Everyday things that are SLOWLY KILLING your MacBook!
Don’t Clean Your MacBook’s Screen! These myths are splitting my mind — Oh God No!
Did you know there’s a right way to charge your MacBook to avoid battery wear out? And here’s more — wiping your laptop’s monitor is actually bad for it.
Today I’m gonna show you how seemingly harmless actions can seriously damage your Mac, without you realising it… I myself was shocked by some of these facts!
If you already own a Mac or are planning to buy one soon, do yourself a favour and read this article thoroughly so that your laptop serves you for many years to come.
Using Your Mac on the Bed
Let’s start with something that might not be obvious to everyone. How often do you find yourself using your MacBook in bed or on a couch?
Did you know that it’s not a safe way to use your Mac?
Most MacBooks, especially those prior to the M1 MacBooks, are equipped with an active cooling system and when performing heavy tasks, the device can overclock its “fans”.
Picture this — you decide to do some work lying down, place your MacBook on your bed and get going at it comfortably. Unlike your PC, it’s likely that by placing your MacBook on a
soft surface, you tend to block the air ducts of its cooling system thereby leading to thermal throttling and performance issues.
Further, this causes the components inside to heat up because the cooling system is not able to suck in enough air to cool down the components.
As a result, the MacBook tries to speed up the cooling system in order to cool the components. The cooling system, in turn, gets louder and when it realises it can’t cope with its task, it commands the CPU to throttle down to a lower frequency.
This doesn’t happen when the MacBook is placed on a hard, flat surface, like a table — its vents remain unobstructed and allow air to flow freely.
Please don’t keep it on the bed as it can cause CPU and GPU damage.
Moreover, if you MacBook has a fan, it can collect lint and dirt that accumulates in the fans causing it to run slow or stop functioning after a while.
Leaving your MacBook in direct Sunlight/In a Car
I don’t think that this point needs any explanation whatsoever, but I need to stress upon how damaging this can be to your MacBook.
Firstly, this leads to overheating of your MacBook hardware and its failure. Secondly, some parts of your device may be left deformed due to extremely high temperatures.
Therefore, to maintain peak performance of your MacBook, do not leave your it in hot places. Further, try to keep it in regulatory conditions — that is, 50–95 degrees Fahrenheit. As Stated by Apple.
The battery might get detoriated due to the heat, leading to loss of battery life over time and causing less charge cycles before your Mac’s battery falls to 80% of its total capacity.
This is because the battery experiences hot temperatures and then a transition to a cold temperature, such as your Air-Conditioned house. Imagine this — You take a hot piece of metal and then suddenly dip it into a bucket of ice cold water.
WHOOSH!!!
You can imagine what happens next. It warps!
Frequently and Aggressively shaking your MacBook while Walking
If your Mac has an HDD, this tip is for you!
If you frequently and aggressively swing your laptop around when you’re walking, or shake it angrily during an emotionally heightened episode (happens to the best of us😅), you risk damaging your hard drive.
Strong vibrations don’t do much harm to the solid-state drives (SSDs) that come with the latest MacBooks, but mechanical hard drives (HDDs) are quite vulnerable to them.
Thus, if you don’t want to lose the contents of your HDD, handle your MacBook carefully and don’t subject it to aggressive shaking. Though, sooner or later, all MacBooks begin to turn the fans up even at minimal task load and make sounds similar to that of a jet engine roar.
These “cries for help” mean that it might be time to clean the inside of the laptop from dust and other debris.
If you’ve been avoiding cleaning you MacBook for years, then your cooling system might be housing dust species unknown to humankind at this point.
If your MacBook is still under warranty, take it to a service centre for cleaning. Otherwise,
you can try and carry out the maintenance process yourself.
For those who are too lazy to clean their room, to the point where you have tumbleweeds of dust rolling around, your tech is likely to overheat faster and fail more often.
Cleaning you MacBook’s Display
I know that you feel that I am crazy as I am giving advice to not clean you MacBook’s screen, but I am correct, well mostly!
