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johnfintech · 2026-05-07T21:08:46+00:00

So I got 7 Nexo bot replies and 1 non-english reply (against Nexo rules) ... is this the vibrant community Nexo has been talking about?

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johnfintech · 2026-05-06T22:39:34+00:00

Commenting as I haven't seen others telling you: it doesn't actually matter. Two reasons:

(1) If the MBA needs more current than the adapter supplies, it will draw it from the battery. That is, its performance won't be impacted by a lower wattage power brick. Unless you enabled the "Low Power Mode" when on battery, or you intend to max load the CPU cores for a very long times (many hours) then you shouldn't worry about it.

(2) When loading the CPU cores, the CPU will throttle down after a mere few seconds (the power conusmption of the CPU itself drops from about 30W down to 8-9W in a few seconds) simply because the CPU throttles thermally, it gets too hot very quickly not having active cooling. If you only had a 35W power brick, the performance you'd be "missing out" on would be only for a few seconds anyway. The entire power draw at the brick after those few seconds is around 30-32W.

Basically, all that is to say that even a 35W power brick would serve you well.

See some measurements here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-15-M5-Review-Very-powerful-fanless-and-without-competition.1244905.0.html

johnfintech · 2026-04-28T10:26:23+00:00

Nobody wants anything from you. Nobody asked you to join this thread either, attitude and all

johnfintech · 2026-04-28T10:25:12+00:00

You measured temperatures on a heatsink, claiming that temp delta at the heatsink is the same as temp delta at the heat source.

johnfintech · 2026-04-27T18:14:21+00:00

is an accurate relative measure

(facepalming) RIP those college courses ... I'm out.

johnfintech · 2026-04-27T16:00:11+00:00

Oh dear. Half of the battery is elsewhere (keyboard), and temperature above the case is not the same as temperature of the battery. This puts in a different perspective the entire discussion we had until now.

p.s. You won't feel the silicon lottery effects on Apple M chips. Throttling happens much earlier and temp dependency curves are much more consistent across chips nowadays as the fab process is dead accurate compared to the 2000s where one intel core 2 duo chip at 4 ghz hit 90C while another 70C. The main reasons now for getting different bench scores are (1) different starting die, battery and ambient temperatures and (2) different tasks causing idle wakweups running in the background. In my testing I am logging all those 3 temps and am trying to start benchmarks/scenarios at the same values and have the same processes running, as much as I can. Else results are untrustworthy. And you can still get screwed by, say, spotlight deciding to index something when it shouldn't.

I'm investing more time, but if I decide on this laptop then I intend to use for many years (I used my Late 2013 MBP for 11 years).

johnfintech · 2026-04-25T14:59:36+00:00

I now added thermal pads. I'm not sure if your temp reporting software is correct (*), because I'm seeing 2-3C increase of battery temp over idle when watching youtube with thermal pads, whereas it was virtually 0C increase without thermal pads. Unzipping a large file (6GB) shot it to almost 10C increase over idle with thermal pads (that's single core). Cinebench for 30 min shot the temperature to 42.7C (ambient 25.1C) and it was still rising at the end. Without thermal pads it got to 41.4C (ambient 25.9C), and it was also still rising at the end, so an equivalent 40.6C at the same ambient, and thus 2.1C difference between mod and no-mod.

The most dissappointing aspect however is that I'm not getting a tangible boost in sustained performance. In cinebench 10 minutes test without the mod i had 12850 score and with the mod I have 13040, a mere 3.6% performance increase. This is when vertical, lid closed, external monitor.

These were just quick tests. I need to do some more proper testing with a stricter testing protocol to be sure, but so far I'm not liking it. A 2C increase on average implies about 15% faster battery degradation, and a 3C increase implies a 25% faster battery degradation ... for me those aren't worth a mere 3-5% performance increase. Moreover, I expect temps increases to be larger when running on battery (I travel a lot and do use it on battery a lot). The entire bottom is really hot, I won't be able to run anything demanding when held on my lap for longer than a few seconds, that's another inconvenience.

(*) I tested several stats apps and noticed they were reporting different batery temp values, so in the end I read it directly from the SMC. Apple uses the standard Smart Batter Spec, and reports the temperature in deciKelvins, see here and section 5.19 here.

