What Does Liquid Metal Look like After 3 Months Inside a MacBook Pro?
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2018
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A few months ago, I put Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal inside my 2017 MacBook Pro. Not only did the thermals improve over 15% from the stock thermal paste, but my fans stayed quieter and my clockspeed boost maintained a higher level. With upcoming operating systems like macOS Mojave, owning a liquid metal laptop may not seem like a bad idea, but it has been 3 months and liquid metal may already have some downsides not often emphasized upon. - Наука та технологія
Liquid metal rule: If the temperatures are good, never open it up again.
What you are seeing is perfectly normal, although you shouldn't clean the CPU die that way, since the liquid metal can scratch the surface (by your mechanical forces, that is).
how should we clean it than
does it require annual replacement like he said?
@@inSpyr no
cpu and gpu pasted here on my desktop for more than a year already, actually august 2017... Paranoid user is paranoid in the video
There are reason why OEM don't put it in....
@@campkira yet still hp done it...
Love how he just starts speaking spanish for a little bit!
The reason why your copper looked weird is because it is a copper alloy, which is more at risk for decomposition.
So when i get your post right - even if the surface looks like the copper, there is a chance that it isn't pure copper and may contain a composition of copper and some other metal which could get destroyed by the liquid metal? Just like there may not come any liquid metal to an aluminum surface?
Jesper Lerch not destroyed, it could just soak into it a bit. With aluminum, the gallium forces its way in between the crystals of the aluminum and weakens its integrity. On this copper alloy, it looks like it just goes in on the surface because everything was fine.
Or its just a thin copper layer over aluminium . Before you get that liquid metal stuff scratch the cooler in an area where the cooler gets no contact with the cpu or gpu when its still looking just like copper no problem but when something shines through in silver dont use liquid metal. But there is no problem when Nickel is over Copper to protect it from corrosion (you can see this on high quality desktop cpu/gpu coolers but not that often on Laptop coolers)
Gallium alloys with copper. That set in silver is copper gallium alloy
That's wrong. Gallium readily alloys with pure Copper duel to the difference in their electrode potential (about 0.85V). Gallium will diffuse into a Copper heatsink over time to form that greyish metal alloy. That's why it appears as though the Gallium has "dried-up".
Kinda late but as a conformal coat operator, I can tell you that quality conformal coat will withstand heavy use and will act as a barrier. Now after a couple years, it might crack but it'll still remain there and keep components safe as long as the coating does not get too disturbed. By then you'd simply remove the old coat by peeling it off or acetone and reapply another layer
You don't need to worry about jostling it about. The surface tension of gallium (and most gallium-based compounds) is such that, when mated between two surfaces, it's pretty much fixed in place.
Cool to see this follow up video! Glad to see that kind of continued commitment! As for me, I realized I somehow wasn't subscribed yet, even though I've been watching for a few months now, and have rectified that! Inching ever closer to 500K!
really useful video and very well put together.. You are the first person I've seen to actually do a follow-up video regarding liquid metal. thanks for this.
UA-cam recommendations make a good choice on me showing me your videos, keep the great job 👍🏼 I’m new subscriber after watching several videos on the past few days
Not 100% Copper ALLOY ALERT
Angel Pimienta It’s possible; however, I also think the alloy would be far more degraded and brittle than it appears to be.
Snazzy Labs discoloration is perfectly normal, it's the gallium and indium diffusing in the copper, you shouldn't worry, it doesn't compromise the structural integrity and thermal performance of the copper
Gallium alloys with copper. That set in silver is copper gallium alloy
Snazzy Labs Gallium + copper form an alloy, and it doesn't always form evenly, leaving air gaps. Leave it on long enough and it could solder the die to the copper shim. Have fun removing it after that lol.
The word 'Alloy' means, it's a composition of at least two different metals. There are no 100%....... alloy.
