Overheating Laptop - What am I missing?

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DravidDavid

1907 posts

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#144007 4-May-2014 23:25

Recently acquired an HP Pavilion DV6 laptop from a friend of my girlfriend's to fix. Usual problems..."It's really slow", "It turns off automatically when I browse the internet", "It gets really hot and the bottom is a bit melted", "Oh and there is no anti-virus." So after surveying the OS only to discover U-Kash, HP bloatware, rootkits, loaders, adware, malware and more ad-pop ups...I decided I'd deal with over-heating first. CoreTemp reporting it was operating at between 98 and 105 degrees was also a factor in my decision...More so U-Kash though. I began the annoying and time consuming task of stripping it down. Please note, the laptop has a 2.5GHz duel core i3 processor with HT. Because it is an HP BIOS I can't turn HT off and the multiplier seems to want to make the CPU hit 2.8ish GHz when something is happening. Didn't know Intel had implemented a turbo mode system.

Usual suspects as per the internet suggested...Poor HP design (one of their worst apparently) and typical chick computer...Thermal paste had separated, fan assembly was caked with cat hair and frilly bed linen. I removed the thermal paste with IPA and lint free cloth followed by another lint free cloth to confirm there was nothing hiding. I used Noctua's NT-H1 premium thermal compound, which is the same as what I have on my Phenom II X6 Hex CPU and NH D-14 heatsink. Was this a wrong move? I used the dot method, which is placing a small dot of paste in the middle of the CPU and placing the heatsink on top.

Instead of idling at 98 degrees, it idles at 55 to 65 degrees and when anything happens it hits 85 and comes back down to 75 once the fan ups it's game. Are these processors supposed to run hot or have I done wrong?

EDIT: After cleaning all the crap out, the CPU idles at 0% to 5% (fluctuates) which is normal...So it's not laboring, it's actually idle at 55 to 65 degrees on a flat, wooden table.

TL;DR: Replace thermal compound on CPU/GPU with Noctua's NT-H1 compound and still have an over-heating issue after mega-clean of heat-sink, fan, CPU and GPU.

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3050 posts

Uber Geek

#1036679 5-May-2014 00:01

My old DV6 does the exact same thing, except i7. I replaced thermal paste using dot method. It functions well enough for day to day use, but reboots quite often so mum uses it now. Would love to get it working properly again, it's a beast when working well.

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DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#1036682 5-May-2014 00:15

tardtasticx: My old DV6 does the exact same thing, except i7. I replaced thermal paste using dot method. It functions well enough for day to day use, but reboots quite often so mum uses it now. Would love to get it working properly again, it's a beast when working well.

The i7 is definitely a hot chip. But an i3 under zero load should not be allowed to operate at 60 degrees from the factory. If that is the case, I'm advising they just get a new laptop before this one burns the house down.

When the fan hits 100% it sounds as if a bearing is off. Maybe it isn't pushing enough air. If there is a specific thermal compound I should be using, I'd like to know about it before I have to strip another DV6 down to do the same thing.

jonb

1739 posts

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#1036683 5-May-2014 00:20

I have a 3 yr old AMD DV6 that has been overheating from the start. I think it is mainly down to bad laptop design, but one thing I found helped a lot was to restrict the CPU to 90% of max. That won't help with the speed of course though, but stop it switching off due to excessive heat. It still gets very hot and sounds like it will take off when doing light tasks.

DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#1036684 5-May-2014 00:40

jonb: I have a 3 yr old AMD DV6 that has been overheating from the start. I think it is mainly down to bad laptop design, but one thing I found helped a lot was to restrict the CPU to 90% of max. That won't help with the speed of course though, but stop it switching off due to excessive heat. It still gets very hot and sounds like it will take off when doing light tasks.

This one does exactly the same. It sounds as if it's going to take off when opening the web browser. I wanted to turn off HT and whatever CPU boost that i3 has going on and maybe underclock it to 1.5GHz or something to keep it at bay...But the HP BIOS has no multiplier, HT, boost or fan options.

Can I restrict CPU capacity within Windows? I have no idea how. Right up until this point, I've been all about squeezing as much power I can out of every device.

Dynamic

3580 posts

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#1036731 5-May-2014 08:50

Go into your Power Options, and change the settings of your plan. There should be the abiloity to see Advanced power settings somewhere on the left. This should pop up a little window with a dozen options groups you can expand to micro-manage. One of those should be Processor Power Management and this should have an option for Maximum Processor State - 100% by default.

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macuser

2120 posts

Uber Geek

#1036733 5-May-2014 09:00

Dynamic: Go into your Power Options, and change the settings of your plan. There should be the abiloity to see Advanced power settings somewhere on the left. This should pop up a little window with a dozen options groups you can expand to micro-manage. One of those should be Processor Power Management and this should have an option for Maximum Processor State - 100% by default.