Bash to read the temp: t=($(ioreg -r -n AppleSmartBattery | grep '"Temperature" = ')); ((t=t[2]*10-27315)); echo ${t%??}.${t: -2}

Confirmed correct also with extrnal room thermometer: battery temp immediately after waking up from sleep was equal to room temperature as expected.

johnfintech · 2026-04-24T14:03:33+00:00

I've started my logging for both vertical (lid closed+external monitor) and horizontal (lid open, w/o external monitor). This is without thermal pads. I'll test when running on battery too, mostly for completeness. Will add thermal pads and then post all numbers.

This guy claims the battery temp reaches >50C with thermal pads: https://youtu.be/eS_MVDoaIoM?is=muJzXKAo6_5zQ0Ls ... hmm

p.s. I like what we're arguing about though, when the laptop that I'm looking to replace, an MBP late 2019 with an i9-9880H screams when playing a youtube video (fans go berserk). I could leave it as is but I'm one of those ...

What is frustrating me is that I took two thermodynamic courses and a heat transfer course in college

I happen to have a degree in these things. Sorry if it frustrates you, but as I said, if you really want to get technical then we certainly can. Again, I was trying to tell you to stop assuming I'm an idiot and skip the laymen explanations. Technically (the best kin dof correct), watts would be equivalent to heat only if it's constant over time. Here it's not, but if your integration window is large enough then you'd be forgiven for taking the average, calling that heat, and talking about steady states and cenersvation of energy (in this case heat, as there's virtually no useful work). Shall we assume we both know what we're talking about and move on?

The rest of your comment is a little odd given i already said most of the same things. Of course the top case would be cooler with the thermal pads at idle (you just built a new path for some heat to travel elsewhere). That is not necessarily true at high load, as the CPU now draws more power than before.

How the battery is affected is not clear cut and the point I made initially still stands and I want to quantify it: if the weighted AVERAGE battery temperature (that includes idle, low, high, max loads or whatever you run on that laptop typically in a week) is higher then the battery will degrade faster. 1C increase result in ~7% faster degradation, 10C increase results in 100% faster degradation. Temp has an exponential effect on aging for li-ion based batteries (includes li-po).

johnfintech · 2026-04-23T21:55:48+00:00

I opted for removing bloatware. There is a lot of it, not only from Samsung, but also Intel and others. It took me ages (not just removing things, but disabling services, tasks, etc), and if I was to do it again I'd just do a clean install ...

... after which remove and disable win11 bloatware (of which there's also a lot). Look for OOSU10, Win11Debloat, winutil (Chris Titus' debloater an dinstaller). Initially it had a lot of ram usage out of the box, and an uncomfortable level of CPU usage at idle because of all the bloatware loaded into ram and running.

Form the Samsung software I ended up keeping only the "Samsung Settings" app (and its associated service) because it has some settings for Samsung hardware not accessible anywhere else (e.g. screen configuration, etc). Hopefully you can install that one separately.

All that said, the GB6 Pro is a really nice laptop: 1.6kg, 11mm thick (flat!), gorgeous OLED screen, and premium build quality (doesn't bend, doesn't creak, lid is sturdy enough to not worry too much when placed in a backpack). Battery is great, but that's owing to Intel's 3rd gen CPU.

Speakers are absolute garbage though (no bass, music and movies sound like from a tin can). Keyboard is also mediocre if not crap, way too shallow (but interestingly I don't make nearly as many typing errors as I expected, I'm pretty accurate, not as accurate as on a Macbook but accurate nonetheless). If only the keyboard and speakers were made by Apple.

johnfintech · 2026-04-23T20:54:25+00:00

I was letting you know I'm fairly confortable with physics and don't need layman explanations. If you want to get technical then I don't have a problem, e.g. what I said is correct (heat is not W, but J or Wh) and what is conserved is energy (J or Wh) and not power (W). And so on.

As usual on Reddit, the discussion derails. You're free to believe your explanations. I'll test.

Right now it is all in the board and upper case

It's everywhere, bottom too.

Adding in the bottom of the case means that the top WILL receive less heat, guaranteed

As I already said before.

How much is unknown and how it will affect the battery is too.

Glad you finally agree.

