective coating (1) recall, but I missed the repair program window. In every customer support conversation I had leading up to the repair, they would hint at &quot;consumer protection law&quot;. This was a clue that if I then said &quot;CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW&quot; they would be forced to do the recall for free even though it was out of date. They ended up giving me the screen and battery for free.<p>Apple Store failed to identify and fix one issue that plagued me though, which was spontaneous black screen and poweroffs, especially when running on battery below 80%. It seemed like a power issue, or heat issue. I lived with it for two years, lugging a power brick around whenever I moved spots. With the Apple Stores closed due to covid, I contacted a local third party mac repair person. They said they&#x27;ve seen this before, it&#x27;s a CPU power issue, and if you run a small script to keep the CPU out of really-low-power state it will stop happening (2). And they were right! So if you&#x27;re experiencing this annoying problem as well, try this python script:<p><pre><code> from time import sleep import os while True: sleep(0.0002)</code></pre> You may have to tweak the sleep value - higher values will let your CPU relax more but may trigger the power issue. Lower values will increase the CPU load but decrease the chance that the CPU hits this condition.<p>I&#x27;ve been running this script for 2 weeks now and no freezes. It generates about 6-8% CPU load, so obviously my battery time is suffering, but the alternative (random freezes all day) was so annoying that I&#x27;m okay living with this.<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrumors.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;17&#x2F;apple-extends-free-staingate-repairs&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrumors.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;17&#x2F;apple-extends-free-stai...</a><p>2: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;mac&#x2F;comments&#x2F;9pyort&#x2F;apple_macbook_pro_sudden_crash_fix_for_models&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;mac&#x2F;comments&#x2F;9pyort&#x2F;apple_macbook_p...</a>

This is why I loved the no-suffix &quot;MacBook&quot;. No fans - no vents - no dust - no cleaning! For me, the most valuable feature and very under-appreciated.<p>Eventually I had to replace it and now I&#x27;m stuck with a noisy dusty MBP. I suppose the iPad now fulfills the role of &quot;maintenance free computer&quot;.

Never use a vacuum on electronics! Use cans of compressed air instead. The author partially addressed this in the article but I feel that the message doesn&#x27;t really come out as clear as it should. The static generated by a standard vacuum cleaner can damage electronic components, the author is wrong in their belief that this only applies to desktops and not laptops (and why would that be the case?).<p>PS air compressors are not a good alternative: they might suffer from internal condensation and emit air that is too moist, that&#x27;s why it&#x27;s best to use cans instead.<p>PPS there are vacuum cleaners specifically designed for electronics. They tend to be pretty expensive. It&#x27;s OK to use those.

Wait, recycling a 2013 laptop? What? I hope he means selling it on, not actually recycling. Computers just don&#x27;t age the same way anymore, a 2013 laptop is still perfectly usable nowadays, it would be an incredible waste to recycle it.

Looks like the anti-glare coating is coming off too. That happened to my MacBook and Apple replaced the whole screen for free, that&#x27;s pretty good considering it was 4 years old.

Laptop makers who make it nigh impossible to take the back cover off without special tools: &quot;Performance degradation due to the inescapable characteristics of typical user environments is God&#x27;s sign of favor for planned obsolescence.&quot;

A reminder that Apple refuses to fix 2017 Macbooks that were poorly constructed (Flexgate), even after having acknowledged that they were poorly built (by offering a free fix for the same issue on a previous model and changing the part on later models).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;13-inch-macbook-pro-display-backlight-service" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;13-inch-macbook-pro-display-backli...</a>

I recently did the same on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) A1425 while performing a battery replacement. Definitely helped to have a thorough cleaning. Documented here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=CAYFDDxUxHA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=CAYFDDxUxHA</a>

I know very little about electricity. What is it about vacuuming particles that produces static electricity where shooting the particles with compressed air does not?

Mini rant only tangentially related. I have a 6 year old MacBook Pro (Mid 2014 NVidia). It <i></i>mostly<i></i> works fine.<p>Except, the GPU drivers are crap and Apple has no intention of fixing them. This shows up as bugs in Firefox and Chrome, the apps that hit the most GPU edge cases, and when I&#x27;ve filed bugs I&#x27;ve basically been told &quot;too old, get a new machine&quot;<p>Which isn&#x27;t an unreasonable POV. I&#x27;m sure there just are not that many 2014 NVidia MBPs in the world. Apple doesn&#x27;t care to fix the bugs. Why should the browser teams waste time working around GPU driver bugs for so few users?<p>And yet, it&#x27;s really hard to justify spending $3400 for a new MBP when nothing will actually change in my day to day usage.<p>I also have a 3yr old 1060 Razer gaming laptop. That actually enabled something, VR, to justify spending $$$$ on it. But, getting a current dual GPU MBP gets me nothing that my 2014 MBP doesn&#x27;t already get me except fixing a few annoying bug livable browser bugs.<p>Note I have a similar issue with the Razer. Windows won&#x27;t update to the most reason version and says their are issues with the hardware and maybe some day in the future once the issues are worked around Windows will update. Unfortunately that means I can&#x27;t use WSL 2 so again, I can spent $3000+ for a 2020 Razer but when I&#x27;m done all that will happen is some software bugs will be fixed, my actual day to day usage won&#x27;t change.<p>Tech can be really annoying and it&#x27;s frustrating to be told the solution is spend $7000<p>Just Kvetching

