How did I stop my macbook pro from overheating

I'm using 13-inch Macbook Pro late 2011 so it's about 4 years old now. I noticed that my Macbook get very hot quickly after using it for about 1 or 2 hours. Note that I didn't use any strange applications. There were just a few tabs of Chrome open and I didn't even watch videos. In particularly, I checked the Activity Monitor and the CPU usage is never above 30%. But, it's very hot on the back case cover and very warm at the palm-rest area and keyboard. It doesn't burn my hands but it's not comfortable to type. I can't keep my hands on the palm-rest area for more than 10 or 15 minutes. The heat first came from the top left area of the macbook pro near the charging cord. Then, it spread to everywhere such as the bottom, the keyboard and the palm-rest area. I have tried many ways to fix it.

First, I turned off WiFi and used Ethernet instead but it didn't help. Then, I used it for hours without charging because I thought there might be the problem with the charger but it wasn't. I used keyboard cover so i thought it also contribute to the heat so i removed it and the heat just decreased a few degrees. I then downloaded smcFanControl app to make the fan run faster even when normal usage but it still didn't help. I heard that reapplying thermal paste would help cool down my macbook dramatically and then I did it but still no luck. I also run Hardware Test but they were all fine. Resetting System Management Control (SMC) didn't help either.

One day I went to a coffee shop and use my Macbook for hours without feeling hot at all. It was hot a bit at the bottom case but the keyboard and palm-rest area are ok. Whenever i use it at my house, it get hot quickly. Then, i noticed that the difference between my house and the coffee shop is temperature. I don't usually use air conditioning so temperature in my room is about 35 degree celsius and it hurt my macbook pro. Then, I turned on air conditioning in my room and used my macbook pro for hours and the keyboard and palm-rest area are cool. They're very comfortable for typing. The temperature was 25 degree celsius. Therefore, Macbook Pro should be used in cold area, i guess. But, using macbook pro with air conditioning on is very expensive and it's not a solution so i kept searching.

A few days later, I started debugging the problem again. I wanted to know if leaving the back case cover off would help so I let stand on its right (see the image below) and remove the base case off without turning off my macbook pro. I waited for about 15 minutes and it cooled down and it was very comfortable to type. This may be because there was enough air flow in to help cool down the logic board faster as the heat came from the CPU. After that i wanted to know if it still help when i let it stand like that but the back case is off and it was still cold so i assumed there was bigger gap between the logic board and the back case cover while it was standing on it's right side and allowed more air flow.



To create a gap between the logic board and the back case cover, i put pieces of paper in the case on the battery and CD ROM. See the image below. Bingo, it did the trick. I call this a workaround, not a solution. I will find anything safer than paper to put in there though paper seems fine to me.

Summary

There are three things I've done:
1. Put pieces of paper to make a gap between the back case cover and the logic board so that there is more air flow to cool down the temperature in the case faster. Or you don't need to put the papers but you can remove the optical drive instead. The later is not as very efficient as the former but the overall temperature in the case is better so it won't hurt the logic board much.
2. Use smcFanConrol app. I make the fan spin 4000 rpm. I heard that using smcFanControl will do damage to your fan but i think it's ok for me as my macbook is 4 years old now and i would rather replacing fan than logic board. However, there is no proof yet. In particularly, you can quit the app if you're in the room with air conditioning.
3. The two steps above will help reduce the heat dramatically but you still feel a little bit warm. You should also use PalmGuard to the heat almost completely.

Useful browser's add-ons/extensions

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Got error "Your bootable USB drive could not be created." while creating Windows 7 bootable USB in Boot Cam Assistant

To install Windows 7 on Macbook Pro, you need Boot Cam Assistent app. It's built in OS X. Note that I'm using Macbook Pro 13'' Late 2011 and Max OS X Mountain Lion 10.8. I'm using Boot Cam Assistant to create a bootable Windows installation USB so I don't need Windows Installation DVD.