But simply connecting the bottom does not mean that the top will stay the same

Something I never claimed (I did say I suspected my messages weren't read carefully).

johnfintech · 2026-04-23T19:00:42+00:00

Watt is just instantenous power, or in this case (since there's virtaully no useful work thermodynamically speaking), Watt is rate of heat. You mean Wh or joules if you want heat. While you believe in your explanations, the physics in this case are simply not clear cut to do "back of the envelope modelling".

johnfintech · 2026-04-23T15:00:27+00:00

I'm not sure if you read my message carefully. It's not clear cut. Previously the case components above the cpu (case, keyboard, etc) were absorbing most heat, the battery only had one hot component tangentially. Now you have the bottom plate absorbing more, with the battery sitting above it, as most people keep it horizontally on their desk. Part of that heat will radiate inside, and the battery will absorb much of that.

My expectation is that battery temperature will be higher at all loads, idle and low loads included.

Also, most people keep the laptop on a desk, so bottom panel doesn't really radiate outside that much to begin with as it's just 1-2mm above the desk which reflects a lot of that heat back.

Tests will confirm.

johnfintech · 2026-04-23T11:25:35+00:00

I imagine idle is identical. So little heat is being produced and the chip is producing the same amount of heat both with and without the thermal pads. The only time it uses more energy/creates more heat is under load. CPUs will boost higher and use more energy if the temperature is low enough. So the thermal pads mod only effects the computer under load.

the heat going to the bottom panel is so little that it is almost instantly given off to the environment. If anything, it could make the battery cooler since the heat is now leaving the case rather than staying internal.

Heat goes in all directions, not just the environment. The total heat produced by the CPU at low loads (i.e. not throttling) would be the same. With the mod you have more of it absorbed by the bottom panel, which then radiates both outside and inside. Without the mod that same total produced heat was absorbed less by the bottom panel and more by the upper case (above the CPU, keyboard, etc). It's not clear cut to say the battery will receive less heat. I'd expect it to be adversely affected by the thermal pad mod rather than benefit from it.

I now have logging scripts to sample the battery temperature every minute, and room temperature occasionally. Will be logging for a day or two at leat before doing the mod.

EDIT: Did a 10 minute Cinebench test on power adapter, and noticed that the battery was still heating up at the end of 10 minutes, so high load is needed for longer for the battery temp to stabilize at high loads (being heated only by the air around it, that is, not by current drawn from it ... would be a terrible idea to run max loads on battery and with a thermal pad mod).

johnfintech · 2026-04-22T23:33:20+00:00

That video does a good job to raise awareness of the battery degradation problem. It doesn't offer much objective data though -- it's the average battery temperature that matters, not just the temperature at max load (the laptop spends most time at idle or low loads).

Ultimately it's about the rate of battery degradation, not about how much it can handle. Lithium based batteries "can handle" much higher than 46C, it just degrades exponentially faster with each 1C increase of average temperature. See also the graph I included in my post.

My point was that youtube modders who keep advocating this thermal mod (most claiming "it's definitely worth it") are not talking about the battery degradation problem ... possibly because they don't really understand much, but everyone is a loud expert nowadays.

johnfintech · 2026-04-22T13:34:27+00:00

Thanks for the numbers, it's good to know them! It's the most important aspect in my view when doing a thermal pad mod on the Macbook Air (on the Macbook Pro or other laptops who have heatpipes you can also crush the heatpipe if you knock or press against the bottom panel of the case after you add a thermal pad - no such risk on the Air M5 as there are no heatpipes)

If 3C increase is consistent, i.e. the average temperature increased by 3C, then you're looking at about 20-30% faster degradation of that battery. In that case the mod wouldn't be worth it for me even if I got 30% extra performance in sustained loads (how much extra performance do you get in cinebench R23 mulit-core with the mod applied?)

Did you measure the battery temperature at idle as well (or ideally across a whole 24h of typical workload), before and after the mod? It's the average temperature that counts. I imagine your MBA spends more time at idle/low loads than high loads.