I got the 2-for-one variant of this with my 2016 MBP where I purchased a replacement battery assembly from iFixit to replace the swolen ones. In the kit, they include: the tools, a link to their iFixit video on the steps as well as some protective gear to do the job. Highly recommended! Replacing batteries is a way more involved task on MBPs, but while you&#x27;re there in the early stages, you can vacuum or take compressed air to anything you see.

I&#x27;m a bit sad that his MacBook is not getting more love after 16800 hours of service.<p>I have 2013 MacBook Pro 15, never opened, the battery lasts for 1.5 hours, tends to overheat a bit. Same story. Morally it felt old but it was still good and fast machine for me. I was contemplating of buying 16&quot; but just could not justify throwing away this solidly engineered machine.<p>During quarantine bought iFixit battery replacement. Disassembled every part, cleaned religiously every area with blower, replaced swollen battery and assembled again. Took 2 hours, works fine, no fan noise, battery lasts for a long time, finally upgraded to Catalina.<p>Now I have a great laptop and after 7 years of using same machine I felt that I still needed to upgrade something. So I went to buy a desktop PC. It was interesting to assemble a modern PC, try Alyx and Windows 10 with WSL. I no longer need to use Paperspace for SketchUp rendering. After COVID I am planning to leave PC at home and have my MacBook at Office &#x2F; Co-working.<p>Not saying this is the best decision, just sharing a different path taken when it came to computer upgrading.

I used my 17 inch Macbook Pro everyday for six years. It would still be going if not for a failed GPU. I did take it apart hoping it was dust and heat causing the problems but no it was a fatal hardware fault. It&#x27;s now just a shiny aluminum lump.<p>There&#x27;s nothing worse for electronics than heat. The damage is cumulative but nearly impossible to notice until it&#x27;s too late.

I replaced the thermal compound my trust old dell Latitude. Barely an hour of effort undoing Phillips screws and scraping off the seven year old gak. Roughly a 15 C decrease under load. Fans are less of a blowdryer and more of a hand warmer.

I just got my 4 year old macbook pro&#x27;s battery replaced. The guy who did it also cleaned up the internals. I can easily use my laptop for another 2-3 years. I spent 100 USD to get it cleaned and battery replaced. Best 100 USD spent.

Highly recommended for keeping things clean: Metro Vacuum ED500P DataVac 500-Watt, 0.75-HP Electric Duster.<p>I&#x27;ve had one since ~2012 and it helps me maintain a small fleet of laptops and workstations for my large family (with many pets).

Here is a Schlieren visualisation of the airflow from my 16” MBP.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;88mXfMm0M58" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;88mXfMm0M58</a>

My 2009 13&quot; MacBook Pro still runs great after all these years of heavy use. I&#x27;ve cleaned it and reapplied thermal paste on the CPU&#x2F;bridge chips twice.

Thanks for sharing. My battery is swollen on my 2014 MBP, and trackpad becoming unusable. New battery replacement coming soon - I&#x27;ll do this along with it.

Typing this on my 2011 MBA which has been used a similar amount. Screen replaced during warranty and keyboard replaced subsequently but working fine!

I use the Dyson on my Mac’s exhaust every so often for the same reason, it’s satisfying to see the amount of crud that comes out of it.

It reminds me 6 months ago when also opened up my 6 years old macbook pro and saw the dirt inside. The battery was totally destroyed so I ordered a kit at ifixit and replaced it myself.<p>Now the macbook feels like new and the battery last forever. I hope we still have the option to repair our devices in 5 years.

Thank you for the video + article combo. I enjoyed listening, but also that I was able to look back at the text to see specific things instead of having to rewind the video&#x2F;audio and listen again.

Has Apple commented on the ”swollen battery syndrome”? Are these batteries just expected to behave like this when they get old? This seems to be very common problem with old MacBooks.

I would not recommend to clean the fan with a vacuum cleaner because the rotation will generate a low voltage

How about compressed air on a MacBook Air? Seems trickier than on a normal MacBook Pro.

my 2018 macbook pro just got cleaned by apple when they replaced the keyboard. I assume it will be done by them every 18 months or as long as the recall is in effect. (sucks that your data is all deleted though)

Next time. Making peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I didn&#x27;t know they needed &quot;cleaning&quot;.