Macbook air slowing down cause of heating ?

[CalcuttaSada]

I have a macbook air 2018 model with intel i5 2 core 16gb version, i bought it in 2019

Since a year or 2 i felt that it starts stuttering when i open few too many apps. Especially if i have Google drive syncing in the background. First i thought it was the apps that i had loaded so i formatted it and started afresh without restoring backups. Now its still the same.

So i downloaded iStats app to check the temps and realised when there is heavy work load there processor core temps touching 100 deg. Which made me believe its thermal throttling and hence the slowdown. Usually i have heavy apps on the pc.
When i switch off the gdrive and when there is about 25-30% load on CPU still its on about 70 deg and idles around 50 deg with 0 apps running.

Is this simply a thermal paste issue ?

Now, its out of warranty so i discussed with local apple repair place and he said that changing just thermal paste wont solve it, there could be an issue with temperature IC.

He hasnt opened up the macbook yet. For cleaning and repasting thermal paste he asks for 2500. If it were Desktop i could have done it myself but i dont want to risk with macbook coz its got such small parts.

Upon reading on the internet i couldnt find such a thing as temperature IC whose malfunction could result in such high temperature, i do not want to be taken for a ride.
Did anyone face similar issue and could solve it ? What do you guys think ?

 

[john1911]

You can first try cleaning blades of the fan and dust buildup in the heatspreader fins. You can do that without removing thermal block from the CPU/Motherboard. You just need to remove the back plate screws for that.

I think compressed air can with a thin nozzle would be best to blow out dust from the fins. Use a brush (painting brush maybe?) for the fan blades. If using compressed air can on the fan blades, make sure to hold the fan as to prevent it from spinning at high RPM.

This will be of some help: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+clean+your+MacBooks+fan+and+prevent+overheating!/144643

 

[CalcuttaSada]

Actually my query is, is there such a thing as temperature IC in the mobo that can malfunction and cause high temps on MacBook ?

 

[john1911]

Actually my query is, is there such a thing as temperature IC in the mobo that can malfunction and cause high temps on MacBook ?

Are you asking if there is an IC which controls the CPU from overheating and malfunction of the said IC causes the CPU to overwork so much (without any actual load) that it overheats, then the answer is no.

I'm not sure if I got your question.

Are you asking if malfunctioning sensor can report false readings? Yes, it can report false readings. Does your machine feel hot to touch?

 

[BullettuPaandi]

i couldnt find such a thing as temperature IC

I think he means temperature sensor in a vague manner. Motherboards do have such sensors, like these, which could be designed to communicate with whatever is responsible for delivering power to the respective component.

he said that changing just thermal paste wont solve it, there could be an issue with temperature IC.

I did a bit of googling. This seems to be a common issue with MacBooks. Here's a link from iFixit forum.
I don't know if it's the same, but I found something similar to the AASP diagnostic suite mentioned in the forum. Try this and see if anything useful pops up. If you're not comfortable with this or this shows nothing really useful, ask the apple repair place if they have access to such suite from Apple and if you could avail a service just to run the diagnostics for some kind of consultation fee.

 

[CalcuttaSada]

Are you asking if there is an IC which controls the CPU from overheating and malfunction of the said IC causes the CPU to overwork so much (without any actual load) that it overheats, then the answer is no.

I'm not sure if I got your question.

Are you asking if malfunctioning sensor can report false readings? Yes, it can report false readings. Does your machine feel hot to touch?

yeah exactly what you said it seemed implausible that there would be an IC issue.

The metal pane above the function keys feels hot to touch even though i booted the pc just 15 mins back.

Is it normal to have sensor malfunction ? but it does feel still physically hot. I have installed an app to control the mac fan and using it on 90% now still the CPU core is showing 90+ degrees. cleaning will be enough to solve this ? and not repasting thermal paste. ?

I did a bit of googling. This seems to be a common issue with MacBooks. Here's a link from iFixit forum.
I don't know if it's the same, but I found something similar to the AASP diagnostic suite mentioned in the forum. Try this and see if anything useful pops up. If you're not comfortable with this or this shows nothing really useful, ask the apple repair place if they have access to such suite from Apple and if you could avail a service just to run the diagnostics for some kind of consultation fee.

this is good info, thank you for this, let me study it and check if it solves the problem. also imo i made a bad purchase with i5 2 core cpu, i mean it was 2019 not 2009 why would they even sell a 2 core CPU.

I think he means temperature sensor in a vague manner. Motherboards do have such sensors, like these, which could be designed to communicate with whatever is responsible for delivering power to the respective component.


I did a bit of googling. This seems to be a common issue with MacBooks. Here's a link from iFixit forum.
I don't know if it's the same, but I found something similar to the AASP diagnostic suite mentioned in the forum. Try this and see if anything useful pops up. If you're not comfortable with this or this shows nothing really useful, ask the apple repair place if they have access to such suite from Apple and if you could avail a service just to run the diagnostics for some kind of consultation fee.

so i tried the diagnostics and it came up with no issues. lets see if i can get a diagnostic done somewhere. i am hopeful though that a cleaning and thermal repasting should also help. it jumps to 100 deg as soon as i boot it up surely its not normal.