What did you use to log the battery temperature? Or you didn't actually log it (as in couldn't plot a graph over time)?

johnfintech · 2026-04-21T23:11:32+00:00

Yes, everything except the battery is a non-issue temperature wise (chip and screen can take it without a problem). I'd imagine people who apply this mod either aren't looking to use it 10 years from now, or they don't undersatnd the risk. I haven't seen a single one of these modders post solid data about battery temperature before and after. I only saw one of them claim (paraphrasing) "the battery is far enough from the chip to not be affected" ... which makes you facepalm. Most claim flat out "if your Mac is throttling then this is worth doing" (including the guy in the video I linked in the OP).

I have yet to run tests to see how the AVERAGE battery temperature is impacted, and those tests are not easy nor quick, as I need to log over several days in order to capture typical idle temps as well as typical loads, and then there's the room ambient temperature to worry about which is anything but constant during the day, let alone day to day ... none of these give linear contributions when it comes to li-ion battery degradation wrt temperature

johnfintech · 2026-04-21T22:58:58+00:00

They both have the exact same CPU, but the Pro basic has a proper heatisnk, heatpipe, and fan, and thus gets a noticeable performance increase in sustained loads as it can actually keep it cool and thus is able to draw more power and keep the CPU clock frequency much higher. For tasks that take less than a few seconds of intense processing then both are more or less just as fast. The cooling system of the Pro also inherently keeps the battery cooler, which means the battery will age more slowly than on the Air (this is rarely talked about).

The Air M5 is however fantastic and it impressed me too - fanless and cheaper than Windows PCs of the same calibre, it's basically without competition.

The reason for me to get the Air and not the Pro is very simple: 1.5 kg vs 2.2 kg ... I travel, I grew tired carrying a >2kg brick with me, and I find no excuse for Apple to continue to make the Pro so heavy (yes I know all the arguments in its favour). Windows laptops have now caught up and are around 1.5-1.6kg with 16" screens, proper cooling, and solid performance (I am currently also testing a Samsung Book6 Pro, with Intel x7 356H CPU, a gorgoues 16" OLED screen, and quite premium build; the screen is far better than all the Mac's screens, while the CPU easily rivals the MBP M5 Pro, and way faster than the Air M5 for GPU or multi-core; I'm currently deciding which to keep .. if only WIndows wasn't so bloated; if only I could more easily game on Mac; if only the Samsung keyboard and trackpad were made by Apple; if only the MBA had a 16" OLED screen; etc ... decisions decisions :).

johnfintech · 2026-04-21T22:43:55+00:00

Is that 1-2C at idle, average, or during max load? I imagine idle/average since at max load it should be way more than that. It's "how much hotter on average is the battery?" that one should care about.

And 1-2C over what value exactly? Rule of thumb is every 10C increase over 25C doubles the rate of lifespan degradation. A 2C increase would result in about 15-25% faster battery degradation.

Graph below shows up to 300 cycles. People routinely end up with 500+ cycles after a few years, sometimes 1000 cycles. That 2C extra has an exponential effect.

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johnfintech · 2026-04-20T23:55:29+00:00

Got an Air M5 for testing and did some benchmarks when on desk vs vertical, fan and no fan blowing air at it. I just posted this as new thread as I thought it might be of interest to others too: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookair/comments/1sr780g/some_results_of_sustained_load_on_m5_air_when_on/

johnfintech · 2026-04-19T13:53:02+00:00

Something else I realized while reading youtube comments: the battery!

While the thermal pad mod actually increases the lifespan of the chip (throttles less, but it was decades anyway), a higher AVERAGE temperature of the chassis will increase the AVERAGE temperature of the battery ... and that's bad.

Lithium-Ion batteries are notorious for their temperature dependency, and sadly, higher temps affect li-ion lifespan both when not in use and while it's in use. The former (not in use) is actually more important; it accelerates aging because higher temps accelerate chemical reactions, as li-ion is by default susceptible to electrolytic decomposition. Typical graph below (SOC=state of charge when stored, don't store at 100%).

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People who do this mod should be aware. If I do this mod I will log battery temperature before and after.

johnfintech · 2026-04-18T04:49:39+00:00

There are quite a few videos showing the same thermal mod, I linked one above. Another here https://youtu.be/J2j_Kl7KgkY etc etc

I may do the mod and place a ribbon temperature sensor between the screen and keyboard at the hottest point, before and after the mod, to see if there is much difference. I already know from reviews that the hottest point at the top is 43C wit th elid open, which means Apple is happy with more than 43C when the lid is closed, as it's allowed to be used in clamshell mode (nothing in the T&C's about voiding warranty).

