Laptop running too hot

[Cwazywazy]

So my laptop has a T9400 Core 2 Duo running at 2.65GHz and Dell throttles the CPU way too much on the Nvidia board. Because it throttles too much I have ThrottleStop running all the time but even though I replaced the thermal paste on the CPU, GPU, Intel chip, and put thermal pads on the VRAM the CPU still touches 190-200f (90c) when gaming and the fan forced to 5000RPM. The GPU stays under 140f (60c) all the time even overclocked. Do you really know of anything else to help improve the CPU temps and keep performance? I have copper shims that I could stick in there but I don't really think that would help since the heatsink has a big copper plate and copper heat pipes..

[miyabwah]

Buy one of those laptop coolers.

[Cwazywazy]

Buy one of those laptop coolers.

I had a cheap one. Don't know where it is if I even still have it. I'll look for it, but is there anything I can do when I'm gaming on the go? (Because that's when I do most of the gaming on my laptop..)

[nsyedhasan]

Get it cleaned out. You can do it yourself or get a local store to do it.

[miyabwah]

I had a cheap one. Don't know where it is if I even still have it. I'll look for it, but is there anything I can do when I'm gaming on the go? (Because that's when I do most of the gaming on my laptop..)

replace thermal paste? not much to do when mobile

[xrex64]

Get it cleaned out. You can do it yourself or get a local store to do it.

If he's replaced all the thermal paste, it's likely he at least cleaned it.

[Cwazywazy]

Yep, no dust at all in there. I'll try the copper shim. I remember it working quite well on my D630 with older Quadro graphics. (It never went over 160f and it still cooked itself in less than 4 months. Way to go Nvidia.)

[Mistgrim]

If he's replaced all the thermal paste, it's likely he at least cleaned it.

But if he put too much it wouldn't help the situation......there are extractor fans more mobile than the cooling pads

[Guest Gazzer96]

my laptop was reaching 100oC at times and I wonder what was causing it. It turned out the thermal compound had melted and was no longer on the heat sink. After replacing the thermal compound it the temps were much better.

 

Here is some tips you can use to keep your temps down: 1) Take out the battery and just run on the charger when ever possible, which also increase the life of the battery. 2) Turn on adaptive V-Sync to limit the fps, stopping the GPU and CPU working so hard. 3) If your laptop has cooling vents underneath that suck in air (not blow out) then you can use a cooling pad. 4) make sure the cooling vents are not clogged up with dust. 5) if you have overclocked it, set it back to stock settings (that includes turning back on CPU parking). 6) change power plan to something that will stop the CPU working hard constantly.

[Cwazywazy]

my laptop was reaching 100oC at times and I wonder what was causing it. It turned out the thermal compound had melted and was no longer on the heat sink. After replacing the thermal compound it the temps were much better.

 

Here is some tips you can use to keep your temps down: 1) Take out the battery and just run on the charger when ever possible, which also increase the life of the battery. 2) Turn on adaptive V-Sync to limit the fps, stopping the GPU and CPU working so hard. 3) If your laptop has cooling vents underneath that suck in air (not blow out) then you can use a cooling pad. 4) make sure the cooling vents are not clogged up with dust. 5) if you have overclocked it, set it back to stock settings (that includes turning back on CPU parking). 6) change power plan to something that will stop the CPU working hard constantly.

1: Meh

2: Already on. My GPU isn't that good plus I increased the refresh rate to 95Hz..

3: It does, but I don't want to invest in a cooling pad because I'd only be able to use it on my desk and I don't use my laptop that often on my desk.

4: Already clean.

5: Nah. Only the GPU is overclocked but not overvolted. (The GPU actually has a lot of overclockability even without voltage control..) As for the parking, it was pretty much the same when it was parked.

6: Nah. I want the max amount of power I can get from this thing, I'd just be happy if the CPU stayed under 180f.

[Cwazywazy]

Huh. Adding a bit more thermal paste and putting a little copper shim in there cut temps by about 60f..

 

Same game, fan on max speed. Was running 210f before, 156f now on the hottest core. I am now happy.

[Cwazywazy]

So I had an idea on how I could cool down the CPU even more. When I got the heatsink it still had the stock thermal paste on it which was rock hard. Stupidly I used a flathead screwdriver to scrape it off which made a bunch of scratches. I took the heatsink off, cleaned it, and started sanding it with fine sandpaper. It worked really well. Running ETS2 with the fan at 4000RPM it goes to 140f on the coolest core and 152f on the hottest. It was 156f on the hottest core before with the fan on max speed which is about 5400RPM. (For some reason there's about a 10 degree difference between the cores under load..)

 

The GPU seems to be running cooler too even though I didn't even replace the thermal paste on it. I also put a copper shim on the Intel chip which is also now running much cooler. (It's behind the CPU and was going well over 200f before. 166f is the max now.)

[Cwazywazy]

Another update:

 

I remembered that a while ago before I did the cooling down stuff that I had throttlestop running to disable the CPU throttling. (Which is ridiculous, cuts speed a ton.) This is back when the thing was overheating a lot. I was using it on my bed, playing a game and what I didn't realize is that ALL throttling was off. It shut down. Today I remembered that and looked in the BIOS thermal log. 260 degrees. (127c)

 

I honestly don't know how the CPU still works fine after all the overheating it's been through. (Now it never goes above 140f even if I don't touch the fan speed.)

 

Anyway, I also did something about cooling the VRAM because the heatsink doesn't actually touch it even though it has indents for the VRAM. (They have no temp sensors.) I did it by stacking two old thermal pads on top of each other for each chip. (Now I can do moar overclocking )