Very warm laptop CPU. What can I do?

[Black Panther]

(Apart from creating rhyming titles )


When I purchased this laptop July 2008 the idle temperatures would be in the high-30's or low 40's.

I always used to take out all heatsinks and clean, laptop is squeaky clean inside, even now.

Some month ago I ran Speccy and found that on idle the cores were reaching 60 degrees So I dismantled everything, cleaned the copper heat-sink and cpu, put a rice-grain portion of Arctic Silver 5.

I didn't run the laptop again (was waiting for a new GPU) but here's what I found now

That's at a relatively low cpu usage of 14%. Obviously I didn't want to check the load temperature....

What could be wrong?

1) Laptop coolers and fans are clean.
2) I've got a Zalman NC2000 laptop cooler.
3) I had changed the TIM paste
4) I never oc'd the cpu (locked bios).

I'm pretty sure I applied the TIM correctly, I did many other desktop processors and they're just fine. And this Q9450 is in fact a desktop processor inside a laptop...

Could it be that processors might 'deteriorate' over time, and run hotter irrespective of what one does? Is there a way I can get this to run idle in the high 30's and load in the high 50's as it used to do three summers ago?

 

[Derek12]

Is the laptop fan spinning correctly? and/or is it adjusting the speed according the temperature? and/or has it a underclocking (speedsteep??) feature that is maybe disabled now & therefore it runs hotter ?

What happens if you change the power plan to "Power Saver"

As far as I know a processor doesn't "deteriorate" or "wear" then it runs hotter .

 

[Kreij]

Besides the heatsinks on the proc, did you rip 'er open and make sure that all air paths are clean too? Is the ambient case temp higher in the laptop?
Are the fans running as efficiently as they used to? If the bearings in the fan are getting dirty they will have more resistance and perhaps not run at the same RPM as you would expect for the current they are drawing.
Is the ambient temps in the area hotter than normal?
Are you SURE you got a good reseat on the CPU thermal paste when you redid it?
Have you added any components that may increase case temps (more RAM ect.)?

Just the usual BP
You know all this, just reminding you of more things to check.

 

[CJCerny]

Idle temps in the 40's are the norm for this processor when it is in a desktop using the stock heatsink/fan. Gonna be higher in a laptop, for sure. Are you sure you aren't just mis-remembering what the temps were in the beginning? Only other real problems could be that the heatsink isn't making good contact any more or the CPU fan RPMs (or maybe the case fan RPMs) are way down from what they used to be.

 

[Black Panther]

Besides the heatsinks on the proc, did you rip 'er open and make sure that all air paths are clean too? Is the ambient case temp higher in the laptop?
Are the fans running as efficiently as they used to? If the bearings in the fan are getting dirty they will have more resistance and perhaps not run at the same RPM as you would expect for the current they are drawing.
Is the ambient temps in the area hotter than normal?
Are you SURE you got a good reseat on the CPU thermal paste when you redid it?
Have you added any components that may increase case temps (more RAM ect.)?

Just the usual BP
You know all this, just reminding you of more things to check.

I added no more components. If anything it's minus one graphics card now.. no more SLI for now. But more open space inside.

I opened it up (for the upteenth time lol) and did clean it really well. In fact I heard my daughter talk to a friend where she said "we can't play on mommy's laptop for now because its got its intestines out and strewn all over the sofa"

Ambient temps are the same (I use the laptop in summer mostly, poor thing) but I have the AC running so it's always approx 24 degrees indoors.

About the reseat, I was sure I did it right. I don't have much experience, perhaps installed/reseated cpu's 10 or 15 times max. So I do have that little nagging doubt. I'll try to reseat it again.

Is the laptop fan spinning correctly? and/or is it adjusting the speed according the temperature? and/or has it a underclocking (speedsteep??) feature that is maybe disabled now & therefore it runs hotter ?

Under no load the processor's @ 1.995Ghz instead of 2.667Ghz. Which makes it worse since it's going 60+ degrees while under no load. When I press Fn+1 to make all the fans run 100% only the GPU drops temperature. The CPU remains the same temp.

Idle temps in the 40's are the norm for this processor when it is in a desktop using the stock heatsink/fan. Gonna be higher in a laptop, for sure. Are you sure you aren't just mis-remembering what the temps were in the beginning? Only other real problems could be that the heatsink isn't making good contact any more or the CPU fan RPMs (or maybe the case fan RPMs) are way down from what they used to be.

