Overheating Laptop CPU Question

[HunterTwoOne]

I have an Acer Predator Triton 300 that's going on 3 years old. The idle temperatures on the CPU in around the last 4 months are getting concerning and I'm looking for a potential solution.

It's an i7 that's hitting 92 C when idle and when I try to run anything even slightly demanding it's clear that this temperature issue is causing games to stutter and run far worse than they should. The RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU runs at about 40-50 C idle and under load rarely goes higher than 85 C.

 

I've cleaned the fans out, lowered the maximum and minimum processor state with neither serving to lower it. I have tried even using the laptop in a room where the ambient temperature is 15 C to try and see if this influences things to no avail. I have placed the laptop on a three fan external cooling pad with no change in temperatures. I have noted that manually increasing the fan speeds seems to actually increase CPU temperatures rather than lower them and that the dedicated 'Turbo' button/mode seems to do nothing or outright increase the temperatures as well.

The laptop was up until roughly 4 months ago running more or less flawlessly. I was getting a stable temperature reading more in line with the GPUs on the CPU and was able to run games like MW22 and Cyberpunk2077 at a respectable 60FPS on High settings and now I'm lucky to see 20 FPS and the CPU temperatures don't drop no matter the situation. The performance is noticeably declined and I can even feel the system chugging just trying to load basic word documents and email.

At this point I'm not sure if maybe the thermal paste just needs to be reapplied or if undervolting is the way to go. Any suggestions or ideas?

[TPCEA]

I would try the paste/pad.

[191x7]

If it's under warranty, take it to the official repair service. If the warranty is over, open it and re-paste.

[jaslion]

Time to:

 

Use a pc duster or air compressor (believe me its cheaper to buy either than to buy a couple cans of air)

to clean the heatsink and fans out. Open the laptop and also use a paintbrush to brush the fins and blades whilst blasting air. Make sure to hold the fans still whilst doing so.

 

And repaste. These acers dont use great thermal paste and 3 years is when Isee em come in quite often

[TPCEA]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Time to:

 

Use a pc duster or air compressor (believe me its cheaper to buy either than to buy a couple cans of air)

to clean the heatsink and fans out. Open the laptop and also use a paintbrush to brush the fins and blades whilst blasting air. Make sure to hold the fans still whilst doing so.

 

And repaste. These acers dont use great thermal paste and 3 years is when Isee em come in quite often

Sounds like you're a pro tech repairer.  

[HunterTwoOne]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Time to:

 

Use a pc duster or air compressor (believe me its cheaper to buy either than to buy a couple cans of air)

to clean the heatsink and fans out. Open the laptop and also use a paintbrush to brush the fins and blades whilst blasting air. Make sure to hold the fans still whilst doing so.

 

And repaste. These acers dont use great thermal paste and 3 years is when Isee em come in quite often

I have some paste around from when I built my desktop, but that's maybe 2 years old. It's a shame that Acer has this issue but at least it sounds like it's nothing serious like failing hardware or board damage. I had done a full disassembly of the fans and cleaned it all out, including the intake and mesh on the shell bottom around an month ago when nothing else was seeming to work. There was some dust and lint but not any amount that would have led me to believe it was impacting temperatures. And as I stated, the GPU and overall temperatures aren't really all that out of the ordinary, maybe a little warmer than normal, but I do run this laptop rather hard.

I should ask though, is there a different standard for how much paste a laptop CPU should get VS a desktop? I've never done this so I'd like to go in as well informed as I can. I usually try to place roughly a dime size amount and clean any that comes out the sides as needed when doing desktop CPUs. 

[HunterTwoOne]

2 hours ago, 191x7 said:

If it's under warranty, take it to the official repair service. If the warranty is over, open it and re-paste.

Thanks, it would be nice if it was still under warranty but unfortunately it isn't anymore. It is good to hear that there's fairly unanimous opinion that reapplying the thermal paste is the route to go.

[HunterTwoOne]

2 hours ago, RevGAM said:

I would try the paste/pad.

Guess I'll crack it open tonight and give it a go. Thanks.

[191x7]

1 minute ago, HunterTwoOne said:

Thanks, it would be nice if it was still under warranty but unfortunately it isn't anymore. It is good to hear that there's fairly unanimous opinion that reapplying the thermal paste is the route to go.

Spread across the whole CPU and GPU die. Don't worry about what spills out when pressed with the cooler.

Make sure you have enough thermal pads of the required thickness.

Watch the latest Jayztwocents video, he repasted a laptop.

[jaslion]

35 minutes ago, RevGAM said:

Sounds like you're a pro tech repairer.  

Sidejob

[jaslion]

14 minutes ago, HunterTwoOne said:

Acer has this issue but at least it sounds like it's nothing serious like failing hardware or board damage

Every pc has this issue. Depending on the usage the paste simply ages faster. And well these acer gaming ones come in after about 3 years usually. Most manufacturers use the same thermal paste.

 

Basically this is normal wear and tear that with some tcl is fixed.

16 minutes ago, HunterTwoOne said:

different standard for how much paste a laptop CPU should get VS a desktop?

YES!!!!

 

In a laptop the dies are naked. This means you have to FULLY 100% cover the chrome die area with paste. ANYTHING not covered wont be covered by pressure of the heatsink as there is very little as to not damage the naked cpu. So basically slap thermal paste on there, spread it out with a piece of plastic and then add 6-8 small dollops of more paste evenly spread around the cpu just in case. Gpu same story.

 

Plenty youtube guides. But I always do the extra even if not needed just in case and so far it's been goin well and I have yet to kill a laptop due to not enough thermal paste :p.