Getting Allot of heat from the Right Underside of My W3V

I think i have a heat problem with my W3V, I have it under volted and have dynamic switching turned on but the temp always is 55+,

On the right hand underside of the touchpad it gets very hot, like you can only hold you hand on it for a few seconds without it becoming painful.

Ive been trying to get speed fan working but even with everest installed it does not detect my fans.

Please help

 

Well if you're talking about the front underside - it's the hard drive....... undervolting the cpu isn't going to jack to the temp of the hard drive........ but 55 degrees really isn't bad for a 5400rpm hitachi drive....

 

I think the 55c is refering to my CPU temp,
for some reason Centrino Hardware Control is not displaying my harddrive info, but the standard Notebook Hardware Control is.

 

Do you think the hard drive is hotter than that? I think you're doing something wrong if you're undervolting the cpu and the temp is still at 55....... is that idle or under heavy use?

 

The harddrive is definatly hotter than 55c.

The CPU Its about 55c at 800mhz idle, thats underclocked with Centrino Notebook Control.

 

Try to uninstall and maybe try that again.... that's not normal.

 

umm, just reinstalled and the SMART reading are working now, seems my hard drive is sitting at 55 and my CPU is about the same undervolted at 800mhz,

Is there anything else i can try to reduce the heat?

 

not really.... what hard drive are you using?

 

The one that came with the laptop, 5400rpm, not sure what brand.

It's been standing for while with minimal use and the CPU temp has gone down to 51c and the harddisk has gone down to 49, maybe is was a dodgy install of Hardware Control.

 

99% that's a Hitachi.... I'd say that's pretty normal... I'd also say your undervolting really isn't doing much temp wise...... you should test it under normal conditions so you have something to compare with.

 

ahh cheers, I will test the temp and full speed and change the voltages to see if there is a change.

The temp definitely increases when NHC changes the MHz to a higher multiplier, and i have noticed a definite battery increase lowering the voltages.

 

Dude, way to be over dramatic. 55C is the hd temp which means the external temp lets say its the same (55c). I go into a sauna every time i hit the gym. Normally the ambient temp is about 170F which is about 75c???. I lay down on the hardwood for 15 minutes no problem. Though the wood is not 75C but metal is. If i lay down on metal in a sauna @75C it would be extremely uncomfortable prolly burn. The wood is prolly about 5C hotter then your drive if you touch it with your hand. Your telling me that if you touch the plastic on your laptop surrounding the hdd it is painful? Common! The plastic there will get 40C tops. If a sauna was lined with w3v's on the bench i can lay there for 15 minutes no problem only to leave after i cant breathe. I think the word painful should be substituted for warm nothing more. Aside from that i am pretty sure my back is 2x more sensetive then a human hand.

 

K, fair enough, maybe I was exagerating a little,

Just seemed a little too hot thats all,

 

For my W3A, I have always reckoned that the HDD (a Seagate 5400) temperature as reported by Mobilemeter to be between 20C and 25C above ambient temperature. I have seen the temperature above 55C, but that was after heavy HDD usage in an ambient temperature of around 32C.

However, cooling of the W3's HDD is poor - I'm sure that there is more potential for better cooling by air being drawn into the computer by the CPU fan. Cooling by passive conduction or radiation depends on the surface on which the computer is being used.

John

 

I put an 80GB 4200 rpm into my Z63a. The temperature was no more than 37 deg C after 1 hour heavy use, room temperature was 21 deg C. Maybe you should try a 4200 rpm HDD.

CPU running @ 800MHz with 55 deg C, sounds a bit high to me. Check your voltage setting in NHC, do not set it above 0.9V for 800MHz. A lot of people set it to 0.7V to to 0.8V at 800MHz and no more than 1.4V at full CPU speed.

Since you have W3V, unlike Z63a, you can also underclock your GPU in NHC by clicking the MHz.

 

Hi,
I am kind of new to this forum. I have been thinking of buying an ASUS W3 series laptop. But I have read some people having problems with the palmrest over heating, like BrenMyster.
I was wondering whether this is related to the processor speed. I know this is kind of a nubish question but I was wandering if anyone had any ideas about what kind of processor would not generate excessive heat in the W3 model.

 

Thanks for your replies,
I have my voltages very low for every setting, at full speed its at 1.08, and due to the fact that i edit video on my laptop i cant change down to the 4200, i was actually thinking of upgrading to a 7200.
SniperMonkey - don't let my posts put you off buying a W3V, its an amazing laptop, probably the best i have ever used. I'm just trying to get it to run as efficiently as possible.

 

The heat they are feeling is not the CPU its the harddrive. It is not that hot you will not set you desk on fire no frying eggs on the palm rest. it gets warm under hard use. It is much cooler when the ambient temp is cooler only in the summer does it really get hot. Also it is not hotter than anything else in its class. The soney S series gets even hotter. if you are really concerned just get a 4200 rpm drive and it will stay cool. As for the cpu it doesnt really add that much heat only when running at full speed under full load for a while. Most the time pentium Ms run at 800mhz just like every other pm chip.

It does get alittle warm which might bother some but no more than any other 14in laptop of its size so dont worry.

