POS Acer Laptop Overheating

[skanks]

Can't even watch a movie on Hi-Def without this thing overheating and shutting down. Elevating the laptop wasn't cutting it. For a while I was just dealing with it the next laziest way possible: putting the laptop on a bunch of cryopacks (leaving space for the tiny vents). This was working ok, except I think some moisture may have gotten in the case yesterday. The machine quit working for like 20 hours and that gave me a bit of a scare.

Anyway, need to fix the problem at the source. I'm taking the laptop apart (which is a surprisingly involved process). I'm going to clean out the fan, put some premium heat sink glue on that motherfucker, and then drill a bunch of small holes in the bottom of the case for decent circulation (right now there is basically no ventilation). If anybody has any other bright ideas I'd love to hear them.

[Jonathan]

Fans die and/or get gunky. Sensors also die; see if your bios or power monitor software is giving you hot readings (~40 deg C/ ~100 deg F) while playing video.

Thermal design of laptops is designed to dump heat both using airflow and conduction through the body. Assuming you aren't using the laptop in a 100 deg F room, then I imagine the body is doing just fine. Either the fan isn't getting up to speed, the heatsink is no longer properly attached to the chip, or the air is blocked.

[skanks]

I took it apart. Basically no dust/gunk in the fan or in the case.

I ordered premium CPU heatsink paste off newegg and it should get here any day now.

There's almost no room for air to escape below the fan. The vents are just way too small. I think drilling some tiny holes is the best, simplest way to increase airflow, like this guy suggests. I'm already out of warranty so the only thing I have to lose is my heat.

[Jonathan]

Does the case have the same number of holes it came with initially? Did it work initially? If yes to both of those, I don't think additional holes will help.

If the fan changes speed while under load, then probably you just need to reseat the heatsink. If the fan doesn't sound like it is spinning up, you may have a sensor problem.

[Jason]

If you can work overtime at work, you should put the time you're thinking about this problem into working and then get a new laptop. The economist in me suggests this as the highest utility approach.

[George]

While a new widget is always the best solution to every problem, you'll still have to be careful. There are a number of laptops out there that will overheat off-the-shelf. When I was shopping around for my current system, I ended up avoiding the HP Envy line in spite of years of HP loyalty due to reports that it had serious heat problems. Chuck had a work laptop with more processing and graphics power than most desktops, but it would crash out of most games, presumably due to heat.

My previous laptop (HP TX 2500) had design problems that led to high heat. It never seemed to affect system stability, but the fan never slowed down, even at idle. The heat sink is coated in some black paint that is apparently not very conductive. Noone online has offered any explanation for why the paint is there. Cosmetic? Anti-corrosion? Anyway, some owners had some success opening up their systems and scraping off or dissolving the paint. I tried, but my system must have been a slightly newer generation, and I couldn't find any instructions for safely disconnecting certain cables. There were also reports of a mis-installed head pipe that didn't make contact with the graphics chip. Mine was firmly attached, but some people had to add copper shims to get a decent contact.

[quantus]

There are those aftermarket cooling pads for laptops for a reason. If my wife doesn't use one with her thinkpad x60, it gets quite hot. With the extra airflow over the bottom of the laptop, it seems to keep the laptop quite cool. It's worth investing in a sturdy cooling pad so it won't break. It seems most out there are built pretty flimsily and only last a few months at best before a fan craps out or it cracks.

I've also noticed that her system locks up for 20-30 seconds at a time pretty often when it's running hot.

[Dave]

Cave in, get an iPad! In a few years everything will be done in the cloud and we'll all get cancer from wifi.

[Jonathan]

Whatever!
Intel phone!

[quantus]

7:44PM Here comes Senior VP at Lenovo Liu Jun to introduce the first Intel-powered smartphone.
7:46PM And he's holding it upside down!

Ummm, why do you start off model numbering with 800? What marketing idiot decided on that? Is this some 8th generation phone or chip or something? First intel-based phone I've heard of...

[Jonathan]

It is the first to be announced.

[quantus]

Dude just used NFC to tap his MasterCard on an Ultrabook to automatically enter his payment on Target.

Yay, now I need an NFC card to enter my shipping information for home and for work or hell, any other contact in my cloud-based address book! Maybe it'll even click ok for me to beat amazon's 1-click shopping with 0-click, just tap shopping. I guess I won't be able to give Erik a shiny credit card to play with anymore when I forget actual baby toys :-\