To Throttle or not...

Hey all. I have an HP laptop with an AMD Turion64 proc and a nvidia (forgot model) GPU. (512 dedicated RAM I believe).

This machine is several years old. (specs at bottom)

The bottom line is that this machine has a serious overheating problem:

Idles at high 40s to low 50s (Celsius, obviously)

Heats into the 90s (both GPU and proc core) before shutting itself down when under load.

It heats to these temps within like 20 minutes.

Watching a movie or gaming without external cooling will shut her down within an hour at most.

The typical cooling pads do not put a dent in this problem (even higher end ones). Please don't suggest any.

So I have survived thus far by building custom (powerful) heating pads.

1st I used a wicker automon (SP) and the guts of a box fan (had to reshape the blades) to keep it cool. Lol, sounds like a semi truck but did the job.

Upon the death of that crazy rig (20 year old fan) I used 4 120mm industrial cooling fans to rig up a smaller yet loud and powerful cooling pad.

That thing keeps the laptop in the 60s at load. (cant hear a movie or game)

So i use this laptop because of it's better specs (at the time) and I would hate to drastically weaken it in order to stay reasonably cool.

I realize that I can use power settings to keep it under control but I am trying to game here. Laptops today have similar specs while remaining quite cool.

Do I need to throttle the proc? Can I keep a reasonable temp while gaming or am I gonna have to make a liquid-based cooling pad to play oblivion/WC3 or watch movies on this thing?

Physical problem u think? (thermal paste, case fan?)

Much appreciated.

Vista Home
AMD Turion 64 @ 2GHZ
2G RAM
NVIDIA MCP67M (512 dedicated I think)

 

Im not sure about the Turons but I know that a lot of the AMD chips run hotter than Intel anyway.

My Athlon idles at about 40-45 and gets up to about 80 under load.

Have you always monitored temps?

 

Since you finagled your own cooler, I assume you cleaned the thing out of dust bunnies.

 

yea augie no dust problems. I keep thinking maybe there is a dead case fan in there or something. If either CPU or GPU fan is down would it heat up both sensors?

Tueur, I noticed extreme heat the 1st time i watched a movie, when it shut itself down I started watching temps (which were in 90s at the time)

This was a couple months after I got it. That is when I got 1st cooling pad. 2 cooling pads later I realized that was not gonna cut it.

Primarily, the reason I didnt just return this to the store is that I expected the Turon to run hot (i also have an athlon desktop that hits the 80s). That was just CPU temps though. This laptop is getting hot enough to fry an egg on and with no external cooling I think it would have suffered melted wires and malfunctioned by now.

Obviously my homemade cooling pads are less than portable.

If I remember correctly, I have to throttle the GPU along with the CPU, which will stunt my gaming performance.

I am looking for any solution before I tweak an $800 laptop so it runs more like a $400 machine....

Seriously wishing I would have invested in a toshiba...

 

Man, if I got a laptop that overheats just playing videos would concern me, RMA time IMO. Yes they do run hot but 90C is not unreasonable for GPU nor for a CPU. I don't game but I never had an issue playing videos on my 6yr. old Dell laptop. How hot is the exhaust? I have my GPU'S OC'd and running @ %100 load and they are hot! Mind you I have a desktop.

Throttling is not the way to go unless you want to see the differance that gives. I had a quad 6600 that I had to throttle to it's lowest at 1.8GHz so that it would work until I got a new HS/F. It wasn't a pleasant experience.

 

If it is under warrenty then send it back. As soon as you take out a screw you will have invaladated your warrenty. Your Laptop should not need external cooling to keep it stable so it sounds like something isnt quite right.

 

Hi

Honestly, I've noticed a lot of HP laptops tend to run hotter than others, just my experience as a repair tech. Though, they've been designed to be cooled ENOUGH to not force shutdown... as you've mentioned this laptop is several years old, I'm assuming using the warranty is out of the question. You could TRY throttling the CPU and see if that makes enough difference between heat and performance. If it reduces the heat enough without killing performance, I'd just stick to that. If the tradeoff isn't worth it, I'd suggest selling it (eBay or the likes) and cutting your losses, and RESEARCHING user reviews and professional reviews to determine an adequate replacement. If portability isn't an issue, I'd highly suggest building your own desktop, as you seem to be comfortable with working with the hardware components.

The cooling mods you've done already on your laptop are way more effort than I'd put into a laptop! I applaud you on your diligence in attempting to rectify the issue, but a liquid cooling solution would likely not be worth the money invested.

 

Well my desktop is gonna need funds to get it up and running. The laptop cooling mods were entirely made up of stuff I had laying around.

I am gonna see if I can throttle enough to stay out of the 90s and still get good performance.

Wanted to make sure that was my only remaining option. It is out of warranty but I am not gonna dissect it unless I have to. I have dissembled 2 laptops and it is not easy to get them back together. Learned my lesson about making a screw diagram a while back.

When I come into some cash I will put it into my old desktop (which needs a mobo)

It is a shame that rigs like this are being sold. They have to know that a laptop cant handle that kind of temp considering the proximity of components and lack of case airflow.


I appreciate the replies. Thanks all.

 

It might be worth stripping it down to clean any dust from heat sinks and maybe re apply thermal compound to the chips. Might not solve the problem but it is cheap and might help...