Extreme overheating issues with HP Spectre x360

CopiWasTaken · October 10, 2020

Hey everyone, I currently own a 2018 13 inch HP Spectre x360 that I've owned for about 8 months. I know that it's an ultraportable, so the cooling isn't the best, but I used to be able to get about 8 hours of intensive use before I risked it overheating, now it overheats on minecraft with its "recomended settings" in under 15 minutes. I installed throttlestop, and that prevented it from overheating past 90c and locking, but my performance is garbage even in things like chrome. What mystifies me is that it started suddenly, when I booted it on one day, and I don't remember changing any settings that may have affected this. Any help is greatly appreciated, as it's becoming a large annoyance with online school, as it overheats during zoom meetings.

CommanderAlex · October 10, 2020

Personally I would repaste the laptop since you own it for 8 months and this being a 2 year old machine, this sounds like it was used so thus, no warranty.

I did have a 15" HP Spectre X360 2018 model and had overheating problems with that, as well as failed attempts with replacement parts that eventually the warranty company gave back my money on store credit for cost of this device. Mine was in the 80 C range while on the internet. Tried to remove the back cover but somehow they crossthreaded one of the screws (broke two T5 bits due to the amount of torque they used to screw that screw in....shame). The problem is the 8th gen i7s get hot in these slim laptops and the cooling is not the best as you mentioned in your post.

CopiWasTaken · October 10, 2020

7 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

Personally I would repaste the laptop since you own it for 8 months and this being a 2 year old machine, this sounds like it was used so thus, no warranty.

I did have a 15" HP Spectre X360 2018 model and had overheating problems with that, as well as failed attempts with replacement parts that eventually the warranty company gave back my money on store credit for cost of this device. Mine was in the 80 C range while on the internet. Tried to remove the back cover but somehow they crossthreaded one of the screws (broke two T5 bits due to the amount of torque they used to screw that screw in....shame). The problem is the 8th gen i7s get hot in these slim laptops and the cooling is not the best as you mentioned in your post.

I would try to repaste and clean out any dust, but I dont see any way to open it. Also, if this helps it idles at about 85 C, and I've already tried to remove any bloatware(which didn't do anything because I dont really have any), change power plan, but that didnt do anything.

CommanderAlex · October 10, 2020

1 hour ago, CopiWasTaken said:

I would try to repaste and clean out any dust, but I dont see any way to open it. Also, if this helps it idles at about 85 C, and I've already tried to remove any bloatware(which didn't do anything because I dont really have any), change power plan, but that didnt do anything.

There should be T5 screws along the bottom panel of the laptop. The way they do them is hide them under that rubber strip to prevent it from sliding on the table. Yeah I tried the same by removing bloatware on that laptop at the time but to no avail. I hardly used that laptop for gaming due to thermals anyway, just needed it for schoolwork/on-the-go.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05811755 The maintenance manual for HP Spectre X360 13t-ae000