Thank you my friend. I was wondering what was better. But now I know that regular thermal paste is much more secure and is not a great loss in performance!!!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Interesting video. I would think that the metal just stayed on the CPU die where there was more of it and since it’s heavier it just came away from the copper heat sink.
How does this not have any likes and at the top and by a verified UA-camr. Well I’ll be the first like I guess
I did the liquid metal upgrade on my Lenovo t420s thinkpad and it's been comfy af.
Mark Jay the 420s is an interesting choice, especially considering it isn't upgradeable. How's that 2nd gen i5 or i7 holding out in 2018?
Aðalgeir Nóelsson I have the i5 version. Honestly it's great. Having an ssd helps. I paid $50 for it off craigslist. It's pretty much my daily driver
I'm planning to pugrade my t430 froma i5 to a i7. And the old i7s can get quite toasty.
I've never done anything with Liquid Metal so... is it worth the risk?
If it's just a dual core I7 then don't worry about it, if it's a quad core your adding then yes definitely.
At this point my t410 is as fast as a brick for anything more than web stuff
Great vid! Lots of people overlook the importance of cleaning dust from their MacBooks. Word to the wise: if you've never opened your MacBook, definitely crack it open and clean it out!
and then throw it away and get a Windows machine.
@@4FYTfa8EjYHNXjChe8xs7xmC5pNEtzand then throw the windows machine away after the fan gets clogged and the cpu melts through the plastic chassis 😂
Setapp actually looks really awesome. If I end up buying a Mac for dev work I'll probably sign up.
I recently did this to all of my MBPs and my iMac (Arctic Silver - not liquid metal). Like you said near the end, it's a nice increase over the cheap Apple stuff that comes with them.
Just wanted to say that you're awesome Quinn! Thanks youtube for finally recomeding something that I actually like .
Glad to have you, Jhonny! Hope to stay around these parts for years to come. :)
Wow, I love Setapp and now they’re your sponsor, great :)
Video looks incredible! Great vid, Quinn! :D
Cheers, Gavin!
brother you're a trailblazer with this video! thanks a lot! Let me just confirm - does all this void your macbook warranty? it does, doesn't it?
I had the same experience on a desktop: when i unmounted the copper waterblock it was silver, the liquid metal penetrated the copper deeply so even sandpaper won't fix it.
Nothin major just an aesthetical issue but if warranty is at stake it's worth to know.
love it so adding any reputable thermal paste to a MacBook improves temps good advice might do my aging 2012 but it runs in the 30s-70s so I haven't really had a reason to get in that deep. the fan control app is a god sent though.
C200 looking 🔥
Thanks man! Still learning my way around it, but I’m already a fan.
You always upload interesting videos! Keep it up!
ROBOT9k1 Cheers!
Excellent video as always, Quinn! The C200 footage looking hawt.
I was wondering if you could help me out by letting me know how is your baseline MacBook Pro holding up? Planning to make the upgrade next month and really curious how the 13" model is at video editing, with 256GB storage. Thanks!
I’m not Quinn, but I would recommend building a hackintosh if you aren’t going to utilize the portability that much. If you are, I would wait until the new MacBook Pro refresh comes later down the year.
A new a1708 macbook pro heatsink is like 10$ shipped from aliexpress, so in theory you could just use liquid metal for a couple of years and replace the stained heatsink an make it seem like nothing ever happened.
William skagen don't even have to replace it, a gallium-indium-copper alloy doesn't have worse thermal or mechanical properties. It just looks discolored since it's an alloy.
In 2 years this thing is obsolete anyway
Microage tell that to my 2010 MacBook Pro.
@@MicroageHD tell that to my 1998 macbook pro
What the point..... After couple year.... those tech is outdated and then it don't had value... Normally I just change new mechanie and put old one in storage as back up.
Was waiting for this video so bad 🙏
man thank you so much this answered all the questions i had about liquid cooling a laptop~
Thanks for taking the risk for us and the update 💪🏻
Setapp gives me life, is all I'm gonna say. Of all sponsors, this is bar none the best!