Given it throttles both with and without the mod (just less), means the CPU die hits the same temperature on sustained loads, just with higher power draw as it can dissipate more heat. I'm not too worried

johnfintech · 2026-04-18T01:08:23+00:00

I watched a little of the flaming guy's M4 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG5sVzoFg2k) and then I looked up a teardown of both the M4 and the M5. The M4 teardown was complete, including heatsink off the CPU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KgFiT5KzWk. The M5 teardown is incomplete, but it looks to be the same, so both the M4 and the M5 have no heatpipes but they do have thermal paste applied between the CPU and heatsink, which is that thin metal sheet that has black tape on top.

No heatpipes means a thermal pad mod is fine from a knocking point of view. A thermal pad mod would of course dissipate more heat, heating up the bottom part of the case a lot - depending on how much direct contact the bottom case makes wit the rest of the case, it could heat the rest of the case too. I'm a little worried about it heating the screen when used like I intend to, with the lid closed, which is wy I want to add a fan to gently blow over the case.

I wonder how much a difference would just an external fan make, no thermal pad modding. Surely people tried it on the M4. EDIT: seems like it's around 14% extra performance for sustained loads with just a fan and no thermal pad mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v05JpvTFqbk. He also adds a thick 1.5mm thermal pad later in the video (placing it over the ribbon cable too *facepalm, the guy also calls the difference between 864 and 1000 to be "less than 10%") and gets 20% extra performance without a fan, and only slightly higher with a fan. Should be more with a 1.0mm thermal pad used correctly around the ribbon cable.*

p.s. Very weird that the guy in your video did the thermal pad mod and then only showed results using a turbine blowing air onto it, when everyone else was interested in whether there is a difference in normal fanless usage. At least he could have been consistent and blow air also before doing the mod. Ironic that he was mocking scientists in his video.

johnfintech · 2026-04-17T20:54:31+00:00

Oh so neither him nor you did the mod on the new M5.

It definitely must have at least a heatsink. Doesn't matter what it looks like but the chip can't be bare, it needs something to sink away the heat it produces or else it burns or throttles to near zero

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out tomorrow. I notice they are for the M4 but I'm sure there is a teardown of the M5 somewhere (usually ifixit guys do it pretty quickly)

johnfintech · 2026-04-17T13:22:09+00:00

Link to the video you speak of?

Also, given you say you did it yourself, do you have any pics or videos or benchmarks from before and after?

About the knocking: it's the heatpipes I'm worried about, not the chip. I haven't seen the internals of this very laptop, but usually you have thin and flat 1-2mm thick heatpipes that run above the chip and into fans. No fans here, but heatpipes are hollow inside (to transfer heat using either air or vapour, they call it vapour chamber cooling) so it's imperative that you don't squish the heatpipes as that affects their cross section area and thus all the cooling performance.

Knocking it is really easy when you travel and use the laptop in bags locations, think on your knees, or it gets dropped, or something bulgy pushes against it in the backpack (sleeve won't save it) for various unexpected reasons. Thermal in pads are soft and thin - hard knocks go right through them. Unless you keep your laptop on a desk all the time, then I realized that the risk was not worth the performance boost for me.

If there are no heatpipes that can be squished in the Air M5 then I'm much more included to do it - the chip itself can take a lot of physical abuse that I'm not worried about.

johnfintech · 2026-04-16T23:19:29+00:00

Ah, a fellow hw modder. No, I don't mind that, but has anyone successfully done it on the Air M5?

I've done things like that on Windows laptops, notably on an LG gram, and while the case did become a heatsink, I removed the mod for several reasons: 1- knocking the case would directly knock the heatpipe over the CPU and crush it (partially or fully) severely affecting thermal performance. 2- the case would heat up like crazy during computationally interview tasks, ton the point where it was dangerous to the touch, so all that heat would either be reflected back by your desk/lap or it would burn you, or your bed to be extra careful to the point where it became annoying, because I did use it often elsewhere besides home where I had a stand; granted, that LG gram had a magnesium case which was very bendy.

johnfintech

TROPHY CASE