Overheating issues

Hi everyone,

So I have a beautiful m15x alienware with an i7 processor, which I laid down some serious buck for, and it has recently started overheating and shutting down on me. This also perfectly happens when my warranty expired. .

So begins the journey. GPU is good (45ish), CPU is at 90 on idle. Not good at all. I opened it up, TONS of dust, cleaned it out.

Temperatures are at 80 idle, still too high. Open it up again, I use compressed air this time, dust went flying everywhere.

Temperatures are at 70 idle, fans turn on every 10 seconds, slow down, and turn on again. I open it up again, take off the heatsink, the thermal paste looks terrible. I cleaned it out and replaced it with Artic Aluminia (had it lying around).

Temperatures were at 50 idle (success!), but when I started using the lappy for about an hour they have crept by up to mid 60s and haven't gone down. So advice is needed.

Is Artic Aluminia not a good brand for this type of cpu? Should I be worried the fans are crapping out? There are questions and no answers, any help is appreciated

 

i've never liked arctic alumina.
it's a rather cheap and nasty type of paste, not in the same class as it's bigger brother AS5. Also, with almost all pastes, they have a shelf life and will not perform as well after a while (some will even seperate into liquids and solids) so it depends on how long you've had it "lying around".

you're on the right track getting your temps down. just get some proper thermal paste and you'll be set.

ocz freeze
arctic silver 5
Shin-Etsu X23-7783D
arctic cooling mx4

are some good pastes to look at.

oh and i almost forgot, make sure to clean the cpu prior to applying the new paste. most ppl use isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs to clean the cpu and heatsink.

one more thing (possibly unrelated), there's a thermal pad on the cpu block which should not be removed.

i normally clean out my fans around once/twice per month. along with my shin-etsu paste, i haven't had to replace/touch it for ages now. just the regular maintenance.
good luck and have fun.

 

mid 60s is nothing you should be alarmed about. Maybe your PC is doing something like a virus scan or defrag causing it to be utilized. Now if there's little activity and it still gets in the 60s then maybe something else is going on. Xeroxide made some excellent suggestions as far as paste. Just don't put too much. A grain of rice sized dab on the center of the CPU Die should do it. Also, not sure if this is an issue for you, but ambient room temperature can also play a huge role.

 

Agree with Kosti,sometimes when im just browsing the net, the fan would start up and temp will be at 60~, when checking around, noticed my anti-virus is running scans.

 

thanks for the response guys.

It's still overheating a bit, the fans turn on way too often. I caught temperatures reaching 70 last night and i was just browsing around.

The paste I had still looked like paste so I figured it would work. I will pick up some finer thermal paste today and see if that fixes the problem. I will post back later for anyone that is having the same problem.

 

Browsing around can be a CPU intensive enough activity, considering how much flash- of questionable quality is out there.

 

are you browsing sites with flash videos? if so the flash video are causing you to run higher clocks making temps higher.

 

I too think you are on the right track and will tackle the problem very soon. I'd reapply with AS5 (my favorite) or any of the other pastes listed ^^^^ and see where you are at.

The fans on the m15x have a few distinct speeds hence why you can hear them wind up and down. download hwinfo32 and see where your fan speeds are at on idle... you can also check your clock speeds there too.

At idle my 920 is in the 40's (with room around 75 degrees F) so that's ideally where you should shoot for. My cpu fan idles at around 1900-2000rpm (very quiet) when I'm not doing much... under very high load it can go as high as 4000rpm which is quite loud and (i believe) the max (gpu is at 4500 at that time) Anything above 3000rpm on either fan and it becomes noticeable, at least to me.

Try putting stealth mode on (to decrease clocks) and see if the fans are still behaving abnormally.

-Derek

 

Alrite so I replaced the thermal paste with some good ol' AS5. Temperatures are staying around mid 60s with non-intense usage. The fans turn on only once in a while and drop the temperature back down. Seems to be doing much better.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

Make sure within the next few days you power cycle your laptop (aka shut it down or put it to sleep to allow the thermal paste to cool). This ensures the paste dries correctly

If installed correctly you should actually see idle temps drop within the next few days as the paste dries and starts to do its thing

What are your ambient temps? Are you using the 6 cell or 9 cell on a hard or soft surface? 60 still sounds high although it's much better than where you started Let's give it another few days and see where we are at

-Derek

Oh yea... 70C is a thermal threshold within the default fan profile which explains why the fans were jumping up and down around that temp... just an FYI

 

ambient temps are pretty normal and i have the 6-cell.

This is rather frustrating. The temperatures have begun to rise again. I'm at something like 70 idle temps.

did i add that paste incorrectly?

 

Try sliding a book under the back to improve air circulation (one of the benefits of the 9 cell battery). Unfortunately, it sounds like the paste job did not take. Thoroughly cleaning the CPU die and the heatsink are critical to successful repasting. Check out Inap's Thermal Paste Guide. Download THERMAL PASTE GUIDE.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way.

 

that is indeed the guide I used. Gonna pop open this thing on the weekend again and check out how the paste is looking. Will post back