They’re great!!
Nice, crispy video quinn!
Please try out liquid metal cooling on 2019 MacBook Pro 16" with its brand new 8 cores.
Great video! Just thought about placing liquid metal to my macbook. Thank you for experiment!
Hi, i performed the same mod on a macbook pro 15 inch and after a few months noticed performance getting WORSE... when i opened it back up the liquid metal had all soaked into the copper shim and dried out - it also formed high and low spots on the copper shim. I believe this amalgamation effect caused the reduction in performance. I cleaned it as best I could (the copper still has the liquid metal residue) and applied regular thermal paste after which performance was restored.
The staining is super normal. And isn't any cause for alarm.
One way to make it look normal, is to use a 2000/3000 grit sandpaper paper.
Also MX2 is rather pewp. It dries out way sooner than better pastes like Kryonaut.
The new camera is amazing!
Cool Vid M8!
Really enjoy your videos. Have noticed your comments on many watch videos and was wondering what you wear/like
Awesome video man
Here's a couple tips:
1: Dont apply excess iquid metal!! Less is more, especially for mobile systems like laptops. If you used a swab to apply it before, you can use what's left on the swab. It should look like a mirror without any puddles on the cooler and die. So long as the cooler makes EVEN contact, with a slim layer of liquid metal across the entire die you won't see poor cooling performance (outside the limitations of your computer's cooling system, that is)
2: Liquid metal DOES etch copper. Depending on how HOT the cooler gets, the rate of which the liquid metal etches the copper cooler will vary. If your machine gets hot, which most laptops do, then the liquid metal will react with the copper faster than if it's used on a cooler running machine.
Good tips, will use them whenever I need to apply liquid metal. To be honest, machine that costs 1300$ should come with liquid metal already applied, I have no idea why Apple puts that crap of a paste on that laptop...
I have answers:
Because Apple likes to cut corners and decrease the bill of materials on their hardware to maximise profit. Similar to how Intel stopped soldering their consumer class processors to save a quick buck and uses thermal compound that's equally as bad as the junk Apple uses.
I know, companys are always looking for a ways to cut the costs. The problem is that at some point it might hurt their sales. Thermal paste isn't such huge investment, but I believe Apple will use every possible stuation to save few pennies...
Every company does, Apple is just one of those companies where people like to make videos about it and scream it around
AcTiVe TV liqid metal is more sensitive to movement than a normal tim and it's hard to apply properly, you need a very specialized human or a machine designed to do that
I applied Conductonaut liquid metal to the X5690 CPU's in my Mac Pro 5,1.
I didn't have conformal coating to apply the first time I did it so I did a test to see how the liquid metal would smear on it's own.
After leaving the cooler mounted for a couple hours the liquid metal hadn't smeared but the copper cooling block had already been stained by the liquid metal almost exactly how it looks in this video.
@Phil Ricketts I Probably only had that setup for about 2 years.
The liquid metal did affect the copper and the CPU die but it was really only cosmetic, even after all that time. I never noticed a drop in performance. I did eventually just start using normal thermal paste just for cost and convenience.
Just a harmless question... Have you considered using graphite sheet to replace thermal paste and liquid metal?
Setapp is amazing, thank you!
It really is!
"Y eso no sería bueno, entonces..." you got my subscription as I heard that caballero!!!, I am from Mexico.
1:47 "y eso no seria bueno" hahah yo made me laugh, i'm spanish, that was a very good pronunciation
the gallium alloyed with the copper surface, which is why its ideal to nickel plate the copper plate surface to further slow down the alloying process.
Can you do a video about how to disassemble the MacBook Pro and apply the thermal paste? A walkthrough would be very helpful!!!
I don’t know about this laptops but In other videos, most benchmarks on other laptops get a temp drop of about 20C. I have heard the fans don’t spin up until 80C on the macs so that might be the thing.
