Meko Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 This has completely baffled me, i've working in IT for 18 years and never come across something as strange as this My laptop struggled with overheating for a while, if i tried to rip a DVD it'd turn off. I upgraded the memory and installed 'notebook hardware control' which checks the CPU usage and CPU and hard drive temperature. It's got a warning threshold at 85c and it'll regularly hit that and tell me it's getting a bit hot. Also took the laptop apart and gave it a good spraying with compressed air to clear any dust. It's been running fine since doing all that, apart from the heat warnings but today it shut itself off. battery / charge light just flashed weakly and it wouldn't turn back on for about 10 minutes. When it did come back on there was a burning smell as though something inside had fried. Went off and something was burning, so i'd written the laptop off as a lost cause; so i decided to see if it did still work. It's been running down a good 6 hours since it went off. I've got 7 IE tabs, MSN and Outlook open and Task Manager says i have 0 available memory (although NHC says i've 1.39 gig free).. so that's 6 hours running with the same amount open as when i'd get the warnings.. BUT, the CPU is running at 68c and has been doing for the last few hours. Any suggestions as to what could have blown inside it to actually stop it overheating? cos i've never come across anything like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 Is the CPU/chassis fan still running and does it ramp up when the CPU load increases? Is the CPU and fan itself fully seated into the MB? Have you check you have the latest BIOS version installed as well? A lot of the HP laptops (for example) have had issues with tempurature control, particularly after a year or two when running old BIOS versions. The RAM differential might indicate that one of the chips on a memory module is shot, if it's one part of the module thats gone it'll be reported correctly when accessing through a hardware monitor, but won't be reported in windows as the memory value cannot be measured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pot Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 Could it be the PSU at fault, getting too hot and cutting out giving false positives on the CPU and HD temps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meko Posted January 23, 2010 Author Share Posted January 23, 2010 everything is fine.. BIOS will be out of date but it's not broken so it's staying as it is. It's behaving perfectly now, it's just that something has blown and now it's stable, that's confusing me. The overheating is because the laptop is about 4 years old and could do with a complete refurb and re-image. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian C Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 Probably a spider caught in the fan ducting has finally bit the dust and is no longer blocking the airflow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pot Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 Probably a spider caught in the fan ducting has finally bit the dust and is no longer blocking the airflow. A spider, and not a rogue earwig?... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian C Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 a spider, and not a rogue earwig?... Fool! They are too aerodynamic to stick in the ducts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soop Dogg Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 Fool! They are too aerodynamic to stick in the ducts! Aren't you thinking of one of those low profile racing earwigs? Pot was talking about a rogue earwig - they're not so sleak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pot Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 Aren't you thinking of one of those low profile racing earwigs? Pot was talking about a rogue earwig - they're not so sleak. Exactly, I don't think this feckar's too swift! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian C Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 I thought he meant Rogue Motorsports earwig of course. You may have noticed that one in your laptop before the overheating began. Mainly due to having to chase said computer around the room before being able to use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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