New laptop runs a high idle

[Eastman51]

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Gaming back on Black Friday. I loaded it with all the games I'd need during an upcoming 3 month training camp. I ran benchmarks and tweaked graphics settings and installed all the other software I'd want/need. Temps were great, and fan noise was negligible. 

Fast Forward 3 months...

 

I'm 3 weeks into the training camp and the laptop is giving me problems... At first it was a corrupt Nvidia driver causing a bsod when playing Forza Motorsport 7. Then it was a charging problem, where the laptop would only charge after being left in sleep mode for a few hours or a reset. The good news is that I've resolved those problems. Now I have a new problem...

 

The laptop continuously likes to run a high idle. I've been using HW monitor to track temps during usage (I always have software like this running on my PCs. The program I normally use, Open Hardware Monitor, doesn't work on this PC for some reason, so I've been using HW monitor). Thanks to HW monitor, I see that my CPU doesn't get above 79C, which should only be reachable during a gaming session. The min temp is 25C, but its only from the laptop being woken from a long period in sleep mode. Avg idle temps/light usage temps is around 58-65C, crazy high for simple tasks and even sitting still. What I would consider 'light usage' consists of using Discord voice chat, playing Spotify, and having 3-4 Chrome tabs open (maybe streaming video, maybe reg web content. If a video is streaming Spotify is not playing). Very rarely do all of these tasks occur simultaneously as well, with the heaviest of light usage being Discord, web browsing, and Spotify. This is the only problem I can't seem to solve, task manager reveals nothing that would be eating CPU, and HW monitor shows avg CPU usage of around 9-20% during heavy-light use. I am running an anti-virus set to scan weekly, not to mention I use good web browsing practices to avoid viruses and other malware. So, I highly doubt that a virus could be causing this, not to mention the fact that CPU usage would probably be higher if that were the case.

 

Laptop specs:

CPU- Core i5-7300HQ

RAM- 8GB DDR4

HDD- 5400 rpm 1TB

no m.2 installed currently

GPU- 4GB GTX 1050

Windows 10 Home (x64) 

[General Winter]

is it the acer nitro?

[Eastman51]

Just now, General Winter said:

is it the acer nitro?

No, it as a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Gaming. As I stated in the first sentence of my post

[genexis_x]

Try clean install Windows or upgrade to SSD. CPU temp can reach ~60℃ under light usage.

[Tarun10]

Try looking for solutions to similar problems on YouTube. These problems happen on new laptops. My HP Envy's trackpad did not work for a week or so till I found a fix.

Also try going into the BIOS or UEFI settings and toggle Fan Always On to Yes and check temps after restart.

[Eastman51]

13 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Try clean install Windows or upgrade to SSD. CPU temp can reach ~60℃ under light usage.

I feel like a Windows reinstall won't help, and getting an SSD is not possible right now since the closest store only sells 2.5" drives, not m.2 drives. My laptop's 2.5" bay is already occupied by the C: drive and I don't want to buy a new copy of Windows for an SSD. 

 

9 hours ago, Tarun10 said:

Try looking for solutions to similar problems on YouTube. These problems happen on new laptops. My HP Envy's trackpad did not work for a week or so till I found a fix.

Also try going into the BIOS or UEFI settings and toggle Fan Always On to Yes and check temps after restart.

Ill do some more digging, and ill see what's in BIOS, but laptop BIOS are generally pretty light. My last laptop only had the options to disable USB ports and change boot order, nothing else so well see

[Tarun10]

17 hours ago, Eastman51 said:

I feel like a Windows reinstall won't help, and getting an SSD is not possible right now since the closest store only sells 2.5" drives, not m.2 drives. My laptop's 2.5" bay is already occupied by the C: drive and I don't want to buy a new copy of Windows for an SSD. 

 

Ill do some more digging, and ill see what's in BIOS, but laptop BIOS are generally pretty light. My last laptop only had the options to disable USB ports and change boot order, nothing else so well see

Yeah my laptop BIOS has nothing except for a few date and time settings, hardware virtualization and this fan settings. Just check.

[Teuminator]

On 1/26/2018 at 7:29 PM, Eastman51 said:

I feel like a Windows reinstall won't help, and getting an SSD is not possible right now since the closest store only sells 2.5" drives, not m.2 drives. My laptop's 2.5" bay is already occupied by the C: drive and I don't want to buy a new copy of Windows for an SSD. 

You don't have to buy a new Windows license if you install another drive in your system. Usually, with prebuilt devices, Windows key is tied to the motherboard itself, so if you install a fresh copy of Windows on an SSD or you just clone your existing C drive onto a new SSD you won't lose your license. If anything you'll be prompted to provide a key, in witch case you can find your Windows activation key by running a code into Windows PowerShell.

(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey

Hopefully that helps.

[Eastman51]

On 1/27/2018 at 7:12 PM, Teuminator said:

You don't have to buy a new Windows license if you install another drive in your system. Usually, with prebuilt devices, Windows key is tied to the motherboard itself, so if you install a fresh copy of Windows on an SSD or you just clone your existing C drive onto a new SSD you won't lose your license. If anything you'll be prompted to provide a key, in witch case you can find your Windows activation key by running a code into Windows PowerShell.

(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey

Hopefully that helps.

If I were to get a new SSD I don't have the equipment for drive cloning, but in a few months, when I get back home, that would actually help me a lot. Thx

[Eastman51]

On 1/27/2018 at 5:19 AM, Tarun10 said:

Yeah my laptop BIOS has nothing except for a few date and time settings, hardware virtualization and this fan settings. Just check.

Sorry for not getting back to you. My laptop's BIOS doesn't have a temperature display, let alone anything for fan speed

[Froody129]

I have the 7000 Gaming with the i7 and it idles at about 55C and heavy load is about 75C max . It might just be the cooling design. The fan curve is very conservative on battery especially 

[Tarun10]

Why don't you try a better thermal compound? Its simple and won't cost you more than 10$.