Is there any chance you’ll be doing a iOS 12 “first thoughts” now that the public beta is out? I know there are some annoyances (currently using it), but since you have an iPhone X you can make use of more of the interesting features.
Gallium bonds with copper into an alloy, it does not weaken it or corrode it.
There is rarely ever any need to replace it unless you get a new heatsink or CPU (if a desktop).
It is maintenance free. What you saw was exactly as it should appear.
...and 7% can be the difference between a buzzing fan and not...and you need to subtract ambient air temperature from both readings to see the real improvement.
It probably improved it by 10-12% over a high end paste and 25% over stock paste.
I had the experience of working for an hi tech company on PC performance and power consumption. Heat is generally not a great issue on most laptops. What could easily added externally is just a lap cooling base and that is all need to vent the heat away from the laptop body. Today SSD drive tech greatly reduce heat inside the lap top. So don't worry too much unless you run 3D rendering 24/7 on your laptop.
Very nice review 👍
The exact same thing happened to my acer predator when I used liquid metal! Mine dried out because contact wasn't great. I couldn't get it off for the life of me so I just left it looking like that and everything's still fine.
That c200 looks great Quinn. Good colour grade too!
Levi Cochrane Thank you!!
Try CoolerMaster Mastergel maker nano , its low key amazing for laptops because its viscosity is very high and so is its thermal conductivity almost as good as kryonaut and you get more for your money definitely. I only found a few references to the coolermaster mastergel maker nano im suprised how well it works. It's thermal conuctivity is 11 W/m.k which is very close to Kryonaut.
"low key" moron.
@@dansmith6990?
Discounting liquid metal, I do wish Apple found a way to mass apply thermal paste in better quality, as well as use higher end stuff. 7% improvement just from that ain't nothing, and heat is the limit to turboing away.
at the prices apples users pay their shits, it is a steal to apply paste in mass, fuck apple they are a ripoff, build your own rig its not that hard and use GNU linux its free and better performances !
I may want to put new (and better) thermal paste in my MacBook 13", but which one should I get?
The Grey contact area on the heatsink was *Perfect!. The LM had bonded evenly to the copper. THATS how a LM job should look.
What does a more conductive thermal paste mean for usage in warm environments? Is that an argument for “poor” thermal paste in at least laptops to maintain consistency?
Will you be doing a C200 review? Not sure I can see the reasons for buying, however I would love to know yours!
SpideySound Probably not, in all honesty. I’m not sure I’m well-versed enough to speak on the matter. Haha.
Waiting for your video review of the 2018 15 inch Maxed out Macbook Pro!
Have you used the Graphite sheets? (If you have my bad for missing the video) I'm thinking about using those in my computer pretty soon.
I replace my MacBook Pro 2015 with “ liquid metal pad “ it’s been working all one year, and it is best mod I’ve ever done
And it does not damage my cooler surface
@snazzylabs Any chance you could get your hands on the i9 mbp and see if using a superior compound results with the i9 actually preforming reasonably? Would be cool if you did a comparison between liquid metal and the compounds that will give a 7-10% performance increase like you mentioned in this video?
Ryan Smith I still think that the heatpipes are not enough even with liquid metal, especially if Apple still only turn the fan up when the CPU reaches 80ºC
Love you vids I wanted this video to come YAY
Best 6 minuets of my life!!! 👍🏻
Glad to hear it! Thanks Cody.
Thanks 🙏
I’m still rewinding the video 100 times because I LOVE the video!
Cody Robertson there is something wrong with with you :/
I can't believe the fans don't kick in until the poor thing reaches eighty degrees, is silence that important Apple?! Also that's probably why there wasn't that big of an improvement.
VideoCommenter Then why not offer a setting? Light, balanced, or aggressive fan speeds so you can decide how hot/quiet you want your MacBook.
I feel like 95% of the people using Macbooks specifically are doing midi-based music so not sure silence is absolutely essential in these devices...