Note that before starting Boot Cam Assistant, I enabled the option to create install USB in Boot Cam Assistant (BCA) as following:
- Go to Finder -> Applications -> Utilities
- Right click on Boot Cam Assistant.app and select Show Package Contents
- Make a backup copy of Info.plist file then open it and change the key PreUSBBootSupportedModels to USBBootSupportedModels and save

However, when I clicked on the Create button in the last step, it said "Your bootable USB drive could not be created. An error occurred while copying the Windows installation files.".  Here are what I tried to fix the issue:

1. Unmount the Windows installation ISO file. I might clicked on it once and It was mounted. I tried to unmount it from both Finder and Disk Utility and the use Boot Cam Assistant to create it again but no luck. I've noted that the people on the net who got their problems solved using this way got the error message immediately after they click on the Create button. For me, the message showed up about 10 minutes after clicking on the Create button.

2. Someone said it might be the problem with the ISO file. They solved it by using Disk Utility to generate a new one from the current ISO file. They run the command:

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o new_win7.iso /Volumes/DATA/Softwares/OS/Windows/Windows_7_Sp1_Ultimate_x64.iso

Unfortunately, it still didn't help.

3. I tried to use Windows USB/DVD Download Tool (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool#installation) to create a bootable USB instead. It's Windows program so I run Windows 8 as guest OS in VirtualBox and then used the tool to create a bootable USB. But, the tool couldn't create it successfully. It had another error. It told me to check my USB drive and the Windows installation ISO file. Damn!

4. And then I tried to install Windows using the ISO file in VirtualBox, it failed while it was trying to copy the installation files. It said some files were corrupted. Hence, I thought it might be the problem with that file so I downloaded two other different ISO files (from piratebay website) and used them with Boot Cam Assistant. I got the same error for the second ISO file but I successfully created the bootable USB using the third ISO file. I don't know why and I don't care.

Useful Applications I'm Using on My MacBook Pro

I'm using Macbook Pro 13'' late 2011 and Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8. Below are the required applications I used for my daily work.

Boom
My Macbook Pro's sound has become very low. I don't know why. Perhaps, there is a problem with the speaker. I use Boom as a workaround. It boost the speaker's volume above the allowed maximum.

PleaseSleep
When one of these applications: Chrome, Firefox, and Safari is running, your computer won't automatically sleep, only the display that will sleep even if you already configure it in Energy Saver. But, if you manually put it to sleep for example by pressing keys command + option + eject, it will. Note that in my case, the command "pmset -g assertions" does not say those programs are preventing my computer from sleeping at all but I figured it out myself. PleaseSleep will force your computer to sleep after it's been idled for a period of time as configured in Energy Saver even though those programs are running. IT STILL CAN'T HELP, IF BOOM IS RUNNING.

Sleepwatcher 
It's a freeware and can be downloaded from http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/. I let me run command an event is triggered. In my case, Boom prevents my computer from sleeping after defined idle time. It's Boom's bug. I configured my machine to sleep 10 minutes after the display has slept so I use Sleepwatcher to exit Boom when the display has slept and start Boom when the display has woken up. I created 4 script files and put them in /Applications/MyApps as followings:

> sudo nano /Applications/MyApps/boom-sleepwatcher.command
#!/bin/bash

# check if sleepwatcher is running; it might have been running from previous login session
# cause it's not killed even if you log out
RUNNING=""
RUNNING=$(ps axu | grep -v grep | grep sleepwatcher)
echo $RUNNING

SCRIPTNAME="startboom.sh"
# if the content of RUNNING variable contains 'startboom.sh', the process is already running
if [ "$RUNNING" != "${RUNNING%$SCRIPTNAME*}" ];
  then
     echo "sleepwatcher is already running..."
     exit
  else
     echo "Starting sleepwatcher for Boom app..."
fi

/Applications/sleepwatcher/sleepwatcher --daemon --displaysleep /Applications/MyApps/exitboom.sh
/Applications/sleepwatcher/sleepwatcher --daemon --displaywakeup /Applications/MyApps/startboom.sh

> sudo nano /Applications/MyApps/exitboom.sh
osascript -e 'quit app "Boom"'

> sudo nano /Applications/MyApps/startboom.sh
open /Applications/Boom.app

> sudo chmod -R 777 /Applications/MyApps/

Note that if the terminal window is not closed after the command has run, there might be the problem with Terminal's shell settings. Open Terminal, go to Preferences..., select Settings then Shell and choose "Close the window" item in "When the shell exits" combo box.

