Notebook overheating?? Help!

Hey,

When playing games on my Acer Aspire 5500 I have been encountering crashes at various times (usually 15 - 20 min's in to a game), ATI's VPU Recover appears and then I can contiune on playing but there are graphical artifacts and glitches everywhere. The crashes happen in Far Cry the most, I play with everything pretty much on maximum. Battlefield Vietnam occasionally and almost never for Age of Mythology.

I have updated drivers, uninstalled, reinstalled and still the same story which leads me to believe this could possibly be a heat issue. My notebook is on a coolermaster coolpad which sucks air away from the bottom of the notebook but I am starting to wonder if it is doing more harm than good...

Please advise.

Here are my specs:

Pentium M 760 (2.0 ghz) Centrino
Crucial 1GB DDR2 PC4200
ATI Mobility Radeon X700 (64mb)
WD Scorpio 5400rpm HDD (8mb cache)

Any help greatly apreciated!!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60914

Give that a look.

 

Definitely read through the cooling guide. Check to make sure your fan is clean.

 

I have read the guide you offered me and my laptop's vents / fan are completly free from debris. I have a Coolermaster Coolpad which draws head away from the bottom of the laptop but I am wondering if this could be creating some kind of powerstruggle with the CPU fan (which is trying suck air in) and causing problems. Has anyone had any experince with the Coolpad or have problems that are similar to mine?

Please comment.

 

I noticed that you have an Acer; I had an Acer Travelmate with an X700 64MB and a Turion 64 at one time. I had overheating issues with the video card. I found that getting a cooling pad solves the problem.

Yes this is quite possible. Try getting a Spire Pacific Breeze cooling pad; I reviewed it in the cooling guide.

 

I have an Aspire 5500, do you know how the GPU is cooled on these laptops? And do you think a cooling pad that blows air into the bottom of the computer would cool better than one that draws air away from it?

 

At first I didn't think that conflicting airflow directions would pose a problem but I have heard a lot of talk saying that it may actually be problematic. Perhaps you can find a cooling pad that blows air upward rather than drawing it away from the laptop's bottom.

 

Yes, I have just now ordered this one from Lian Li.

http://www.lian-li.com/Product/Accessories/Other_NoteBook_c_pad.htm

There flash animation seems to depict that the air is directed into the laptop bottom.

 

I just tried Far Cry without the Cooler Master Coolpad and I still received a VPU Recover about 15 minutes in. This leads me to believe that it must be a heat issue with the GPU. Acer has obviously skimped on the cooling quality for this particular laptop.

It seems others have been having the same problem with thier Acer computers:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=31351

 

Acer doesn't pay a lot of attention to the cooling solutions they use in their machines, especially on the lower-end models.

Here's what I figured out with my Acer, and why it overheated so bad.

-Both the CPU + GPU are located in very close proximity to one another. I was never able to measure the actual distance, but I would guesstimate that the Turion CPU and the X700 GPU in my Travelmate were between 1 to 1.5 cm apart. That's bad. They both used the same heatpipe, which led to a single fan in the back of the notebook. So, the CPU + GPU were hardly getting proper cooling to begin with. There was very little active cooling going over them.
What else I could determine was that the GPU was located more to the front of the notebook (I would say in the front 2/3 (the front of the notebook is the closest to the user)) - it was further away from the fan/active cooling than the CPU. So, heat buildup was bad. Heat from GPU + heat from CPU + not enough airflow. Bad combo. And finally, the chassis on Acers (at least on mine) was very thin. That made matters even worse.

So what do you get out of all that poor engineering? A notebook with a decent graphics chip that can't play games without the life support of an external cooler (and a good one at that). It's like a boat that comes with holes; you need to buy pumps so it will run right.

There's not a whole lot you can do about this situation to be honest. You could:
-Get a cooling pad (you really don't have a choice there; getting a cooling pad is a must. Think of it as life support for the notebook)
-Apply Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound to the CPU (assuming you can access it; I could never get mine open).
-Buy a huge freezer, put your computer desk in it, and play games in there.

What worked for me was the pad. Get a good one. That Pacific Breeze cooler I mentioned will give you the most cooling for your money.

 

Just to add use NHC to undervolt the pentium-m cpu. Since its a bad cooling system a lower temp cpu will help.

 

Ok thanks, notes taken! My Pentium M Cpu and X700 Gpu are like an inch away from each other, just like in your Travelmate.

I will go for the cooler pad. This is the one I have ordered, the fans are adjustable to multiple positions. So I could have one directed at the CPU/GPU and one toward the memory.

http://www.lian-li.com/Product/Accessories/Other_NoteBook_c_pad.htm

Thanks for everyones help. I'll get back to you when it arrives.