Questions regarding stationary gaming notebook

First, i don't have that much experience with gaming notebooks, i have been using office notebooks for ages. With office notebooks i always had a docking station when used on my desk, which was 90% of the time.

Using a gaming notebook stationary seems to be something very different. The first couple of days nothing has been out of the ordinary. At home i have an external display connected via Mini DP and an ethernet connection. In addition comes a Unifying receiver for mouse and keyboard. Today i left the notebook running for remote access during daytime from work. When i came home, the notebook had shut down and was very hot.
The notebook lid is closed all the time, but even with a couple of hours gaming i never got to 85°C with CPU/GPU. So i didn't give it any second thoughts, because these temps are nothing serious for a gaming system.

So, how do you use a gaming notebook at home, when it's used like a desktop replacement? Remove the battery because the power is plugged in all the time? Leave the lid open for better circulation? Do i miss anything else? I still don't understand what the difference between today and the last week has been in regards to the temperatures. The notebook was always powered on for 16 hours a day and in sleep mode during night, why the sudden heat issues? The fans are working according to the fan curve i have been using for months, so that can't be the issue either. Blame everything on the permanently plugged in power supply with the battery still installed?

 

Do you think it shut down due to overheating? If so, there is clear troubleshooting to do: inspect the fans and vents, make sure that airflow underneath the system is OK, do some stress testing, You said that the system was very hot when you came home and that it was shut down. Where was it hot? Did you look at the system log to see how long it had been since it turned off?

 

@Bongripper666 when I got my first laptop (gaming, with everything upgradeable including MXM GPU) I first ran it with display lid closed, which is what probably caused some dead pixels appearing on the screen one day. \= Some time after I switched to using laptop keyboard with external mouse, and both internal and external monitor - this setup definitely increases productivity. Removing the battery is a very bad idea IMO - in case power goes out, even almost dead battery will allow you to save your precious data which is probably worth much more than a laptop battery.

In your case - I'd clean cooling system from dust thoroughly, maybe also repaste.

 

I don't think it's the cooling system.

I ran some tests today and the temperatures were ok at all times.

Yesterday almost the complete notebook was hot - i could barely touch the keyboard - and the surface of the cover is metal, so this was also quite hot to touch. After disconnecting it from power supply and letting it cool down, everything was fine afterwards.

The back of the notebook stands on 2 wedges for better circulation underneath it.

The only thing i could find in the system log was an "Appcrash" by powercfg.exe. That can have to do something with the sudden increase of heat, which led to the shutdown. I don't know, what powercfg.exe can control and if a failure of this service can have such major consequences.

EDIT:
I already had disabled the laptop display, since this maybe can also add temperatures when the lid is closed.

EDIT2:
Idle temperatures after 6 hours are 44/42°C CPU/GPU. When gaming they max at 78/80. I noticed in Throttlestop that max. temperatures yesterday were 93 CPU and 81 GPU. Too high for doing nothing else than some remote desktop access.

 

I added some more Information.

 

It's hard to believe your temps are fine if your laptop is so hot to the touch. I'm not so concerned about what is in the log as when the log stops. That would have given you a clue about how long it had been since your laptop forced itself off.

Have you tried any stress testing, and maybe a different utility for monitoring your temps?

 

The laptop was online from 6.38am until 7.05pm. I started it again on 9.30pm.

I think i have singled out the culprit. I thought that switching off the internal display with Fn+F2 is enough, but you have to turn it off in display setting of Windows. Only then it will stay off.

I haven't had any temperature issues since doing this. During ideling and office apps it stays between 30 and 40°C, during my normal gaming it maxes at 80-85°C. CPU and GPU are always on a similar level. For a BGA notebook pretty normal i would say.

I will try the remote connection again in the next days and will keep an eye on the temps. I have added the data from Throttlestop to my desktop.

 

Interesting find about the Fn+F2 hotkey versus using Windows power management to turn off the display.

Normally, I leave the lid open on a gaming notebook. That way heat has a path to vent out the keyboard, should it need to. I don't know this to be a hard and fast rule. I remember Gateway told us when using the Gateway 600 computers (P4 2.0 GHz desktop processor in a laptop) to leave the display lid open while docked, even with the display off, to allow heat to radiate out from the keyboard.

But if the computer is a thin and light, I use it closed while docked. I often dock my Thinkpad X220, and I leave the lid closed on it. But I never close the lid on my gaming machines. Nor on my Apple machines. FWIW . . .

 

I always have my lid cracked open to allow the head from my M.2's to escape, if I leave the lid closed they seem to get way to hot for my own comfort. I always turn the fans up to full blast using a hardware button that mine has while gaming and when I'm done I'll turn them back down to temperature control. I also have a custom build Notepal cooler underneath shoving air into the bottom of the laptop for extra cooling using fan controller for noise when not needed.