Overheating problem

seanybiker

How ya lads. Im trying to fix a laptop for one of me mothers mates daughthers. Anyways, I dont mind working on software and all that shtuff and dont mind doing hardware on my own PC but I told this young one I wasnt prepared to take the laptop apart as Im not qualified. She has no money so told me to take it apart anyways. So feck it may give it a shot.
What happens is the laptop starts up and after about a minute it just turns itself off.


The fan doesnt stay on long at all. this silver part in the picture above the fan gets warm awfully quick too.
Any idear's of what to do would be lovely

Alanstrainor

What laptop is it exactly? Is the fan spinning as it should? Or is it slow/making noise?
At a guess, that "silver" part, with the copper attached to it is the cpu, it would be expected to heat up a lot in a laptop.
It could be that you need a new fan, or it could be something else entirely. It's a hard one to diagnose.

seanybiker

its a packard bell easy note A8. Sometimes the fan be going mental, other times it comes on really low for a few seconds. That silver thing is heating up only after about a minute. I googled it and some people said remove a RAM stick and try it then. No luck. There was a fair bit of dust near ram and fan. Mother was only onto her friend and she said her son leaves it on his bed and doesnt turn it off all night. Hopefully ill sort something out. Ill go looking at fan prices sure. Cheers

Voodu Child

First i'd just clean all the dust out of it.

Clean the fan blades, all the vents, and especially the radiator fins at the exhaust vent (you can see them on the left of your pic). If you're using canned air or similar near the fan, make sure to hold the fan blades in place so they don't spin too fast (and damage the motor). If you're cleaning vents, always try to blow dust out of the laptop rather than in.

You may or may not need to remove the heatsink/fan assembly to clean in properly. If you have remove it, you'll need to clean off the old thermal paste and reapply new paste. So make sure you have some and know what you're doing in that regard.

90% of the time, you clean the dust out of it and thats your problem solved. So i'd do that first and then report back.

seanybiker

cheers bud. Ill get some canned air tomorrow and give that a shot. I presume and comp shop will have the paste. Ill get back and let ya know. Cheers lads

Alanstrainor

The fan is usually easy enough to take out a lot of the time, i wouldn't go removing the heatsink unless you were really stuck. Clean the vents, that usually solves it. They're usually quite sharp actually, managed to cut my fingers up on my lappy a few months ago!

Voodu Child

Alanstrainor wrote: »

The fan is usually easy enough to take out a lot of the time, i wouldn't go removing the heatsink unless you were really stuck. !

From the pic I believe the fan and heatsink are all one in his Packard Bell.

And to get at those heatsink fins on the left and give them a good blast, he might have to remove it, its hard to see from the pic. Although like I said above, i'd leave it well enough alone unless you know what you're doing. Cleaning and changing thermal paste isn't difficult, but its not something you want to be figuring out on someone elses laptop :pac:

It might all be academic anyhow, you could clean the dust and still have a problem But it'd always be the first port of call anyhow. Start with the simple solutions and work upwards :pac:

seanybiker

I took it out anyways. it was all the one piece. Some load of dust and €15 for some fecking air, jaysus thats mental.
how long after putting on the thermal paste should I try use the laptop?

Voodu Child

seanybiker wrote: »

I took it out anyways. it was all the one piece. Some load of dust and €15 for some fecking air, jaysus thats mental.
how long after putting on the thermal paste should I try use the laptop?

It depends on the type of thermal paste used. There should be instructions on the manufacturers website. For something like Arctic Silver, you can use it immediately, but it takes a few hours and heat cycles to fully cure.

What type did you get, and are you happy enough with the application method etc?

seanybiker

Voodu Child wrote: »

It depends on the type of thermal paste used. There should be instructions on the manufacturers website. For something like Arctic Silver, you can use it immediately, but it takes a few hours and heat cycles to fully cure.

What type did you get, and are you happy enough with the application method etc?

I blew the air into the vents, there was about 8-10 bellybuttons worth of fluff in the thing, whatever they be doing with it.

I got this stuff
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=37796&C=20369
Asaka.

Simple to use, the bloody card they give you to spread it about is about 5 times bigger than I needed.
Laptop is still acting the prat.
Ill leave it off for a bit and leave the stuff set or whatever it does.

oops just checked. that stuff is wrong. fook it anyways.

Voodu Child

seanybiker wrote: »

I blew the air into the vents, there was about 8-10 bellybuttons worth of fluff in the thing, whatever they be doing with it.

I got this stuff
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=37796&C=20369
Asaka.

