Laptop is getting extremely hot, vents are clean though.

Hey everyone. For the past couple months, my HP Pavillion G6t has been running extremely hot. Almost too hot to touch for an extended period. Even with the fan running frequently. Happens when watching a video, or even just browsing the internet or organizing files.

Fan is working fine, vents are clean, and I'm leaving enough room for airflow. If I turn the fan speed higher/more frequently, it causes my videos and sounds to lag/sound choppy and skip.

Specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
Intel Core i3 2.53 GHz
4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 6470M

According to a few people I've asked, the video card is the culprit? Not sure how likely that may be, or what I can do to fix it. When ordering the laptop, I opted for a better video card than the intel integrated HD graphics.

Besides buying one of those cooling bases with the extra fans, is there any suggestions as to what I can do to prevent the laptop from getting so damn hot?

 

A few questions for you:

1. What make and model is the laptop?
2. Are you using any program to control the fan speed? If so what?
3. What are the actual temperatures being experienced? To find out, install a free temperature monitoring program such as speedfan
4. Have you attempted to remove the fan or heatsink to clean the vents?
5. Where on the laptop is it getting hot?

 

Edited messed up post, sorry.

 

1. HP Pavillion G6t
2. Just using the HP CoolSense program thats on there from the factory. Any higher speed/frequency causes some weird lag/choppy issues with videos.
3. Temperatures range from 53-69 degrees Celsius. Usually holding steady around 60. Using CoreTemp and have been monitoring my temps while doing routine stuff on the laptop. No intensive games or movie clips longer than a couple minutes though.
4.No, just checked for any kind of dust buildup on the vents, but they were relatively clean.
5. Most of the heat is on the left side of the laptop. Both next to the keyboard, and underneath. From the "alt" key over. Especially near the "tab", "caps lock", "shift" and "ctrl" keys. As well as underneath. Vents are hot as well.

 

Just had CoreTemp warn me that the temps are getting too high. Had em spike to 80C or so for a few seconds while I was watching a 3 minute video on youtube...

 

Thank you for the information.

Temperatures of 50-60 Degrees C are normal for any computer, especially laptops. I assume the spike to 80 was corrected by the fan speeding up?

By higher speed/frequency, are you referring to clock speed or fan speed? Lag/choppy video issues sound like higher clock speed to me but I could be wrong.

Am I correct in saying that the vent on this model is to the left of the ESC key on the underside? If so, then the heat you are describing is likely from the chipsets.

Could you please confirm what the quoted temperatures are for? Is it the CPU? If so can you find the temperature for the GPU?

 

Yes, the fan was noticeably louder and sounded like it was spinning faster during the spike to 80/above 80 degrees. I was installing a program last week (before I downloaded CoreTemp), and the laptop actually shut down on me twice during the install process (I'm assuming from overheating). Kind of got me worried.

The temperatures range from 50-65, if the laptop is just sitting there on the desktop, not running any programs. Right now I'm only using Firefox to post a response, and it's fluctuating between 65-70 or so. Watching a quick video or two on youtube puts it between 70-80.

To be honest I have no idea why the fan spinning more frequently would affect video playback. Doesn't make sense to me. :\

Yes, the "intake" vent is on the bottom, behind the ESC key, and the "exhaust" vent is on the left side, next to the ESC key. All along that left side, from ESC down to CTRL is where the majority of the heat is.

CoreTemp apparently displays the temperatures of each of the laptop's CPU cores. I don't have a GPU temperature monitor but I can search for one and give it a try.

Not sure if this is how the "heat dispersing design" of a laptop is supposed to work, but when inspecting the fan and vents, I noticed that the metal frame of the laptop was slightly discolored on the left side, where the heat is coming from. The motherboard and circuitry seems fine though. No scorching or discoloring there.

 

Sorry to hit you with more questions, but here goes:

1. Could you please get a temperature monitor like SpeedFan that reports all available system temperatures, and post back all of them along with their default names? Please also post a fan RPM if there is one in the program.

2. It sounds as though you might have a heat dissipation problem. Have you ever removed the cover around the fan and inspected around the actual fan blades? If not, do you feel comfortable doing so?

3. Could you please post back the CPU usage figures (can be found in task manager) when at: A: Idle. B:Watching a youtube video. C: Normal web browsing.

I am not sure if the discolouration is normal or not. This sometimes happens but hopefully we can see if it is normal or not in your case.

 

Suggestion: if you you load speedfan, post a screenshot of the first/default window; this has all the info collinsl asks for (if it fits).

Additional info: I have an HP Pavilion dm4 1050ea dual core and the intake and exhausts are in the same place as Gstam66's machine, it gets hot underneath the top left corner, but the top of mine doesn't feel hot at all, nor the sides. No temp monitor installed as I'm not worried about it.

Dumb_Question
2.August.2012
HP Pavilion dm4 1050 ea - Windows 7

 

I attached the screenshot of SpeedFan. I just had Firefox open at the time, and the computer was sitting idle for about 45 minutes beforehand.

I did not closely examine the fan blades. I do feel relatively comfortable taking the laptop apart though and inspecting it again. When I inspected the laptop previously, I was just looking for dirt/hair/dust that may have been clogging the vents/cooling passage. Didnt really have enough info to know what to look for on the actual fan or heatsink, to notice visually if there was something wrong.

If you need any more information, just let me know and I will be happy to provide it. Thank you again!

 

Well this is odd. I wanted to test something by unplugging the charger and letting the laptop run on battery. After the laptop changed the graphics processor/settings, Temp 2 and GPU temps dropped down to 0 and -999, respectively. I let the laptop sit for about 10 minutes and nothing changed, same temps.

Attached is the screenshot of it.

 

Hey GStam66,
about the discoloring, you mean a brownish color on the inside of the case, if that's true I think it's normal, I noticed it on my netbook a few days ago and it works fine now. Also, you said you checked the fan for dust. Did you actually removed the whole thermal module and checked inside(remove screws etc) or did you just check it from above? If you did the later I think you should take the module apart and check it more closely, sometimes the dust is carefully hidden. The reason I tell you this is that when I checked my thermal module for dust it didn't shown any signs of it but when I took it apart I found a thick wall of dust carefully placed. Good luck though.

 

Sorry for the delay in responding.

The temperatures you have provided whilst plugged in are perfectly normal and are nothing to worry about. I would assume that the notebook manufacturers have just been careless with their thermal design, as so many manufacturers seem to do these days.

The fact that your temperatures changed/dropped whilst on battery suggest to me that the battery profile/settings built into your motherboard don't support SpeedFan interrogating them whilst on battery. This is normal as SpeedFan often has problems dealing with sensors due to the sheer number of different types, settings, firmware, etc.

As GStam66 says, the discolouration is probably normal. However, I must disagree with the comments made about disassembling the "thermal module" or heatsink assembly. If you remove these from the chips that they are designed to cool then you will have to apply new thermal paste to ensure that cooling works correctly. This is a fairly advanced task and should not be undertaken lightly as an incorrect amount of thermal paste (either too much or too little) could cause future temperature issues.