If silence is so important use a headphone rather than destroying a. Working piece of hardware
+VideoCommenter You do know that if the fans kick in earlier they'll keep the temps low while also not being audible right...
Watch Louis rossman's video the fans on the macbook actually starts at 80°c
That’s one Snazzy Lab man
Hey snazzy ily keep up the good work
Thanks so much!
I dig this crispy c200 footage! :)
Thanks, Vince! 😊
Dude, you're surprisingly funny. I had no idea you did this and I'm impressed that you did and even more impressed that you provided a follow-up video. My UA-cam backlog has prevented me from watching more of your videos but I'm glad this one popped up.
I don't think liquid metal, when properly applied, requires annual replacement. But if you're worried about that (or any other LM concerns) then I highly recommend Kryonaut (which was shown in at least one of the graphs in this video). It's really easy to work with, non-conductive, and in my experience, gets VERY close to Conductonaut in performance.
My other go-to is Arctic MX-4. This just seems like a great all-around paste that has great thermal properties, a much lower price than the Thermal Grizzly stuff, and is easy to apply.
For the record, I would have not applied any liquid metal to the heat sink, especially since it seems like you used a good bit of it on the CPU itself (I probably would have used half of what you used). But it didn't seem to cause any real problems, which is awesome! Is it worth it for the average user, probably not. I'd go with Kryonaut or MX-4 if I was super concerned about not replacing paste over the next 5 years, although I have not had a problem with either Thermal Grizzly product over long-term use. Pretty much anything is better than the stock paste Apple uses.
Also, I don't think Simple Green is a good idea in an ultrasonic cleaner. I'm sure someone recommended it to you somewhere, but... no. I mean, it's fine for the heatsink, absolutely, but you wouldn't want to put the logic board in that. I'm impressed that you used an ultrasonic cleaner though.
"y eso no sería bueno" XD.
Pues, no lo sería! jaja
Where did you learn Spanish!? that's amazing Quinn!
I lived in Bolivia for two years. 😉
Snazzy Labs Te amo papi llename de leche chiquito ;).
Great video btw.
WTF dude? 😂
Very interesting video.
Thanks for sharing.
Liquid metal (gallium/indium) is also reacting with copper. However, it "eats" away the copper way slower than it would do with an aluminium heatsink. So when it starts to be a problem (if it would ever be), you are probably already using a new macbook.
Yass Quinn hitting it with the knowledge
Wahooo!!!!
The reason why your die is scratched is because of the included qtip. when you spread the metall with it, it causes the scratches on purpose so that so that the liquid metal can stick better
I would keep the Liquid metal instead of the kryonaut paste, simple because any degree that you can get lower within a notebook\laptop is worth it! Because they can Thermal throttle pretty easy and as you can see nothing did spill on your application outside the die and also because i saw several tests with more than a year with liquid metal applications that did not lose any performance what so ever, so i don't think that you need to annual replace it!
That C200 coming in real snazzy. 👌
Thanks, Jared!
My guess is that the copper is only a copper plating over aluminum (it's not so good to plate aluminum, but anyway, it can be done), so the gallium alloy penetrated the copper pretty fast and made a little bit of galvanic corrosion. I'd just place it again and look again for any damage in future months (like in your case which was 3 months). I'm a chemist, but I don't know how the cooler is made, so it's just a guess. If I were in that situation, i'd go crazy and do a DIY coper plating on the cooler again just for the lols
"Y eso no sería bueno, enton..." Excellent man! Good pronunciation.
He lived in Bolivia for 2 years,he said it a couple of times
I think that the liquid metal alloyed with some copper and it must've formed a solid alloy on the heatsink itself. Shouldn't be that much of an issue tho. To be honest, I think forming a solid alloy might be a good thing actually, then you can be sure it stays put...as long as it doesn't crack or something and then you'd get a teeny tiny air gap
Some people have had LM keep its performance for 2 years. I think it's worth doing if you can do it.
Which ultrasound cleaner are you using?
