Can Apple tell that I took apart my laptop?

If there were to be any problems in the future and I need to send in my Macbook for repair, can Apple tell that I disassembled my laptop before? Frankly I don't see how they can unless there was some warranty seal that had to be broken, which there wasn't when I was taking it apart.

 

how far "apart" did u take it? was it just a simple hdd/ram upgrade or did you go down to the mobo? i dont think theres anyway they can tell, but you never know....

 

All the way down to the heat sink removal. I didn't remove the logic board from the chassis though.

 

Generally, no, they wouldn't be able to easily tell (nor, from what I've heard anecdotally, do they actually care if you took it apart as long as you didn't break it in the process and look to get that fixed under warranty).

 

Awesome, thanks.

 

So did you take off your heat sinks and put Artic Silver 5 on instead?

That seems to be the #1 problem out there right now, the sloppy job they did with the paste. If you re-do it, your temps will drop by 10c.

It appears they've got a kid doing it. I have this picture of a kid in a factory standing next to his pregnant mother. He's slapping on the paste as fast as possible as the laptops come down the line.

Oh, and I found the thread on another forum where they talk about it and have pictures. Check this one out.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=314464

My question, is it better to spread the AS5 all over the chip like the guy did in the picture, or do the dot method, where you put a single dot in the center and let it spread out?

 

Here's the thread I made regarding the thermal paste of my Macbook.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=131093

That is correct. I wanted to see if I could make this thing run any cooler. I also replaced the thermal paste on my Thinkpad X30 and there was a huge difference. The bottom of the chassis did not get as hot as it used to, because there's better contact with the CPU and heat sink allowing heat to channel through the heat pipe more efficiently.

The thermal paste is still in the break-in mode. I'll let you guys know the results in a couple days.

 

It depends on what CPU you have. Here's a guide that will tell you which method works best depending on what CPU you have:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

I don't really blame them for loading chunks of gunk on the CPU. It actually takes time and effort to apply an even layer of thermal paste on the CPU.

 

On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate the difficulty of taking your notebook apart? I have some AS5 I want to use on the Macbook as well. :]

 

Probably a 7. It wasn't actually difficult per se, but the management of 30 screws was annoying. I had to tape the screws next to the screw hole so I didn't mix them up. If you've had any experience taking apart desktops or laptops then you should be fine.