You surely should clean your MacBook’s screen with a dry cloth or Isopropyl Alcohol, but DO NOT use Cleaning sprays to clean your display, as these liquids are sure to penetrate you Mac’s screen and corrode your display.
I also strongly recommend against cleaning your MacBook’s display with detergents — this can and will clean your screen of all sorts of contaminants at first, but soon after that the oleophobic coating will peel off the screen.
This, by the way, can also happen if you wipe the display too harshly or too often.
It will be helpful to use a Pressurised Air container if you would like to clean you MacBook’s fans or its keyboard.
Picking up your MacBook From the Lid
You really shouldn’t do this. Firstly, this can damage the hinges that attach the top part of the laptop to the bottom part.
Secondly, when you do that you squeeze the MacBook sensors with your fingers, risking turning the screen inoperable.
In movies, after hacking into the ‘mainframe’ the hacker will fully slam the lid of the laptop in one sharp move. Although it looks cool on the screen, in reality, closing your MacBook carelessly like that, can ruin the hinges or shatter the screen.
Closing the Lid without Looking
One of the common dangers is closing the lid without looking when you leave your earbuds on the keyboard. You are almost guaranteed to destroy the screen, and probably crush the headphones.
Please, handle the lid with care!
Carrying your MacBook with One Hand
Do you carry your MacBook with one hand?
Well if you do, then I have some bad news for you. Holding a closed MacBook with one hand, wrapping your fingers around the top and bottom, can put too much pressure on the case and the screen elements.
People who use this type of grip will wonder where the dark spot on the screen came from. Well, it came from the very place on the screen they were clutching the laptop.
Also, when you hold an open MacBook by one of its sides, its case can deform under its weight.
Another bad habit often shown in films is when a character is done working on their laptop, slams the lid and casually throws the laptop on a table or bed. Impacts and collisions are dangerous both for the body of the device and for its components.
That’s why you shouldn’t handle your MacBook rough or give it to small children. Remember, your MacBook is not a basketball. Although some people think otherwise😜.
Regularly Draining your MacBook’s Battery to Extend Battery Life
There are many myths on the Web about how to extend the battery life of various devices. The most common ones go like this:
You must regularly drain the battery of your device to zero, and then charge it again.
This was once true for older batteries, But modern lithium-ion batteries are not subject to overcharging, and they don’t usually have these issues. When using a MacBook of any model, as well as other devices with lithium-ion batteries, it’s much more important to remember about charging cycles.
A cycle is the period of time for your device’s battery to go from 100% to 0%.
If you drained the battery in a day of work, and the MacBook turned off — that is one cycle. If, for example, you discharged the device by 25% in four days, but put it to charge in the evening of that same day, this is also considered one cycle. It is also worth updating macOS to the latest version.
Often, updates include energy-saving add-ons to help extend the life of your Mac.
Using Off-Brand Charging Cables
MacBooks equipped with only a few basic ports or, lately, with only a couple of thunderbolts on board usually require a multiport USB hub. Here’s a hypothetical for you:
You’re looking at two cables on the shelf of an electronics store. One of them costs $15, the other is $100.
Both are meant for the same function. Which one would you choose? The vast majority will probably take the $15 cable without too much thinking.
This is happening all over the place. iPhone charging cables, power supplies, cases and multi-port adapters… When you save on electronics, you usually get exactly what you paid for plus the harsh reality.
Off-brand USB-Cs, no matter how much they cost, serve poorly, aren’t consistent at best and will likely break down at first opportunity. This is even more true for any complex accessory. There’s currently plenty of knockoff multiport hubs for Mac on the market, but among them only a few can be considered reliable.
So if you decide to use cheap multiports/USB hubs, then the best case scenario is that they break down. At worst, a MacBook port may burn out and the cheap price you ended up paying for the multiport won’t be worth it.
I recommend using original multiport adapters from Apple, or those of other reliable and trusted companies.
I hope these tips will make you a better MacBook User, and soon I will have list of other tips that will make you a MacBook PRO.
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