Set the Maximum Processor State at 99% to avoid turbo boost but still keep good performance. Tell them also not to use the laptop in bed, or pick up a breakfast/laptop tray from the warehouse/farmers/briscoes

macuser

2120 posts

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#1036735 5-May-2014 09:03

I'm not sure if you separated the fan from the heat sink, but you should. Normally it contains basically a strip of lint that is about as thick as a sock. Usually the fan and heat sink are connected by a thermal tape. Be careful with the tape as you'll need to stick it back over the gap when you've completed the job.

rscole86

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#1036743 5-May-2014 09:06

I have an old DV6 i7 too, and have just replaced it with an XPS13, I would never buy a DV6 again, has always run hot from day one.
The wife has had to have it on a laptop cooling pad, never used for gaming for the last 12-18 months (due to over heating), yet would still constantly over heat.

Everything mentioned above happens to this one too.
Until it started to randomly 'loose' information from the HDD. The HDD would pass all tests run on it, but windows would systematically loose all files, so the point it would not boot anymore.

DravidDavid

1907 posts

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#1036744 5-May-2014 09:10

macuser: I'm not sure if you separated the fan from the heat sink, but you should. Normally it contains basically a strip of lint that is about as thick as a sock. Usually the fan and heat sink are connected by a thermal tape. Be careful with the tape as you'll need to stick it back over the gap when you've completed the job.

I vacuumed out the fan assembly without taking it apart...I had a look at a YouTube video earlier today and more Googling suggests I need to strip it down again because of that sock layer of dust that sits just behind the fan. No mention of thermal tape though! I'll be on the look-out for that now. Apparently that layer of dust is quite a common build-up and HP changed their fan design because it was causing so many issues.

I'll definitely be telling her to not use it on the bed like I tell everyone haha.

DravidDavid

1907 posts

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#1036749 5-May-2014 09:16

rscole86:Everything mentioned above happens to this one too.
Until it started to randomly 'loose' information from the HDD. The HDD would pass all tests run on it, but windows would systematically loose all files, so the point it would not boot anymore.

Never before have I heard of files disappearing to the point where all of a sudden it won't boot anymore. So weird. No malicious content/spyware/root-kits? If the hard disk is OK, did you try formatting and starting again? Have you stripped your DV6 down to fix the over-heating or did you just leave it in the end?

rscole86

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#1036755 5-May-2014 09:30

DravidDavid:
rscole86:Everything mentioned above happens to this one too.
Until it started to randomly 'loose' information from the HDD. The HDD would pass all tests run on it, but windows would systematically loose all files, so the point it would not boot anymore.

Never before have I heard of files disappearing to the point where all of a sudden it won't boot anymore. So weird. No malicious content/spyware/root-kits? If the hard disk is OK, did you try formatting and starting again? Have you stripped your DV6 down to fix the over-heating or did you just leave it in the end?

I there was nothing untoward installed as far as I could tell, I regularly run anti-xyz. I did re-format the HDD, tried again, and 6 months later it started showing the same symptoms, WAF was extremely low, so replaced it.
When I get time I am going to strip it down, clean it out, then rebuild.

DravidDavid

1907 posts

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#1038755 8-May-2014 08:49

macuser: I'm not sure if you separated the fan from the heat sink, but you should. Normally it contains basically a strip of lint that is about as thick as a sock. Usually the fan and heat sink are connected by a thermal tape. Be careful with the tape as you'll need to stick it back over the gap when you've completed the job.

You were right...

dust

The thermal tape was not connected at all though, even before I removed the fan. I just left it alone.

After removing the sock-like build up of dust from the heat sink, I fired the machine up and had a stable idle temperature of 32 degrees and 55 to 60 degrees under load. Glad I spent the effort taking it apart again. I thought the laptop had me beat.

solival

160 posts

Master Geek

#1038785 8-May-2014 09:42

Wow, that's the rug factory :) I saw something similar only once... But that was 10 years old laptop that was never maintained...

macuser

2120 posts

Uber Geek

#1038788 8-May-2014 09:45

DravidDavid:
macuser: I'm not sure if you separated the fan from the heat sink, but you should. Normally it contains basically a strip of lint that is about as thick as a sock. Usually the fan and heat sink are connected by a thermal tape. Be careful with the tape as you'll need to stick it back over the gap when you've completed the job.

You were right...

The thermal tape was not connected at all though, even before I removed the fan. I just left it alone.

After removing the sock-like build up of dust from the heat sink, I fired the machine up and had a stable idle temperature of 32 degrees and 55 to 60 degrees under load. Glad I spent the effort taking it apart again. I thought the laptop had me beat.

Keep it and show your friends...it's a great thing to make them realise how much crap gets inside when they use it in bed/sitting on the carpet/couch

Glad you got it sorted!

Oblivian

6946 posts

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#1038812 8-May-2014 10:06

I've just had a call for someone with very similar model asking me to look at it shutting down again.

Was above issue last time too :)

Theres also a BIOS update with changes the thermal thresholds and code

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