my mx6421 is hot! no really, it's hot...

i just got a gateway mx6421 from best buy mad: ) about a week ago for $800. it's got 512MB, 80GB, AMD turion64, etc.

a few days after i brought it home, i picked up the power brick to move it and it was HOT. i mean really, really hot. i've dealt with a few laptops in my time, but i've never picked up a brick that was that hot. oh yeah, and you can hear a humming coming from it if you put your ear up to it.

i downloaded HDtune and the temp is 48C / 118 F. is this too hot?

the fan seems to be on a lot and dang, this is a warm machine. am i in trouble here or is this normal? i am kinda worried about having my power brick on the carpet, so for right now, it's hanging over a door knob.

any help or advice is much appreciated. thanks in advance.

 

I have the mx6121, which has the same power brick and body as the mx6421, and I also hear the humming. This is normal, and you can hear this "humming" with most AC Adapters, some more than others. As for the heat, the powerbrick gets hot, but not as hot as you are describing. I've definately had power bricks hotter than this. Your's sounds fine to me. As for the Hard Drive Temp, after 2 hours of moderate to heavy use, it gets up to 50 degrees C tops, but normal use it is only around 40 degrees C.

 

The buzzing noise is normal, yes. As for the heat, If you can keep your hand on it without "pain," it is fine. Just don't let it get covered. The power brick will be hotter when you are playing games or charging. Take note of that.

 

hey hellmans! i see you're in iowa, too! a rare find on a forum, it seems.

thanks for your advice all.

the power brick, when at it's hottest, can only be held in my hand for a few seconds with moderate hand pressure on the brick. i guess the reason i was concerned was because i've never touched a brick this hot. the fan in the laptop comes on about every 1-2 minutes. i am usually running about 3-4 apps at a time (limewire, photoshop, ms word, firefox).

any more opinions would be greatly appreciated. gateway said they would send me another power brick, but i always trust members on forums more than tech support at any large corporation.

 

what power mode do youhave it set to? I know someone with this laptop and the fan never kicks in. Maybe a clogged fan or something spray some dust in there. Turion should get warm underneath but not hotter than the hd location on the left side. 48c is fine

 

power mode is set for laptop. there's no dust in the fan...it runs constantly. i just got it last week. the fan kicks in every few minutes. i'll check the fans, but there can't be anything in there.

what should i do? would a new power supply help?

 

i am also wondering, would added 512MB to it help at all?

 

Adding ram wouldn't help the heat at all...has no affect.

If they're sending you a replacement power brick, just wait for that and see if it's any different.

On my gateway(8510), my brick isn't all that hot, except for one section of it. Just where the cable comes out to the wall, on the bottom, it's significantly warmer than the rest of the brick...if I held my hand up against it tightly, it'd be "hot"...but why would I do that? It's not gonna catch anything on fire and sitting on my carpet it's fine(I leave it there for hours, and if I pick it up and check the carpet...the carpet's only "warm"...perhaps I wouldn't place it directly on hard wood floors though, stick a small mat or something under it then).

So just see what happens with the new brick. Your numbers for the laptop itself sound fine.

 

hmm what about when you run it on battery- no power cord at all whats the fan and heat of the unit like? what kind of batteyr life are you getting

 

kinda warm when on battery. i can have it on my lap and it's ok. i am getting a hair over 2 hours for battery life. fan is on some of the time when it's on battery power. it almost seems like it's hotter when plugged in (maybe during charging).

 

well when you are unplugged you run aroun 800 mhx doing normal surfing, etc. when plugged in its going to run hotter.. but i bet it is the ac adapter

 

Heh, yeah, I don't know of any other active members from Iowa (besides my brother) I'm in the NE portion (Decorah).
Anyways, I am not a genious when it comes to Turions, but it sounds like you should be getting more battery life than that. My Athlon64 does 2:25 (when doing normal tasks: Winamp through internal speakers and Firefox [at the time]), and that can be considered a "desktop" processor.
Monitor your CPU usage (Ctrl+Alt+Del). I recall that I once had spyware (or maybe it was something else.. ) that was causing my CPU to run at 100% for extended periods. That means more heat (power adapter and machine), less battery life, and slower performance. I can't remember if reformatting was required, or if I just decided to do that at my free will.
Good luck

 

i guess i haven't done a true test of battery life yet. i'll have to check it out.

in looking at task manager, i am hovering between 10% - 30% just using firefox and surfing the web. it fluctuates (obviously), but it's usually nearer 11% or so. i don't think i have any spyware (yet), but i am running macafee security center right now.

