Laptop Overheating

[coldintheshower]

I have an HP Pavillion dv6000 series laptop. It was cheap, bought it so I could work on my honours project from home last year!

Recently it has started overheating and turning itself off and the only way to fix this is to remove the battery and wait for it to cool down again! The fan is working fine, not dusty, nothing clogging it but the laptop often gets far too hot and shuts itself off! I've heard this is due to HP packing all the hardware into one corner of the laptop and this causes it to overheat!

Is there anything I can do to stop my laptop from overheating rather than keeping it constantly on a hard surface?

[Detomah]

I know you say the fan works fine, but is there no alternatives, maybe a better fan that works faster and harder to keep things cool? I don't know the insides of laptops very well, but if it's overheating, does that not potentially mean the cpu cooler is not up to the job or not doing it's job sufficiently well, could that not be remedied simply by swapping that out for a better one? Unlike PCs, unfortunately there's very little room for maneauvre when it comes to changing things around inside laptops.

[Puratech]

Sounds pretty stupid tbh, newer laptops really shouldnt be doing that. I guess all you can do is try to optimise the cooling...

Make sure the cpu heatsink etc really is dust free or near enough so its able to lose heat as quickly as possible.
Try putting it on a stand like 2 pieces of wood at either end to give a little more airflow underneath.
Make sure the room temperature isnt very warm, or use it by an open window.
Im pretty sure there are laptop cooling kits too - some sit under it some bolt on the back. http://www.xtremecomputing.co.uk/ima..._cooler_11.jpg


My friends old laptop was really bad with heat, to reinstall windows without it crashing you had to do it outside and that was in winter :S Im really not convinced though about yours - can you check temps in bios or with some utility, maybe theres a problem with it like bad contact between cpu and heatsink?

[Mars]

You can buy docking stations that have fans in them, they are designed to improve cooling where the laptop is in use for more than a couple of hours (which they really aren't designed for)
you need to make sure you aren't running the laptop on the bed, sofa, or on a carpeted floor,
all these surfaces insulate the entire bottom half of the machine and prevent buillt up heat from escaping,
try entering the machine's bios and see if there's a q fan or fanspeed control option, and see if you can get the fan speed up,
you can also alter the machine's power usage options to turn off hard drives, displays, and other devices sooner if you aren't there at the keyboard.

[coldintheshower]

Originally Posted by Detomah

I know you say the fan works fine, but is there no alternatives, maybe a better fan that works faster and harder to keep things cool? I don't know the insides of laptops very well, but if it's overheating, does that not potentially mean the cpu cooler is not up to the job or not doing it's job sufficiently well, could that not be remedied simply by swapping that out for a better one? Unlike PCs, unfortunately there's very little room for maneauvre when it comes to changing things around inside laptops.

Yeah I mean if i could i would probably just swap out the fan for a better alternative, the one that comes built with the HP laptop is "fine" by their standards just not by mine.

Originally Posted by Puratech

Make sure the cpu heatsink etc really is dust free or near enough so its able to lose heat as quickly as possible.
Try putting it on a stand like 2 pieces of wood at either end to give a little more airflow underneath.
Make sure the room temperature isnt very warm, or use it by an open window.
Im pretty sure there are laptop cooling kits too - some sit under it some bolt on the back. http://www.xtremecomputing.co.uk/ima..._cooler_11.jpg


My friends old laptop was really bad with heat, to reinstall windows without it crashing you had to do it outside and that was in winter :S Im really not convinced though about yours - can you check temps in bios or with some utility, maybe theres a problem with it like bad contact between cpu and heatsink?

I would say that the temperature in the room where I use the laptop can get quite warm and that obviously doesn't help but I like the idea of that laptop cooler! I've opened up the back got rid of any dust, dirt etc. and to be honest i'm not sure if it helped.

Originally Posted by Mars

You can buy docking stations that have fans in them, they are designed to improve cooling where the laptop is in use for more than a couple of hours (which they really aren't designed for)
you need to make sure you aren't running the laptop on the bed, sofa, or on a carpeted floor,
all these surfaces insulate the entire bottom half of the machine and prevent buillt up heat from escaping,
try entering the machine's bios and see if there's a q fan or fanspeed control option, and see if you can get the fan speed up,
you can also alter the machine's power usage options to turn off hard drives, displays, and other devices sooner if you aren't there at the keyboard.