Do you have a link?
Snazzy: In fact, it only took me eight minutes and thirty seconds. So I'm pretty proud of myself for that.
Louis Rossmann: Amature numbers.
What is the model of the ultrasonic cleaner? Looking for one for computer & bicycle parts. Great work, as usual!
I can try and find it for you. It’s one I got on eBay from China a few years ago. It has done a rather excellent job for my occasional use.
I'm curious how much Simple Green was used. The concentration looked far higher than necessary. Was there a reason for filling the vat so much? otherwise great videos!
Might have to start having these parts come externally.
Can you try putting liquid metal on imac pro? I wonder how much it would help with throttling...
Have you looked at the carbon strips? Linus Tech Tips has a video on it. Would it be good for the Mac?
Charles Hocker Can you post a link to said video?
Take a look at the newest videos from Der8auer. He did the same thing on his Lenovo laptop and showed a scratch test. He scratched the surface of the cooler to see, if t is real copper, or just copper plated aluminum. That should have been something you should have done. And it is totally normal to see a discoloration. The liquid metal will destroy every metal, but you said it is a 7% increase in temps and a huge increase in silence. I used Thermalgrizzly Kryonaut on my 2015 MacBook Pro. It still gets loud and hot. I am really considering liquid metal.
Notification squad! Video looks great! This is the C200?
It is! I'm still trying to learn my way around it and not every shot is picture-perfect, but I'm on my way slowly and surely. lol
It looks good for figuring it out, so I think you're off to a great start :)
so just to confirm-do you suggest to do it? I havr a 13 inch 2017 macbook pro, it's heating like an oven and the fans are going crazy everytime I'm working with a very "heavy" program such as FCP. I really want to find a solution for this once and for all because it's driving me crazy and I'm also pretty afraid of my mac performances in the future... I really need your advice.
Usually liquid gallium hardens up when cooled, and copper transfers the heat away and cools it.
Please do a video on how to run Mac OSX on windows in a virtual machine, I know there are some good videos out there but there are still issues that I think you would be able to help with!
While it is possible to run OSX in a virtual machine, it runs UNUSEABLY SLOW unless you add another GPU( best if this is an apple blessed GPU) to the host and assign the newly added GPU to the OSX virtual machine using something like VT-d assuming the host cpu, host mainboard, and virtualization software supports this.
This was the case 3 months ago when I last looked into it. If someone could recompile OSX's kernel to be less worthless, you might be able to get around that. Apple really goes out of their way to make it hard to use their OS on non apple branded hardware.
the way you clean it scratches the die
Hey Snazzy I have a quick question is it possible to upgrade the SSD in a mid 2014 MacBook Pro?
I have a gaming computer, was somewhat thinking about liquid metal for it but at the end of the day, I don't feel like it's worth it. It'll cool enough anyway, especially with a good cooling pad. I'll just get the best normal paste on the market and replace the stock one.
Possible seeped through. Maybe the coppers purity is low. Or its a super thin copper layer on aluminium?
I used LM on my laptop CPU and GPU dies for 8 months. The temperatures were fine, the paste moved very little, but just enough to leave part of the GPU uncovered, wich caused some instability (very rare cases, never crashed anywaay) but more importantly marked the copper coldplates a lot. I used fine grain sandpaper and wetsanded the copper to leave it unmarked. FUn fact: LM had only 2 degrees performance improvement over silicon paste, now, after the wetsanding they are even.
I strongly advice against LM in anything but a delidded CPU afrter I tried it in any of my devices (desktop CPU and GPU, laptop), is not worth it and it will do some damage.
That’s some snazzy Spanish there :) good job on the quality of the videos your killing it with the content
Saabrito Thank you so much!!
Thank you for the info. Awesome
would you please make a step by step dissasembly and tear down video for macbook pro 2016 and later ....please a video for some one who is a newbie
nice insight tho i won't go back to thermal paste because i saw a 20°c improvement with LM haha