Simple to use, the bloody card they give you to spread it about is about 5 times bigger than I needed.
Laptop is still acting the prat.
Ill leave it off for a bit and leave the stuff set or whatever it does.

oops just checked. that stuff is wrong. fook it anyways.

Looks fine. Once you've cleaned off the old thermal paste, and applied as per the instructions it should be fine. There's also tonnes of guides on the internet with photos/videos etc. Basically you just want a very thin layer, as thin as possible. Don't forget to plug the fan in when you're finished :pac:

If you've done all that and the laptop is still overheating, you could have a more serious problem. Can you download CPUID HWMonitor and use it to look at the fanspeeds and temps etc? Or does the laptop shut down too quickly to do anything in terms of software?

seanybiker

Voodu Child wrote: »

Looks fine. Once you've cleaned off the old thermal paste, and applied as per the instructions it should be fine. There's also tonnes of guides on the internet with photos/videos etc. Basically you just want a very thin layer, as thin as possible. Don't forget to plug the fan in when you're finished :pac:

If you've done all that and the laptop is still overheating, you could have a more serious problem. Can you download CPUID HWMonitor and use it to look at the fanspeeds and temps etc? Or does the laptop shut down too quickly to do anything in terms of software?

Oh that stuff I got is grand? cool beans.
No use getting the monitor bud. it wont stay on long enough.
I can actually feel cold air coming from the little vent on the side of the laptop now. Think me twin brother is after robbing the charger for the laptop and bringing it to templemorw ith him and the fecking battery is gone now. It never rains but it pours.


cheers for the input so far lads much appreciated.

Voodu Child

seanybiker wrote: »

Oh that stuff I got is grand? cool beans.
No use getting the monitor bud. it wont stay on long enough.
I can actually feel cold air coming from the little vent on the side of the laptop now. Think me twin brother is after robbing the charger for the laptop and bringing it to templemorw ith him and the fecking battery is gone now. It never rains but it pours.


cheers for the input so far lads much appreciated.

Yeah, what you got should be fine. Although often it'll come with cleaner and also something to prepare the surface with. And it should be applied anywhere that the 'old' thermal paste would have been. Looks like two locations going by your heatsink.

If cold air is coming out of the vent, I would say it means:
-The heat isn't being transferred from the CPU into the heatsink (ie problem with how its installed, how the thermal paste is applied, etc)
-The laptop just isn't running that hot, maybe the shutdown problem is being caused by something else entirely.

Normally a laptop won't thermal shutdown until its got seriously high temps. So to have cold air coming from the vent and still be having shutdowns doesnt sound right.

seanybiker

K took it apart again. sorry bout the quality of the pic. Tis me phone camera.


right so. I already had stuff on the Red circle part.
Im presuming that the green (yeah Im thick putting a green circle on a green board) part, is the second place you where on about?????



i only gave it a tiny clean there now tog et rid of most of the compound for pic sake. ill clean it properly when Im putting it back on

Voodu Child

seanybiker wrote: »

K took it apart again. sorry bout the quality of the pic. Tis me phone camera.


right so. I already had stuff on the Red circle part.
Im presuming that the green (yeah Im thick putting a green circle on a green board) part, is the second place you where on about?????

Yep, thats what I was referring to. One is the CPU and the other is the GPU, and they both need paste on them to transfer heat into the heatsink properly. And any time you remove the heatsink it needs to be redone.

That is unless that green circled area has got a thermal pad on it (like a spongey thing) - I can't see the picture properly. If its just normal caked-in thermal paste then it definitely needs to be changed. If its a thermal pad it doesnt obviously, leave it be. Be careful not to scratch the heatsink when cleaning and removing the old stuff. Also hit up google or youtube and you'll find pics or videos of the process, they'll give you more tips and detail than I could go into here.

-Edit- Looking at some pics online, I think that green circled area may be a thermal pad (in which case leave it be). I'd need to see a better pic to know for sure though.

seanybiker

Voodu Child wrote: »

Yep, thats what I was referring to. One is the CPU and the other is the GPU, and they both need paste on them to transfer heat into the heatsink properly. And any time you remove the heatsink it needs to be redone.

That is unless that green circled area has got a thermal pad on it (like a spongey thing) - I can't see the picture properly. If its just normal caked-in thermal paste then it definitely needs to be changed. If its a thermal pad it doesnt obviously, leave it be. Be careful not to scratch the heatsink when cleaning and removing the old stuff. Also hit up google or youtube and you'll find pics or videos of the process, they'll give you more tips and detail than I could go into here.