 

You definatly shouldn't be seeing that high usage. Under the task manager how many processes are running? I have 46. In my tray I have Zonealarm and Symantec Anti-viri along with a couple other things. My CPU is hovering aroun 5%. I have the Gateway MX6425 (AMD Turion-37)and I get around 3 1/2 - 4 hrs battery.

 

well, i have decided to sell the unit. part of me wants to sell it because i got it from stupid best buy. i think i've found another machine that more meets my needs!

any takers?

 

You are selling it online? You might as well just return it to BestBuy (if the 14 day return period is still in place).
Anyways, what do you plan to get as a replacement? Just curious

 

Hello Everyone!

I bought this model a little over a month ago. I've been lurking around this board since I bought it.

My powerbrick gets hot too. But not so hot I can't touch it or hold it in my hands. The unit itself is super cool. As a matter of fact I was really impressed by how cool and quiet this thing runs. Especially after working on my cousins Dell which got super hot rather quickly.

 

i picked up an HP DV1000 (1610) from best buy for $700. lesser processor and screen, but it will do me just fine! anyone want to buy a gateway?

 

Right now I am touching the power brick on my MX7525. (I call her Linda) lol.
It's preety warm, around 40 degrees or more....it's not that hot..My laptop fan is going but it's still a good temp.....I really think you should get it checked out.

later.

 

Got my Mx6421 Today, I think you may have over reacted. The power supply does get warm and it does hum, but it's normal for this model. Gateway isn't the greatest in the world, but i think this model is not to bad. It does everything i need it to do perfectly fine and get about 3 hrs of battery life only if i'm running programs that don't use the processor as much, mostly just running word. It does run a little warm and the fan stays on and goes off very little, which i'm told is normal for these type of processors. i would rather have the fan on and know the processor is cool, then have the fan off. Even with the fan on it is very quite. I love the dvd burner and widecreen. All in all i think it's a decent bang for the buck, even being a best buy product, which i normally boycott. i give it an 8 out of 10, if it came with more ram i think it'd be a lil bit faster, but otherwise its good light and nice.

 

well the HP dv1000 is going back anyway. i won't even bore anyone with the story.

so here i sit with my gateway...and my newly cleared-off emachines M2105 that's for sale on ebay. sheesh. i am so frustrated right now.

i don't find this gateway to be that speedy, considering the processor. it seems kinda sluggish. ugh. i am so tired of all this. i've been through 4 laptops in four weeks. barf.

 

It just needs a ram upgrade and it will go alot better. I bought a GB memory stick and it seems a lot better.

 

i should also note it's running kinda slow, too. high CPU spikes, slow application startup...any ideas? i should probably start another thread for that one.

 

The RAM upgrade would give you a good boost in performance. Also, the bloatware that came with the computer is probably slowing it down and making it work harder. Try uninstalling some of it. Something else to note: I believe the MX6421 only comes with a 4200 RPM Hard Drive, which could be bogging everything down. For around $100-$150, you upgrade the Hard Drive to 5400 RPM, or 7200 RPM, and use the old one as an external hard drive with a hard drive enclosure, although the performance shouldn't be effected that much because of it. After making a backup of the drivers, also try reformating the Hard Drive, to take all of the junk that Gateway put on the computer off. I have an MX6121, which is the same Laptop minus the Faster Processor, DVD Burner, and other extras the MX6421 has. With a Celeron 370 1.5 GHZ Processor and 768 MB of RAM (Upgraded from 256 MB), I would say it is pretty fast in my book. Score of 2:01 calculating to 2 MIL digits on Super Pi, and the CPU usage level is around 5% when doing some moderate to slightly heavy things. From what you are describing, it sounds like something is slowing it down.

 

it may seem a little slow because of the powernow technology. if you put it on "home/office desk" while plugged in it will run max butget a little warmer. You have the thing running at 800mhz and then you try a big app or open a program and its having to take a second to adjust the multiplier. You dont get both batteyr life and coolness AND speed lol