 

People who purchased either Asus W3V or Z63a made a mistake. Even though these laptops are nice, they don't have a good thermal system. I got one Z63a, and it was terrible for me when I used a 7200rpm HDD. I purchased a Compal FL30 and put a 7200rpm in. It is much better than W3V or Z63a. No more heat!!!! Yeah... you guys think Compal is not as good as Asus, but at least you own it. You will find a right answer for yourself. Why do you pay a notebook for over $1000 but you may not enable to use a 7200rpm HDD? Make any sense?

 

Asus could have made a better thermal system for the W3V i will not say its not possible. But is it a waste not in any way no offence the compal is nice but it is no W3V. As the why spend over 1000 for a notebook that you cant put a 7200 rpm drive thats just nonsence you can put one in just fine. Does it get hot yes. But honestly most people dont need a 7200 its a waste creates more heat and lower battery life. The w3v is no desktop replacment its a small notebook meant to be powerful but get good battery life as well. Who needs the 7200rpm really for a notebook that small i mean i wouldnt do video editing on such a small machine at least not as a main pc. I have a w2v and wouldnt put a 7200 rpm drive in this thing i just dont need it. yeah they could have done a better job cooling but are you guys putting these things on your lap or something?

 

The reason i would put a 7200 would be to increase the speed, a 7200 hard drive would have a noticeable speed increase over a 5400.
Although this heat problem has put me of a little, so I might just get a large external drive to capture video.

 

It isnt that noticable to the average user. If you are transfering gigs and gigs or data sure. If you play lots of games you will have better load times. But if you are using it for office productivity internet and watching movies and stuff its really not even worth the upgrade. I would give up alittle speed for a half hour more battery life. Does it reall matter if it 10 seconds longer to load windows or 1 second longer to launch MS word. To some yes but we are talking average user.

 

Well a seagate is going to be a lot cooler than a hitachi ----- but to put a 7200rpm in a small laptop like that is never going to be perfect and it's not designed that way.

 

First, I don't try to offend everyone here. I just want to give my suggestion.

The flaw in Asus W3V or Z63a is a thermal system. It's not well designed. Ventilation for hard drive is too narrow and inappropriate. Yes, with 80GB 7200rmp HDD, my Compal Fl30 is running cooler, 33C. When I had my z63a, the HDD temp. was above 50C, but less than 60C.

In some cases, you may need a 7200rpm HDD. I am not rendering any movies, but setting up web server on my laptop, SQL server, and some other tools for testing purposes. The 7200rmp HDD helps me a lot. I don't concern about how fast Windows is booting. It depends on each system configuration. I hope Asus will fix the heat issue. Because W3V and Z63a have a nice design, but it won't impress customers if they are using it for a while due the heat.

 

You didnt offend me dont worry. I can understand your concern it is alittle to hot and i hope they do address it in the next version. But to the average person its no big deal. turning you laptop into a server that is getting accessed alot will generate more heat than say web surfing. i just dont want the average person to be turned away from a great machine for something they may not totally understand.

 

... your 7200rpm hard drive is idling at 33c ? The Seagate 7200rpm's won't idle that low if you ran through via a cable outside the system...... that's too far fetched.

 

I am not a liar. It's not fetched. I don't know how good Seagate, but here it's a proof.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/7953/hd5ep.gif

I did not undervolt my system. I let it run for over 6 hours at max level of CPU. It is up to you to think.

 

First of all no that bs. these notebooks never had a heat problem overheating is just complete fabrication. second of all. The first few months the z63a shipped with an aluminum cover on the bottom. The last few months now they are shippping with plastic covers. You guys are exteremely picky. Comparing compal to asus? Not in the same ballpark. Good luck with your compal. If and when it breaks you will be surprized to see your reseller has to send it to cali for reapair and the repair times are not very favorable. Right now My sister, my technicians wife, and my sisters coworker all own z63a (all women). Not once did i hear them complain about palmrest heat. I ve been dealing with this topic for almost a year now and the determination i have made is that anyone who dwindled on this for anything more then a few minutes is a panzy. The palmrest gets warm nothing more. i am sorry if this topic infuriates me but this is just annoying. what overheat problem? This is the best whitebook asus ever made by far and least problematic. I will stake my rep on that.

 

Exactly! I must have been asked "does the w3 overheat and what does the dealer cover if it does, can i drill holes in my palm rest". This ridiculous stuff comes from the forums. I work with the w3 every single day. Your claims of overheating palm rests and drives are completely out of this world. Grow a pair! Hitachi, seagate fuji all idle between 50-60C depends on use. WD is coolest out of all. New samsungs are pretty cool. WHo cares? Stop making up this stuff. Everytime you say overheat people listen and i am just tired of seeing these poinless threads. Your palmerst gets warm like it should so does every other laptops that has a drive under the palmrest. Dont like it? send it back to your dealer. This has been talked about a thousand times already.

