overheating cpu (93-96C) on gaming laptop

[The Filthiest Of Weebs]

SPECS:

Asus ROG M15, Intel Core i7-10750H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 8GB GDDR6

 

lately (few months now)whenever I’m in a game (whether just on menu screen or actually playing ) the CPU temps are at a constant 93-96C  on turbo or even performance mode sometimes (in any game, even something as old as cod black ops 2).I tried undervolting the CPU (from BIOS, voltage configuration set to 79 ) and GPU, and it certainly improved performance (shadow of the tomb raider benchmark was 69 FPS at high settings, now it is 98 FPS) ,but still, depending on the game, CPU temps are either 84-96C (Overwatch) (it used to be at a constant 93-95C, so i gus it helped a little) or 93-95C (shadow of the tomb raider, cod cold war, and even black ops 2)(sometimes I even see 97-100C for a sec) . So undervolting certainly did do something ,but it is not enough. What more can I do to reduce the CPU temp? GPU temp is perfectly fine, between 64-75 on turbo.

 

here is what i did or tried to do:

as mentioned before, i undervolted to 79 .

I already got my laptop’s fans cleaned at a computer store to see if that was the problem but nothing changed, so that shouldn’t be the problem.

 even with chrome, opera GX (more than 40 tabs total), battlenet, and discord open, CPU usage is between 5-12%, mostly at 5, so there shouldn't be anything running that background that is using the CPU (RAM use is 9 GB tho).

i have switch game cases underneath the laptop (in corners where there are no fans or vents,see picture) to raise it a little from the table's surface  to allow for airflow (been doing this before this problem).

i saw something about limiting the amount of power the CPU gets or something like that (im not the best guy when it comes to computers ,so i don't know what exactly is being limited),it was something in control panel, power options, then changing the minimum processor state from 100% to something less. unfortunately this option does not appear for me, so it is out of the question.

 

one last thing, I don't know much about this stuff, but is it possible that i am getting a wrong read on the temps? I'm saying this cuz even tho both MSI after burner and asus's armoury crate say that CPU temp is 95C, the laptop itself is not that hot, i remember when i first got it that sometimes it so hot that even the keyboard is getting a little hot, now it is way less hot (as in when i touch the laptop with my hands) than what i remember it being at some point (i could be completely wrong tho).

 

[RageTester]

What idle temperature?

If it's hot even without running anything, it's dried up  thermal paste.

Else you are just pushing it too hard, using fps limiter on laptops is a must.

 

Keyboard being hot would be normal under heavy load, another sign of bad heat dissipation.

[Hopeful Dolphin]

My laptop had control center 3.0 installed when I bought it and it worked great for like half a year, but then it started to act up a bit (when I looked at "fan speed control" it would have two indicators for GPU and CPU temps first they started bouncing back and forth a few degrees, a margin of air, I thought but it got worse and worse as time passed. Until 

Control center 3.0 wouldn't even let me change power modes (from silent mode to performance for example) or change the rgb back light of my keyboard. I decided that if I could re download it from the Microsoft store, touninstall it. Bad thing is after reinstalling it, I got the message "OSD only" when trying to open it. Very nice and friendly people on the  forum suggested doing a factory reset I hope it'll work. 

 

Back to your issue now though :

I'm definitely not an expert at all, but from watching numerous ltt videos(referring to bad cooling ideas series for example or the one where they tried several different things for thermal compound) that looks like either the cooling system might not make perfect contact somewhere for example heatpipes, - sinks or on the CPU /GPU itself . 

From my experience (mentioned above) it might be a system monitoring  problem?

 

Hope you find out soon heads up! 

[The Filthiest Of Weebs]

14 hours ago, RageTester said:

What idle temperature?

If it's hot even without running anything, it's dried up  thermal paste.

Else you are just pushing it too hard, using fps limiter on laptops is a must.

