Acer aspire 5920g running incredibly hot and noisy (pictures included)

A couple of years ago I bought myself the Acer Aspire 5920g thinking that this computer looked awesome after reading reviews.

How wrong...Oh how damn wrong!

I've had nothing but problems with this computer since day one.
The temperatures has been incredibly high since the first day, and having it on the lap for more than a couple of minutes running NO software or anything, is just incredibly unpleasant.

This didn't really bother me, as i usually just had it on a desk or something. What bothers me, is that I can't play any games or run any demanding software without it lagging like crazy.

Fans are running 100% at all times, and its starting to annoy not just me, but my teacher.

My first thought was that the fan were full of dust, but there weren't much, so I disassembled it and took a look
at the CPU.

Spoiler

Messy heatsink:

Spoiler

Rest of the heat sink

Spoiler

I'm no computer expert by any means, but something tells me this ain't right.

What to do?

Thanks!

 

Welcome to the forums, Waoo!

Actually, that gunk on your CPU is supposed to keep it cooler. It's called thermal compound, and it allows for a better transfer of heat from the CPU to the heatsink than if they were just touching.
Yours, however, looks like it's lost its efficacy. So what I'd do would be to order a tube of new thermal compound - something like Arctic Silver 5, or whatever the folks on the Hardware forum recommend nowadays - and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Use the rubbing alcohol and some Q-Tips to clean off the old thermal compound from the heatsink and CPU, then apply a dab of the new stuff. Might also want to take a look at the GPU and see if it's in the same shape.

Once that's done, you might want to look into something called "undervolting." It's essentially forcing your CPU to run at a lower voltage while keeping its speed the same. If properly tested for stability, it will use less battery power and help keep your system cool!

Both of these solutions should help reduce your system's temperatures. If you could please download and run HWmonitor, and post a screenshot of that program at idle and after playing games, it'll help other users understand how hot your machine's running.

 

PS you dont need to hide your CPU numbers, its a mobile part and does not have an individual warrenty any way.

 

Apparently the Arctic Cooling MX-3 is better than Artic silver 5 : here.
This was said by a user who had a MSI gaming rig from the MSI section.
You might want to take a look into that.

 

I ordered Noctua NT-H1 as the other alternatives weren't available in any online stores in my country.

This is Acers fault, right?

 

Possibly; I can't speak for what quality of thermal compound they use, as I replaced mine with Arctic Silver 5 when I upgraded my CPU, and that was only 6 months into the life of my 6920G.

 

Good thermal pastes are:

Innovation Cooling Diamond 7 (or 24, if you want a larger tube)
Shin Etsu G751
Shin Etsu X23
Tuniq TX-4

 

The paste has finally arrived!

CPU Temp: 42c idle
GPU Temp: 80c idle

I havent' tested temps at load yet, but the GPU temp seems awfully high on idle. What could cause this?

 

You're darn right the GPU seems awfully high.
Did you put too much paste on? Too much paste can actually hamper heat transfer.

 

I think you need to get a high quality thermal pad.

 

Try other temperature monitors - HWmonitor, RealTemp, CoreTemp, RMClock, etc.

 

I don't think the temperatures are far off, as the fan is still constantly on :/

Edit: Anyone got some solution to this problem? This is so damn frustrating

 

Idle temp with firefox only running.

 

Could there be some correlation to that bad battery? Perhaps remove it to see if that makes a difference.

Another thought: You improved the CPU cooling. Maybe the fan speed is controlled by the CPU temp only, so it's running slow and not fast enough to efficiently cool the GPU also.

What about the air exhausted? Is it hot?

Michael

 

I'm using an AC charger so I guess the battery thing is just a windows bug

The air exhausted is very hot and the fan is running at 100% all times.

 

I think at this point it might be prudent to back up your data and consider changing your system.

 

It seems like the chip doesn't have any contact with the heatsink at all.

Spoiler

What do you think?
Maybe one should only use a thermal pad on this kind of gpu?

 

That makes a lot of sense, Waoo. The lack of any thermal compound on the GPU heatsink is the dead giveaway.
Go get in touch with the fine fellows at MXM-Upgrade.com; they can send you some high-quality thermal pads for the GPU core.

 

Can anyone with this computer check if it uses thermal pads or thermal paste for the gpu core? If thermal paste is used for everyone elses computer, something has to be wrong with mine.

 

Thermal paste MUST BE ALWAYS USED when putting heatsing on CPU/GPU core because it is used for filling the small gaps between heatsink and core and so provides better heat transfer from CPU/GPU core to the heatsink for more efficient cooling...

So if you didn`t any paste on your GPU then just put some and there won`t be anymore overheating...

You are lucky and your GPU didn`t die yet if you had troubles with overheating for a longer period...

 

I got the temperatures to go down from 100c to 75c idle doing like this guy:



75c idle is still way to high tho.

Never buying Acer again, thats for sure.

 

Well you could do one more thing...
Did you check if the powermizer is functioning?
You could use GPU-Z to monitor GPU core clock...

And also check if the heatsink is evenly touching the core for best heat transfer...

 

The problem is that the heatsink isn't touching the chip. Thats why they use thermal pads for these

 

The cpu and gpu thermal jobs on my 5920g looked exactly the same. My cpu temps dropped by 15-20 celcius by putting AS5 on it. Acer totaly puts too much thermal paste on their cpu's.
If you clean it out carefully, and use a small drop of thermal paste, your cpu temps will be fine.

About your gpu, same thing. Just use a drop of AS5 or any other thermal paste and it should lower in temps...but not by much. Temps of 80 celcius are normal on this laptop.

The good thing of your model is that you can replace your 8600mgt with a way more powerfull ati hd 4670 (check the mxm-upgrade guide on this forum), which is also quite easy to downclock, giving you lower temps, with awesome performance (so your laptop will be able to play the newest games for another 2 years, though not at highest settings, but at least on decent resolutions unlike the 8600m gt). Fyi, you will need a 0.9mm thick copper sheet between your heatsink and your ati card.

Hope this info will make you change your mind about your 5920g.I mean...who else has a laptop from around 2007 with the possibility to upgrade the gpu and make it last at least 2 more years? The bad thermal jobs are totaly acers fault, but easily fixed by yourself.

edit: my ati hd4670 with AS5 idles at 46 celcius (though I just played Assassins creed half an hour ago)

 

What I meant to say is that it might not be touching the copper part of the heat pad which is connected to the heat sink beside the cooler...

So you may need to add a copper shim on the core...