High temperature?

I have a TravelMate 5520G-402G16 which reaches really high temperatures.
Idle - 55-60 C / 131-140 F
Load - 80-90 C / 176-194 F

I have cleaned the fan and heatsink and even applied new thermal compound (checked for good contact), also put something under the notebook to elevate it a bit to get better airflow to the air intake but I still get high temperatures. I'm afraid it will get fried or at least shorten its life time if it continues like this. Does anyone else have this problem or is it normal?

 

80-90c is relatively high. Is the fan working at all?

Your laptop is AMD based so it could be easily undervolted using RMClock. Just follow this link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

The tutorial in the link is for a core 2 duo but the principle is the same for an AMD CPU. With your lowest multilier you should be able to reach 0.8v or there about

 

The fan speeds up/slows down depending on temperature and the CPU runs on 4x multiplier (~800 MHz - 0.8V) when idle and 9.5x (1.9 GHz - 1.075V) at full load, like the Cool n' Quiet function on Athlon 64.

 

this first question is not related to you problem. Did you get these low voltages using RMclock or these are your Cool n' Quiet voltages?

I had a Compaq with an Athlon XP 2000 M and my max temp was 70c in a hot day. this max temp dropped to 62-63c after applyring artic silver 5 (AS5).

now I have a Gateway laptop with a Sempron 3400+. I managed to upgrade it to a Turion Mk 36, and in both cases with RMclock and AS5 my max temp is around 60-63c in a hot day. This laptop is set by the manufacturer to run hot since the fan starts when the temperature is above 50c.

What software are you using to read the temperature? when the laptop is at full load, does the keyboard and the base of the laptop feel hot around the CPU area?
I'm just wondering if the temperature reading you have are correct!
Correct me if I'm wrong, the graphics chipset (GPU) is cooled by the same cooling system as the CPU. Did you apply some thermal compound on th GPU?

 

They are CnQ voltages but I'm now in the process of undervolting to see if I can get the temperatures down.

I use RightMark for monitoring but SpeedFan reports the same temps and yes the keyboard/base feel hot.

GPU and CPU are connected to a common heat sink of some sort via heat pipes and I have applied thermal compound to both.

But as I said I am now undervolting to see if it makes any difference, so I will post the results sometime tomorrow I guess.

 

I managed to lower the voltages but didn't see any significant reduction in temperature. During load I have shaved off ~5 C but idle didn't see any difference in temperature.

 

Reverted to default voltages since loading games crashes the computer. Apparently Orthos (which is recommended in the undervolting guide) doesn't stress the CPU enough, because 2 hrs of Orthos didn't come up with errors but 10 seconds of loading Battlefield 2 crashed the computer.

 

maybe theres a fix for this in the latest BIOS release.
or you could try just turning down the graphics from 32bit to 16bit.
all im trying to find out, if under less stress from GPU you may see a temp drop.
also try turning off or stopping a few things from running that you are not using in processes.
the more stress a cpu is under the more heat it produces . same with the GPU.
just a thought
Phil

 

With orthos if you have a CPU with two cores such as the AMD TL series you need to run two instances of the program.

The idea of upgradding the BIOS to the latest one is not bad. One thing you should be aware of: Lot of Acer owners have damaged their laptops when they did a BIOS upgrade under windows. So if you want to upgrade the BIOS you should do it under DOS using a DOS BOOT CD.

Was you laptop this hot since you bought it? ... maybe the fan is faulty and doesn't spin enough to cool the CPU down
Is it still under warranty?