 

Keyboard being hot would be normal under heavy load, another sign of bad heat dissipation.

on silent mode,while doing absulotly nothing, idle is 51-55C. don't know if this is considered hot or not

I would agree with "pushing it too hard" if this only happens in demanding games, but this happens even when playing something like cod black ops 2, which is a game that i used to play on a 1050ti laptop that is on battery saving mode with 60FPS easily. so it should be absolutely nothing to a 2070 max, yet i still get these temps.

 

keyboard getting hot is something that i only noticed in the first few months of me getting the laptop. now it is perfectly fine, i would even say it is on the cool side sometimes if im not playing a demanding game

[Darkseth]

Well, technically your CPU isn't overheating. See Intel's own Specifications: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/de/de/ark/products/201837/intel-core-i710750h-processor-12m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz.html

Max Temperature (Tjunction) is 100°C. So Overheating would start at 101°C.

 

97°C is very high, and "near the Limit", but still within specifications. The Notebook manufacturer could very well allow 97°C in Order to allow a highest possible Clock sped (Performance) while at the same time keeping Fan Noise as low as possible.

 

Notebookcheck had the same in their Test: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-M15-GU502L-in-review-Compact-gaming-notebook-with-Turbo-reserves.496316.0.html#toc-4

Scroll down a bit, when playing Witcher 3, they measured a maximum of 95-98°C on each Core.

They also say, it gets quite loud. So the Cooling System is not very good. But they still try to let you use the highest Performance possible (that can still be handled within specifications).

 

TL;DR: Nothing is overheating, your Laptop is working just as intendet from Asus.

You could try undervolting, maybe applying a decent thermalpaste (not sure if that will do anything more than 1-2°C), but otherwise... there is nothing wrong or broken there

[RageTester]

4 hours ago, Darkseth said:

They also say, it gets quite loud. So the Cooling System is not very good. But they still try to let you use the highest Performance possible (that can still be handled within specifications).

 

TL;DR: Nothing is overheating, your Laptop is working just as intendet from Asus.

You could try undervolting, maybe applying a decent thermalpaste (not sure if that will do anything more than 1-2°C), but otherwise... there is nothing wrong or broken there

All those things is why I can't justify getting a new laptop, my old workhorse at least isn't too loud and only gets to like 70C under extreme load. 

 

On the other hand if you don't care about noise... can add cooling pad, and mini vacuum type of thingy to the exhaust. In fact cooling pads can be very silent, if you get model with 1 huge fan at low rpm. Heat must go somewhere, if not keyboard, then probably bottom of laptop.

[The Filthiest Of Weebs]

3 hours ago, RageTester said:

All those things is why I can't justify getting a new laptop, my old workhorse at least isn't too loud and only gets to like 70C under extreme load. 

 

On the other hand if you don't care about noise... can add cooling pad, and mini vacuum type of thingy to the exhaust. In fact cooling pads can be very silent, if you get model with 1 huge fan at low rpm. Heat must go somewhere, if not keyboard, then probably bottom of laptop.

im a student that goes to uni dorms on weekdays then goes back home on weekends, getting a PC is simply not practical for me. besides,its not like i can get a PC anyways these days (i live in saudi arabia,where even without the shortage,PC hardware are legit 30-45% more expensive,imagin their prices now)

[Qyygle]

Most recent intel CPU's are locked out of tuning via throttlestop or XTU, so if you can't access the power utilization settings in Windows itself, you may be stuck with what you have.

As others have said, the laptop is actually performing as it should be, the issue is that it's been designed as a loud machine. Notebookcheck's review notes 50+ dbs noise levels for running games, which is as loud as it gets. 

 

If it doesn't bother you to not get the max FPS all the time, try using Rivatuner Statistics Server (RTSS) to limit FPS in all games (or use Nvidia control panel). Try something around 60 - 70 for max FPS, this might help tame the utilization a bit. It'll depend based on game and usage, but if the laptop isn't trying to push the absolute max frames all the time (100% utilization), you might get lower power draw and temps+noise as a result.