 

They wont for 2 reasons
1. There is no heat issue just users with issues
2. The z63a will soon be eol
3. As far as i know no dealer ever complained about this. I give feedback for everyproblem we have. Whther its a bad screen , bad, drive or whatever as all their other dealers and they do listen. There is no heat issue with the z63a which is why it will not be addressed. I am not trying to offend you and am not defending asus. This is comming from one user to another. There is no heat issue its all in your mind. Sorry

 

I believe you that your drive is idling that low you did take a screen shot. Eddie the laptop itsself cannot over heat but you cant say that 50-60c is cool. That heat over time will take life away from your HD heat kills drives eventually. Now is that really a worry no i mean it would still last a min of prob 3 years. But i have to say i used a 13in 4lb fujistu with a 2.0ghz pentium M and 100 gig 5400rpm drive. it was as thin if not thinner and much lighter than the z63a. And i have no idea what fujistsu did but it was a absolute cool running laptop no heat from the palmrest under it only on the vent. And i even did 30gig data transfers. I have no idea what they did but the cooling in that thing was exellent. So i do think there are ways to make laptops cooler i mean whynot try, the cooler the better right.is it a deal break for the w3v no but everything can be improved.


I wouldnt call it a heat issue eddie but it isnt in his mind it does get warm. and if the compal is 10 degrees cooler thats pretty amazing because it is around the same form factor.

 

It's very hard to engineer a good looking laptop such as the w3v/z63a that dissapates heat well. The unique bamboo hinge battery design doesn't leave much room for putting all the other ports, vents and drives necessary in a notebook. However, users reporting it being hot is way overrated. I've had my w3v for over a month and I love it. It only gets warm if I have it plugged in, but when it is running on battery power it's just as warm as any other laptop.

Maybe Asus should've put the hard drive on the upper left. Hopefully in a refresh of the w3v platform they'll think of that. Thinking ahead I should suggest to Asus a few things:

1) Put the hard drive on the upper left. Without users resting their palms on the hard drive, they won't feel the heat

2) Maybe put the Optical drive in the front? It shouldn't be too bad, it'll also give some space on the left for another vent, if they move the ports on the left side forward.

 

I have a z63a myself, and while the palmrest gets warm, this is by no means "overheating". Overheating means that components are heating up to the point that they are being damaged, kinda like the Tom's Hardware video where they pulled the heatsink off an Athlon running quake3.

I have a samsung 80GB 5400rpm drive, and right now the HDD temp is 47*C. I have noticed that the palmrest is warmer under battery power, but this is probably because the fan stays off.

Anyway, to paraphrase Eddie: "you guys read forums too much"

 

Dam!!!!
I didn't mean to kick up such a sand storm, I am a new laptop owner and i was only asking the experts a question. simple as that.

This heat issue is not a major problem, i have been a PC owner for some time and know that heat is not good, the lower the better. This is true no matter what stance you have. Anyone knows that heat not only is annoying, buy can damage computer components. I'm no expert but i from what i have read and experienced excessive heat can only damage a unit, I'm taking like 200 degree C not 50, 60, or 70.

I'm talking about efficient operation here, what is the best operational temperature??? Everyone who owns a w3v knows that is dam good, everyone who does not, needs to try one.

 

I will say that yours sounds to be running too hot, but I don't know what HDD you have. Do you have everest to check out all the specs on your computer?

 

I do have everest running, but i do live in florida so maybe that why(its hot here). ir maybe i just have a hot HD, it only gets to 58 max load and 50 min i can accept that. HD do run hot and everyone is different like CPU's, not everyone is the same.
so long as its not setting my house on fire i think it will be fine.

 

Yep ofcourse thats all implied however if you look at the manufacturer specs you will find alot of these drives have a maximum operating temp of 60C and an average opperating temp of 50C. Seagates get pretty hot so do fujis. Didnt really have a chance to try the mhv series. WD and samsung are umong the coolest. I ll tell you this tho. Fuji by far has been the most reliable despite also being the hottest. The point i was trying to make is that alot of people here are very dramatic when describing various trivial things and i would definitely qualify this as trivial. By no means will the w3v design kill your hdd.

 

Yes heat is not good, but from what I've read those Hitachi's and 7200rpm harddrives can handle the heat of 50-60 degrees.

I personally don't think it will LOWER the life of your harddrive. My drive usually runs in the 50's and sometimes chills at 55 degrees for no apparent reason. Right now it's idling at 29degrees. Yes 29, I'm at a very chilly coffee shop running off batteries and running the harddrive in the 128 mode in NHC. I have no idea what that means, haha, but hey it gives me more battery life instead of the max performance setting.

If you've ever had experience with older harddrives, those puppies ran HOT, I mean HOT, but my 1gig and 4gig fujitsu's are still kicking after major abuse. Major abuse being thrown up against a wall, stored in a cardboard box, being stored in a damp cellar and finally being run in an open case with no air flow. Those things got HOT as hell, but they're still working well, so I don't think those temps will lower the life of your harddrive. Temperatures exceeding those temperatures WILL probably lower the life of your harddrive or you might experience data corruption.

So don't worry too much about monitoring your temps. Seriously, I was a temp freak when I first built my overclocked desktop AMD system, but you know what? As long as you don't smell anything burning or see smoke or notice system corruption, or notice fans failing on you, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT.

Cheers,
Mike