How To Thermal Mod Your M1 MacBook Air & INCREASE Performance by 20% (Step-by-Step Guide)

I was able to squeeze about 15% additional (or up to 30% when rendering) performance out of my M1 MacBook Air with one simple mod. It involves using thermal conductivity pads on the heatsink of the M1 processor to transfer heat into the aluminum back chassis of the MacBook case.

This mod is fairly straightforward, easy, and inexpensive to perform. However, bear in mind that modifying ANYTHING on your Apple device may void the warranty, and that you should perform this mod at your own risk. There's no guarantee that this mod is 100% safe either.

► Equipment used in this video (Amazon links):

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00:00 Introduction
01:26 Equipment You’ll Need
03:05 Removing Back Case
04:42 Installing the Thermal Pads
07:48 Final Thoughts

#m1macbook #moddedmacbook #createdtech
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[CreatedTech]

► Equipment used in this video (Amazon links):

[trevorkim]

To save a bit of money and less wasted leftover thermal pads, just order one 1.5mm and for the thicker part stack two sheets...most thermal pads sold are enough to cover all with 1 sheet. yes there may be slight loss of thermal transmission by stacking them but I'm using 12w/mk rated ones so should be sufficient.

[imperial-gamer]

Thermal mod + Cooling fan perfect pair

[himher]

Rather than applying a two thermal pads covering the whole of the heat sink, it would be best to only add it to the end of the heat pipe furthest away from the M1 chip set.
The thicker dark blue thermal pad only. The heat pipe is there for a reason to draw the heat away from the chip so that the heat exits from the left hand side as seen, not the centre.
This helps ensure the power regulators next to the SOC chip are subjected to less direct heat from the hot back case.

[charlesbouldin]

Anything that pull heat out of the case bottom will help a lot. A steel, marble or granite tile will work wonders. The only problem with these passive approaches (as opposed to fans) is that they all have a limit based on thermal conductivity and thermal mass of the passive elements, but with the plus that they are totally silent.

[kevinwong]

May I suggest you do a video on temperature test on the back of the laptop with:

1) temps on - normal everyday usage such as web browsing, emails, PowerPoint, excel, YouTube.
2) temps on - heavy task such as video editing, and so on.

Reason being some people might want to do this mod but worry it heats up their lap on a normal usage basis. But when they want to do heavy load tasks, they can just plug it on a cooler and a dock. This is ideal provided if (hopefully) normal tasks are not uncomfortably hot on the touch.

[pascool]

it's ridiculous how easy it is.... I'll do it for sure, maybe when my warranty expires.

[mckungsmakong]

Could you please give an update of how the MBA M1 with the thermal pads are doing now? Thank you.

[marylou]

The heat problem in the case or the battery problem can be solved by placing the MacBook Air on an aluminium disc about 4-5 mm thick and about 200 mm in diameter. The heat is then transferred to the desk via the rear casing, which heats up considerably, via the aluminium round plate that lies directly against the casing. This worked particularly well for me as my desk has a glass top and this absorbs the heat well. Wood alone may not be so good. In my case, the centre of the disc is roughly where the CPU is. This means that the disc protrudes slightly beyond the Macbook Air.

[mikaylaj]

This mod seems way easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for the video

[Synthesz]

This was really useful thank you Liam! Big supporter of your channel here and I do think that you are the best Mac content creator!

[phillip]

Thanks for sharing! but u didn't provide the exact size!
I have to look it up into my macbook myself.


For my measurement, the left squre is 4.2cm*4.6cm, the right one is 2.1x 3.3 + 6.7x3.6
so for the pad we needed, it is like, we need 20 square cm for 3mm thick, and 31 square cm for 1.5mm thick.

[amritsingh]

Channel so is why you’re gaining subs so fast! I’m pretty sure this channel only had 15k subscribers 2 months ago. 👍

[motnik]

Thanks for the great video, but hearing the top of the MBA being dragged around your table without a protective cloth underneath gives me anxiety.

[FCTHETRUTH]

i love this channel man!!! great content man!! i'm glad u came back to go in depth about the modding

[philu]

Many other mods are more complicated even scratch off old thermal paste. This looks more simple. Only concern is the cost of the needed things if not living in USA

[SMOOTTHH]

Thanks for showing us how to mod the MacBook Air. This is a really good mod for the MacBook Air. Besides the slightly better battery life on the MacBook Pro the MacBook Air is probably the better choice out of the 2 computers especially with this mod. The thing I like about the MacBook Air besides it being signifcantly cheaper then the MacBook Pro is that there are no moving parts (fan) that can break and that it is completely silent. Plus less chances of the inside of the computer collecting dust etc.

I really appreciate all the effort and time that you put into these videos... Awesome channel! 👍🏼👊🏽😎

[FreakyDudeEx]

to those considering to put the thermal pad only in 1 area, if you noticed the thermal camera image, the hottest area is directly above the chip itself... in other words you could just buy the 1.5mm pad and be done with it just at the area above the chip... the yellow part of the thermal camera with the highest heat spot is to the right of the center top left screw so its basically above the m1 chip itself... and if the area where the 3mm pads were to also transfer heat, then at the very least, the area just bellow the screw should also be as close to the yellow color as the area just above the chip to indicate that the heat actually choose to transfer to that 3mm pad area at all...

[jasonreitz]

in linus' video, he ripped off this sponge thing on the inside of the bottom cover. when you showed yours, you didn't have the sponge?

[Sacrypheyes]

while i won't mind if it does increase the performance of my MB Air, the main reason i've done the mod is to hopefully increase the components lifespan by allowing it to cool down faster/better on cpu/gpu intensive tasks (mainly gaming in my case), especially considering i live in a place where it's warm pretty much all year round (80F on average, with peaks up to 90+F).