Yeah i've already optimised the power usage but still overheating.

Here is a readout from SIW (System Info for Windows) on the sensors:

Property Value
Temperature
CPU Core 0 62 ºC (144 ºF)
CPU Core 1 60 ºC (140 ºF)
WDC WD2500BEVS-60UST0 48 ºC (118 ºF)

I know that is far too high, the laptop has been on for around an hour or so, just browsing the internet and using the media player, its been on a cold hard surface... maybe it is about time to get one of those docking stations!!

Thanks for the feedback guys!

[Mars]

yep the cpu temp is in the danger zone, you'll need to partially strip it down, remove the sink from the cpu, clean it back,
buy some high quality heatsink compund, clean the sink and look for build up around any fans., if the fans look clogged it might be an idea to seek replacements for them,
If the unit is still under warranty you should contact the manufacturer
and explain what's happening, rather than trying to fix it yourself.

[coldintheshower]

Yeah it's still under warranty luckily. If it was a PC i'd have no problems removing the heatsink etc but since it's in a laptop and there isn't much space and it's all a bit fiddly i'm just going to take it back see what they can do!

[LippoW]

You've mostly concentrated to hardware problems.
I'll add software things to check.

1) Idle CPU usage with task manager
- It should be 2-5% tops, if not see task manager processes and sort by CPU usage to see any abnormal CPU usage processes.

2) Check that CPU power saving is enabled from BIOS setup (AMD cool'n'quiet, no idea Intel one's name)

3) Check that some kind of power saving plan is enabled in power saving options of windows.

4) Check there's no pending updates (Windows updates, HP software updates, BIOS updates)

[5) Remove optical disks from dvd-drive. Enable readyboost with a memory card.]

HTH, if you can't find anything from the software side, then start keeping your work on an external hard drive to minimize the data loss.

[meow]

if the CPU has thermal shutdown it wont be damaging the CPU, however a sudden shutdown can trash files.
the majority of silicon chips survive 100'C. many still work at this temp and even upto 115'C . interestingly a new breed of silicon - silicon carbide (yes thats what they use in abrasive materials) works at incredibly high temperatures.

you mentioned you had to take the battery out, does the battery get particularly hot ? it could be causing the problem.

[coldintheshower]

Originally Posted by LippoW

You've mostly concentrated to hardware problems.
I'll add software things to check.

1) Idle CPU usage with task manager
- It should be 2-5% tops, if not see task manager processes and sort by CPU usage to see any abnormal CPU usage processes.

2) Check that CPU power saving is enabled from BIOS setup (AMD cool'n'quiet, no idea Intel one's name)

3) Check that some kind of power saving plan is enabled in power saving options of windows.

4) Check there's no pending updates (Windows updates, HP software updates, BIOS updates)

[5) Remove optical disks from dvd-drive. Enable readyboost with a memory card.]

HTH, if you can't find anything from the software side, then start keeping your work on an external hard drive to minimize the data loss.

Had a dvd in the dvd drive, and had updates sorted now. Already had power saving mode on etc.

Originally Posted by meow

if the CPU has thermal shutdown it wont be damaging the CPU, however a sudden shutdown can trash files.
the majority of silicon chips survive 100'C. many still work at this temp and even upto 115'C . interestingly a new breed of silicon - silicon carbide (yes thats what they use in abrasive materials) works at incredibly high temperatures.

you mentioned you had to take the battery out, does the battery get particularly hot ? it could be causing the problem.

I believe my laptop does have CPU thermal shutdown, I assume this is when it gets so hot that it switches itself off to minimize damage, has happened to me once or twice.

However I believe I've fixed the problem. Cleaned up the lappy ccleaner, hjt, spybot, adaware, defragged. Got rid of a lot of shit from the lappy. Took the back off, used compressed air to get rid of a clump of dust which I previously didn't see behind the fan. Fan seems like its working better now, temperature is so much cooler.

And on a side note when it was getting hot I don't believe the battery was getting hot.

Cheers for the input guys