Then, I put boom-sleepwatcher.command  in login items.

Related article: http://myt8chnote.blogspot.com/2015/09/display-sleep-but-computer-does-not.html

XtraFinder
It's free. It provides multiple tabs in a single window of Finder application.

Carbon Copy Cloner
It's commercial. I use it clone the OS drive to the external hard drive. It works the same way as Norton Ghost (for Windows) does. Hence, my OS disk fail, I don't have to reinstall the OS and applications. I can just restore the OS clone.

Perian
It allows me to play a lot of media file formats on QuickTime Player such as MP4, MP3, FLV, etc.

TextWrangler
It's a good text editor. It allows me to open multiple files at the same time.

Paint 2
Microsoft Paint alternative for Mac

Can't play video on browsers that requires Java plugin

I'm using Macbook Pro late 2011 with Mac OS X Mountain Lion v10.8. I like to watch movie online. Some sites require Java (Applet) plugin to play movies and I couldn't play them.

Below is the steps I solved it:
1). Download and install latest version of Java then restart your browser if it's running.
2). Enable Java applet plugin in your browser. Note that Chrome version 45 no longer supports NPAPI (technology required for Java applet) due to security risk so you cannot play videos on the sites that require Java applet on Chrome anymore. They might use HTML 5 instead to play videos. However, Firefox still support NPAPI so you might consider using it instead. You can enable the plugin by clicking Tools then Add-ons.

3). Add the site to Exception Site List in Java Control Panel. I installed Java 8 and it no longer has Medium security level. There are only Very High and High security levels so Java might block the site by default from using the plugin. Hence, you need to add the site to the exception list. You can go to System Preferences then Java.

4). Open the site or refresh the page and you'll get a popup at the top of the page asking you to allow the browser to run Java plugin for this site. You'll be asked to decide whether to allow it only this time or allow it forever.

5). Refresh the page again. After the page has loaded, it might takes several seconds before the dialog box below shows up.

Check the checkbox then click Run and your video will start playing.





References:
https://java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml

Use AirDrop to send files from Mac to another nearby or iOS devices

Note that before OS X Yosemite, you can AirDrop files between Mac machines only. On OS X Yosemite, you can now AirDrop files from Mac machines to iOS devices and vice versa. However, this feature is not available for Macbook Pro pre-2012 even if it has Yosemite installed. Here how to do that https://support.apple.com/en-ap/HT203106

Stop Macbok Pro from overheating

I'm using Macbook Pro 13'' late 2011 and Mac OSX Mountain Lion v10.8. After I've been using it for over a year, I'm experiencing overheating on keyboard and trackpad. The machine turn too hot quickly may be 1 hour after starting. The CPU temperature is from 80 to 90 degree celsius. There are a lot of causes:
1. Swollen battery
2. Durst and dirty around the trackpad and fan
3. Too hot heat sink

I've reduced the temperature to around 60 degree celsius for normal usage such as web browsing by:
1. Cleaning dust inside my macbook (fan and logic board)
2. Installing smcFanControl application (it lets users increase minimum speed for the built-in fan so i can make my Intel Mac run cooler)
3. Putting display to sleep if the machine has been idled for 10 minutes and computer to sleep after the display has slept for 10 minutes. This is the default configuration though. It also help saving battery life. I configured it in Energy Saver preference.

You may want your computer prompt for password when you wake it up from sleep for more than 1 hour so it's not too annoying to enter password too often and also help secure your computer. You can do it in Security & Privacy preference.

4. Reapplying thermal paste. I didn't do this because I can't find the thermal paste in local stores here. You can apply it in between CPU and heat sink. It helps transfer the heat from CPU to heat sink so CPU doesn't get too hot. Here is how to reapply thermal paste.
5. Drilling holes on the bottom cover under the fan. I didn't do this but a lot of people said it did make their machines much cooler. You might consider buying a new bottom cover and drill holes on it instead of the original one.