Gateway P-173X FX Overheating

So I got this laptop more or less 6 months ago, but I recently purchased Left for Dead and notice I was getting random shutdowns. No error message, no restart, nothing in Vista Event Log. I'm pretty sure I got one or two of these when playing Doom 3 shortly after buying it, but I never paid much attention to it, since I never liked Doom 3 anyway. My other games, such as Team Fortress 2 never gave me this problem. I suspect it may be the GPU overheating, since HWMonitor says it's usually 90C when I play L4D and I'm pretty sure I caught it at 95C at some point. It's hard to test the temperature right before a shutdown, since HWMonitor loses everything when it shuts down and the temperature goes down a bit even when I alt+tab.

Things I've tried already:
Undervolting: No good. I still shutdown after some time, although it may take more time than usual. Also, it makes a very high pitched noise whenever I undervolt (similar to the sound a CRT TV makes when on, for those who can hear it).

Underclocking: Works if I set it to 50% (Same as power saving mode). The downside is that I get some lag spikes, but it's still playable. It's what I'm using now.

Sending an e-mail to Gateway Tech Support: Even though I gave them all this info, their answer was that it was probably a software issue and that I should see if a patch was available (which is impossible, since it uses Steam). The alternative was sending it back for repairs, which would be very inconvenient, since I have to use it for College and I'm not even sure if they would fix the problem properly (it never crashed on me while running benchmarking programs).

Compressed air: Bought the radioshack brand. Sprayed it in short bursts not to damage the fan. Absolutely NO dust came out. Maybe it's just a bad brand? No change whatsoever in temp.

Currently I'm running it in Power Saving mode, which solves my problem partially, despite the eventual lag spikes I get.

So I'm thinking about buying a notebook cooler for this thing, since I use it mostly on my desk. But I heard it may also be a PSU issue. (It shuts down with NO warning or error message after all). So what do you guys think?

Edit: Oh well it seems the thread right under mine had a similar problem with a slightly different model...
Actually there are more threads... I'm going to link to all that I find up to page 15:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=360321
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=359281
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=353712

Bad laptop design?

 

Maybe consider using AS5 thermal compound. Also if you want you can unscrew the bottom and check if the gpu fan is working correctly and get the excess dust that way instead of using compressed air.

 

if you want to put AS5 on the gpu you will have to take the laptop completely apart, but that will void your warranty. Maybe there is a problem with your gpu because mine never goes above 65C, maybe less. I have the 6860FX.

 

AS5 on the GPU?
Dangerous....use some non-conductive thermal compound...if you're doing or be extra careful...

If it's still in warranty, maybe try gateway?

 

I had the same problem with P-173fx, the newer games overheats my laptop and just shuts it down.
I bought the 7811fx just to test and ran the same games and it never shuts down eventhough it gets very hot too.

 

Thanks for the replies, guys. Guess I'm out of luck... I will try unscrewing the bottom to check the fan, if that will not void my warranty. Can anyone confirm this?

Sending it to Gateway would be really unconvenient, but I guess I will do it if I can't fix it myself.

Oh and I forgot: my GPU idles at 41C and usually never goes past 50 I think unless I game. Different games have different impacts. Currently the only games that I have that cause it to shutdown are L4D and Doom3, which seem to be very GPU intensive. Maybe I can try running GeoForms to see if it will shutdown?

 

Yeah true. Arctic Ceramique would be a good choice.

 

Well I ran GeoForms for quite some time and the maximum the GPU temperature reached was a healthy? 71C. Guess it only gets really high when I stress both the GPU and the CPU, such as by gaming. I don't feel really comfortable with replacing my GPU's thermal paste, so is there any way I can just downclock my GPU and/or CPU when the GPU temperature is high enough? I'm hoping I wouldn't notice the difference, since I'm used to playing in Power Saving mode anyway... And how much would a notebook cooler help, if at all?

Oh and I haven't opened my case, but the fans seem OK. The fan on the left (GPU I presume?) turned on after 10 seconds of running GeoForms and went to maximum speed after about a minute. The other fan (CPU?) started some time after. I could definitely feel the cold air being pulled and the hot air being exhasted. I could even hear the hot air hitting my hand if I put it one or two inches from the exhaust.

 

How about check to see if the thermal pad is in good shape.
I heard some people had to change out the thermal pad and cured the heating problems..

 

Well but that would void my warranty, right? Unless I sent it back to Gateway AND they somehow determined it had to be replaced.

And they would probably replace it with another thermal pad instead of thermal compound, right?

 

If you can still return the laptop just do it or try to have it fixed by gateway. I returned mine after all the shutdowns.

I always test the laptop right out of the box and ran all my favorite games, if they all pass 3+hrs of gaming on mid to high settings then its a keeper.
If you decide to return it to gateway leave a couple of demos on the laptop so they can test.

good luck!

 

Good news for P-173X or XL owners! I bought this nice thing:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834999336

Now the GPU seems to max at 76C in L4D and it didn't shut down in 2 hours of testing. I'm very happy now. So the problem was indeed bad GPU cooling.

@kennl66: Well I tested it when I got it, but it only shuts down on very specific games (L4D didn't even exist when I got it). I could play TF2 all day, for example, and it would not shutdown on me.

Thanks for the help, guys.