-Edit- Looking at some pics online, I think that green circled area may be a thermal pad (in which case leave it be). I'd need to see a better pic to know for sure though.

The green one has a little thing on it alright. feels like rubber. tipped off it and a tiny little itty bitty bit of it fell off.
Cheers for the help
if you wanna know anything bout motorbikes ill help ya lol :P

Voodu Child

Yeah, in that case leave it be - those pads are crappy heat conductors (imo) but you dont want to take it off because its a set thickness and so without it you wouldn't get good contact with the GPU when everything is screwed in place.

So put it all together again anyhow, take your time doing it. And when you get the charger back, you can have a look and see how you're sorted. At least you've given the laptop a good dust clean out, which is actually something i'd normally do maybe once a year or two anyway, regardless of problems.

seanybiker

Jaysus me hand is freesing from that air in a can thing.
gott he charger. Seems he didnt take it after all. Still wont start up properly. If I dont go near it at all it will load, then I use the finger/mouse pad and it just shuts off.
Pity its not like a telly from the 80's, a good kick and it will work.

Voodu Child

Load it up and don't touch anything. See how long it stays on, and see if it seems like its overheating (fan running/hot air coming out). It might be something totally unrelated to the temps.

seanybiker

Voodu Child wrote: »

Load it up and don't touch anything. See how long it stays on, and see if it seems like its overheating (fan running/hot air coming out). It might be something totally unrelated to the temps.

had it on there for about 10-15 minutes without touching off it.
checked it and there was cold air still coming out of it a minute ago. I dont know what it is about the stool I have here at the desk but its a fecker for static electricity. When i went to put my hand under the lappy I got a little shock and almost crapped meself, then it went off when I moved it. :mad:
Its after loading up again now so Ill just leave it go for as long as I can. The temptation to mess with it is impossible to beat.



I couldnt wait.
The air coming from it now is warm.

Voodu Child

Ah, its gotta be something else then. Might be a loose connection or something.

Boot into the bios screen (press one of the F keys, it'll tell you which as its booting). Don't change anything, just do the same, leave it for a few minutes and see if it switches off in the same way when you press a key or nudge it.

-If it doesnt turn off when you press keys or use the trackpad in the bios screen, its likely a software problem (ie do a windows repair or reinstallation)

-If it does turn off in the bios screen when you touch it, its a hardware problem and theres probably not much more you can do.

seanybiker

Voodu Child wrote: »

Ah, its gotta be something else then. Might be a loose connection or something.

Boot into the bios screen (press one of the F keys, it'll tell you which as its booting). Don't change anything, just do the same, leave it for a few minutes and see if it switches off in the same way when you press a key or nudge it.

-If it doesnt turn off when you press keys or use the trackpad in the bios screen, its likely a software problem (ie do a windows repair or reinstallation)

-If it does turn off in the bios screen when you touch it, its a hardware problem and theres probably not much more you can do.

crap I knew why there wa s acopy of XP in cd drive. Meant to burn it and do a repair oopsies.
bored now so may aswell do it. thanks again

seanybiker

There is an update for the BIOS. May aswell do that anyways. Sure it'll give me something to do for about 2 minutes.

Voodu Child

seanybiker wrote: »

There is an update for the BIOS. May aswell do that anyways. Sure it'll give me something to do for about 2 minutes.

BIOS updates have a risk attached, I would definitely not attempt a BIOS update on a laptop that seems to be randomly shutting down on you. I mean, if the thing shuts down in the middle of the BIOS update you could be left with an unfixable brick.

seanybiker

Voodu Child wrote: »

BIOS updates have a risk attached, I would definitely not attempt a BIOS update on a laptop that seems to be randomly shutting down on you. I mean, if the thing shuts down in the middle of the BIOS update you could be left with an unfixable brick.

yeah just thought about that after posting. That wouldnt be fun

seanybiker

Only had a quick look at it today. its staying on longer but still not proper. Has to be a loose connection.

unnameduser

Have you given the entire motherboard a cleaning?

Take a magnifying glass to the board and slowly check all parts of the motherboard for scorch/burn marks

seanybiker

unnameduser wrote: »

Have you given the entire motherboard a cleaning?

Take a magnifying glass to the board and slowly check all parts of the motherboard for scorch/burn marks

Went to take it apart earlier. Had everything out of it but there seemed to be 1 screw in the middle holding it together so I put it back together. It might have been a clip that needed a little persuading but I didnt want to chance it.