Cooling the NX860XL

I purchased a Gateway NX860XL this christmas, and while I've been satisfied with it in every other aspect, I've been having considerable problems with overheating. While gaming or otherwise taxing the CPU for very long, Speedfan reports temperatures as high as 64c or even higher, and the computer has locked up from overheating once already (which spurred me to find software to track the temp in the first place). For a frame of reference, it idles at 40c.

I have a little doubt over Speedfan's actual accuracy (which may be misplaced? this is my first laptop, and the first machine I've had any heating issues with), but there's no doubting that the left side of the computer gets scalding hot, and stays warm even while idle. I'd like to know what other NX860XL owners have done to handle this problem -- google says I'm not the only one with it. Is there a specific brand of cooling pad you would recommend, or other measures you've implemented that seem to help? I already have the back propped up about an inch.

 

Is the hard drive on the left hand side? If it is i'm going to stop recommending this laptop

About your CPU those temperatures are pretty normal , people have been reading temps of 70 degrees plus on their CPU (in other brands of course)

I think the reason your games are locking up is your GPU (the 7900). Gateway's stock drivers are pretty old / out of date you should really upgrade them. I had trouble with their drivers and my CS: source was locking up at higher settings until i downloaded the latest driers. Try doing that first because your CPU won't lock up your computer, its got to be the graphics card.

 

Oh gryphax could you please do a review on it Pleassseeeeee

 

If you do a search on this forum you will find some discussion of NX860XL heating. For example:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=90814&highlight=nx860lx+heat

 

Alright, I'll update the drivers and see if it helps with the actual crashing any. The high temperatures still make me kind of twitchy though... I don't want my new computer turning into lava on me. Incidentally, it just crashed again a little while ago while I was playing Morrowind.

Has anyone tried a cooler besides the bytecc? And dlstorm, has the bytecc been holding up well for you?

A review? I'm not sure how qualified I'd be to write one, but I guess I could once I get this issue resolved and can properly gauge it.

Edit:
Okay scratch that, now I'm having trouble finding the right video drivers. I've tried the Geforce 7 series go and the the other Geforce series drivers from the main Nvidia site, and the ones from the Gateway site, with no success; all complain about not being able to find the appropriate hardware, and exit without giving an option to continue anyway. Incidentally, the 7 go series drivers don't have an option for XP media center...

 

yea you gotta download from a 3rd party site. 3dguru.com or tweaksrus.com are good ones.

 

I usually get my drivers from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I have never had a lockup from overheating. What I have seen is stuttering when the temp got too high on the video card. I just made sure the laptop was raised off the desk to promote better airflow and it didn't heat up too much.

 

The Bytecc is working well, and is well-priced, but as I stated earlier, I've found the fans to make little difference.

 

Alright, update: Putting a normal desk fan behind the computer so it blows under the problem area helped a lot - it still gets warm, but nowhere near as badly as it did before, and speedfan temps only get up to 50c. That should hold me over until I can get the cooling pad ordered.

Thanks for the help with the drivers. Kind of cheap that the manufacturers don't support them very well...