Temps , What to do,, and cleaning maintenance etc

I have a M15X which is about 2yr old,,,,, it runs a i-7, 740 QM ,4GB RAM and the GPU is the NVIDIA GTX 460M.

Recently I started noticing whilst playing Football Manager that the game seemed to be less smooth than normal during the match engine. I was until now putting it down to the game as this years version has well reported flaws in the engine and I hadn't noticed any issues with any of my other games. Football Manager is probably one of the less demanding games anyway so didnt give it much thought.

I just ran x2 programs someone recommended me that monitors your system during games and both have come back with what I assume to be quite high temps during the game engine,, my highest temp for the GPU is 93 !! ,, it was usually sitting around 50ish when not running the match engine. I do quite often just leave the game minimized when not playing. My max for the processor was 67 on 3 of the 4 Cores

What should your Temps be when a game is running?
What should I be doing about it?

I have the larger battery so the laptop is always elevated and I use a proper gaming laptop stand.

I admit that I have never taken it apart to clean. In the 2yrs it has been serviced twice my an engineer (whilst under warranty) for new keyboards and taken apart and cleaned then. The engineer advised me that trying to clean the fans due to the design would just blow dust back inside the machine!

I am going to give it a clean out this weekend but any tips would be usefull as I am a bit nervy about taking it apart now the warranty has expired lol,,, I never minded with my old cheap Dell but feels different when you spend so much more

And should I be looking at doing anything to the GPU? I read on here about thermal pastes etc ,,, but no idea if and when to start using

Cheers

 

First thing to do is clean out your GPU vent. Im willing to bet money that's your problem. I used to get +80c playing BF3 with my 460m and the first time I cleaned my vents out the game would never. go above 65c. Watch some videos on how to take apart the back of your m15x and the vent. Maybe get some compressed air can. Clean it all out. Clean out the dust in your fan as well. Trust me its so easy. If that doesn't help then consider repasting. But I guarentee its your dust. I bet when you see how much has accumulated it'll be obvious.

 

Whilst this video doesn't show how to clean the M15x, it shows perfectly how to disassemble. I wouldn't go as far as taking out the graphics card but if you feel confident I would at least take the heat sink out.
Clean the grills of the heat sink, take the fans apart and clean inside there, and also re-paste the gpu die if you feel confident.

All of these things will help reduce your temperatures

 

Here are some tips for the overheating.

 

Cheers guys I will have a look into it at the weekend ,, thanks

 

Gave it a good clean out today and so far so good. Played a match there and the max temp was 65,, although that is just one game but will keep an eye over the next few days. I managed to get the fan completely out at the GPU side but not the other one,,

,, I had a real problem removing the plate at the front just below the screen. It popped at both ends like it should but just seemed to be stuck in the middle and wouldn't come up from the screen hinge. It literally started to bend in the middle and I was getting the feeling that if I put any more pressure it would snap,,, so as it aint under warranty anymore I decided in the end just to leave it.
I remembered even the engineer having a real bother with it, and him commenting on it before.

So for that side I just had to try angling the compressed air,, ,,not ideal but it was always the other side where I could feel the most heat coming from and as that's the one closest to the GPU I guess that the one in need of the most attention anyways (hoping ) lol.

cheers again

 

If you were struggling to remove the touch panel strip at the top of the keyboard, make sure you have your laptop lid pushed far back as it can go to allow the touch panel to easily come up. Be careful as there is a ribbon cable in the middle underside as well.

 

You can use a flat head screw driver to gently ply the panel off. It can also be done with fingers. It should make a snap noise that sounds bad but its perfectly normal.

Make sure you have unscrewed the 2 screws below the battery labelled "I"

Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk HD

 

It also helps to push the screen as far back as possible when removing the touchpad panel. Opening the screen up all the way will stop it catching in the middle. Why you wanna remove it anyway? You don't need to touch that to open up the back.

Removing the cpu fan involves also removing the heatsink annoyingly. I find this the one bad design flaw of the M15x. The gpu fan is much better designed allowing you to leave the gpu heatsink in place. The paste doesn't need changing as often as a good clean is needed. The cpu demands both be done at the same time Decent paste like ICD 24 isn't cheap but it lasts a long time! It is kind of wasted on the cpu in a way.

 

King do you have thermal pads underneath the gfx card? I've seen many M17x users do this.
It goes approximately under the x-bracket.