Overheating laptop

baza52

get yourself a can of compressed air off ebay and use it to blow any dust out. Costs a few quid and can revive a hot running laptop.

Ben84

bsod wrote: »

The assumption that it's something to do with thermal paste is a very random diagnosis, there will be a lot of hot machines out there in summer, they don't all suddenly need new paste.

To be clear, I also wouldn't repaste before checking for blocked air vents first. If that isn't the problem, paste would be my next place to look. However, checking the paste means lifting the heat sink, at which point it would have to be repasted with new paste anyway (failed paste may not be visually obvious either), so the advice to replace it is reasonable as a diagnostic step rather than a promise of a certain cure.

MediaGuy

Hi Everyone,

Just to update you... I disassembled the X201 ( wasn't too bad) and when I got to taking the heat sink off this is what I found.

I cleaned it all off and put on a very thing layer of paste. It idles at 62 degrees, which is an improvement, but not as good as I was hoping. The fans etc didn't look too cloged.

enfield_freddy

no improvement then ? in fact it looks to be 2 deg hotter now , your original post said " Running a temp monitoring app, even on idle, doing nothing it didn't go below 60 degrees C.


and now you say " It idles at 62 degrees"

MediaGuy

I think I may have gotten the temps wrong but to put it another way, the CPU temps look better. Time will tell I guess.

50Twuncle

You simply needed to get a can of compressed alr (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EQ8C82K/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2/277-8317889-9074161?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_r=1KY17HQ0G4WGG4AJAW2A&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_i=B0000934G1) and spray it through the vents on the side of your laptop - no need to even open the case !!

InquisitiveMind

I thoroughly recommend getting yourself a can of compressed air - at one point Tesco's used to sell it. As it's a laptop, open it up and just spray it all around the place, look for the worst offending areas, but also hit the vents to the outside world, as they should be clear.

I'd also check your computer for virus' / virii? You could have something that makes your CPU run hot in the background (bitcoin hash generators seem to be the norm) effectively stealing your cpu from you and placing the calculation at a higher priority than your tasks.

Ben84

enfield_freddy wrote: »

no improvement then ? in fact it looks to be 2 deg hotter now , your original post said " Running a temp monitoring app, even on idle, doing nothing it didn't go below 60 degrees C.


and now you say " It idles at 62 degrees"

Idling at 62 degrees isn't too bad for a laptop. I'm about 56 degrees right now, just using my browser on a thinkpad. It tends to sit around 55 all the time, even when it's just the desktop and nothing else is going on. A better indicator is what happens when you're doing something demanding? At lighter use and lower temperatures what can happen is that the temperature stays about the same as before, but the fan is running slower, masking any improvements.

WentworthFox

Get a can of compressed air to clean the fan, then get a cooling pad, overheating its not healthy for the hardware

bsod

a can of baked beans would be more use, I've heard good things about Branston's.