I'm sure I'm not mis-remembering. I used to think this was running hot idling at 43-45 degrees. My desktop (E8400 oc'd to 4Ghz) idles at below 40. In summer it'd be 36-38 and in winter below 35. There's no way I could be confusing them. Also there's no way that when I got the laptop (the first thing I checked was temperatures) I could have seen idle temps over 60 degrees and be like... fine...

 

[curt]

i see many laptops at work run temps like that evin after a proper take apart cleaning

[its not likable temps but its normal][like some nvidia based laptops idel as high as 60c an load around 100c i own one lol i got it down to 70c loads by putting a cpu fan on the air input for the laptop cpu cooler]

maby get a cooler pad for under it

thats about it unless you wana start modding the laptop itself

you say the temps were fine when you got it its possible the coolers heat pipe has failed/leaked [or some junk/dust/ect is between the core an cooler]

 

[FreedomEclipse]

maby get a cooler pad for under it

Zalman NC coolers are one of the best. Crafted out of a peice of thick aluminium. unlike most coolers that are just a peice of plastic with a some small drilled holes and 1 or 2 attached fans.

they dont get any better then that for heat dissipation

 

[curt]

my bad i missed that bit so he already has one

one way to test the heat pipe is the heat out the back if the cooler is working properly if you can stick a probe in the fin portion of tthe cooler it should be within about 5-10 c of what to cores ar doing

so say the cores ar at 62c load you should be getting like 55c air out the back if not there is a transfer problem

 

[sneekypeet]

Zalman NC coolers are one of the best. Crafted out of a peice of thick aluminium. unlike most coolers that are just a peice of plastic with a some small drilled holes and 1 or 2 attached fans.

they dont get any better then that for heat dissipation

You must know of a different cooler than what I got when looking up Zalman NC coolers. The laptop coolers I just saw were a high dollar piece of aluminum put on top of on of the worst ideas in cooling a laptop aside from leaning the laptop on a 2X4!

 

[FreedomEclipse]

my bad i missed that bit so *she* already has one

Fixed

 

[Peter1986C]

Are both the GPU and the CPU being cooled by one and the same fan?
If so, what graphics card(s) did you have in it before?

 

[Black Panther]

my bad i missed that bit so he already has one

one way to test the heat pipe is the heat out the back if the cooler is working properly if you can stick a probe in the fin portion of tthe cooler it should be within about 5-10 c of what to cores ar doing

so say the cores ar at 62c load you should be getting like 55c air out the back if not there is a transfer problem

The back of the cooler is 45 c

I'm using one of these to measure though. No probes etc...

Are both the GPU and the CPU being cooled by one and the same fan?
If so, what graphics card(s) did you have in it before?

No there are 4 fans and 4 coolers. One for cpu, one for ram, and one each for each gpu. I'll post a photo of the open laptop if I find it....

Edit: OK got one

Starting from left, GPU, GPU, RAM, CPU.
Fans and coolers are still in place though there. I don't think I ever took a photo showing it entirely dismantled. Only closeup of the GPU's, which won't be relevant here.

Right now it's got: GPU, nothing, RAM, CPU.

 

[Peter1986C]

So that pic made it obvious that your lappy ain't cooled in the way mine is (heatpipe 0 going from gpu to the sysfan & heatpipe 1 going from CPU to chipset to sysfan). Thus there is no need to express my thoughts because the temps don't (or barely do) influence each other.

 

[sneekypeet]

Under no load the processor's @ 1.995Ghz instead of 2.667Ghz. Which makes it worse since it's going 60 degrees while under no load. When I press Fn 1 to make all the fans run 100% only the GPU drops temperature. The CPU remains the same temp.

have you seen the CPU fan actually spinning? maybe you forgot to plug in the CPU cooler?

 

[Derek12]

Under no load the processor's @ 1.995Ghz instead of 2.667Ghz. Which makes it worse since it's going 60+ degrees while under no load. When I press Fn+1 to make all the fans run 100% only the GPU drops temperature. The CPU remains the same temp.

OK then I suspect the CPU fan is bad, did you check it runs properly as I asked before?? because if you put all to 100% and only the GPU decreases make me wonder

 

[Black Panther]

Yes the cpu fan is plugged in. I tested to watch the fans without the backing plate.
The CPU fan runs, slow. I seen it. Pressing Fn+1 gets it to run really fast.

I think I'll try re-seat the cpu cooler...

 

[Derek12]

Re-seat it, I think it's bad seated because if the temps not change AT ALL no matter if 100% or not.

If continues at same temps, then I would suspect it's bad sensor if the air coming out of CPU fan vent isn't very hot (all this if you checked the TIM, the heatsink and blah blah blah