A tale of 2 HP Mini's. Try to fix or send it in?

So....I just picked up a pair of HP Mini's. One for myself and one for the lady as a surprise. I set the first one up and all was well. The second seemed to be a bit..."touched." While doing some Windows updates (only a few minutes after taking it out of the box), the machine hard-froze (requiring hard reboot). I did this several times in the span of 30 minutes, prompting me to uninstall some of the updates, then reinstall them.

After that spell it seemed to behave itself...then I turned down the television. The computer was markedly louder than the first I had set up. It was like the fan was going at 100% all the time for no apparent reason. It felt no hotter to the touch than the other Mini and had not been subject to any different conditions. Even running only the Bios, the fan was at 100% (or some high level).

Much longer story made very short, I started contemplating lots of ideas (reformatting, switching the HDDs on the 2 systems to see if that would matter, etc.). Then I went with the most simple: run ORTHOS...and observe the effectiveness of the cooling solution. After all, maybe the fan was working harder because it was running hotter, right? Off to ORTHOS we go...

Mini #1 (the one that never had a problem, quiet as a mouse)



after 10 minutes + on high load, CPU and chipset are reasonably cool. Fan is still relatively quiet.


Mini #2 (the touched child)



! that's after 3 minutes. actually, that's not entirely true: it lasted 7 minutes or so...then the machine shut itself down. I assume it was the temperature fail-safe.

A tale of 2 HP Mini's. Is it possible to fix a cooling solution problem like this? If not (of if that's not advisable), should I send it in to let HP fix it or just return the thing and be done with this particular Mini? I ask about returning because I don't know if I should be concerned that the CPU/GPU!/Chipset may have been damaged over time due to poor cooling. Like I said, the system hard froze several times during the initial setup.


Thanks for your insight!

 

Definitely send this back to HP - this sounds like a poor application of the thermal pad (or other cooling components) to me. No new laptop should get anywhere even close to that temperature.

 

IMO just send it back and get a replacement or something. I won't take the risk of the problem returning after a short duration of time :/

New stuff aren't meant to be defective like that >:[

 

People amaze me these days - everyone is so willing to tell people to tear things apart, send it back, trash it, whatever, instead of doing what's easy and simple. Of course since it
doesn't affect anyone but the person with the problem, I guess it they don't give a ratza$$.

If you had put down what the model or product #'s were I could've looked up the info for you, but since you didn't you'll have to do it yourself. The easiest solution is actually to install
any SYSTEM updates first, THEN Windows updates. Too bad that you didn't install the HP updates first before doing the Windows updates - you might have dodged the problem altogether.

Get the Product # from the label under your system then enter it in the field at this link: HP Online Support

Once there, install the HP updates first, particularly any BIOS updates - usually when you have a problem with the symptoms you've described, a BIOS update will fix it.

This particular HP Support Notice covers most regular HP Notebooks:


Fan Runs Constantly, the PC Operates Slower than Expected and Generates Heat

Sound familiar??

Like I said, you'll have to check the support page for your system configuration to see what updates there are for the problem system.
I suspect that a link for the above bulletin is there also - if so it'll be under the Product Information link.

If you still have a problem (though I doubt you will) check the exhaust vents for any debris. Since companies started using coolies for assembly tasks, debris has been showing up in more and more notebooks. And they're not "Inspected By" tags....

 

People amaze me these days - instead of asking questions and making sure they have all the information they need, they leap to boundless conclusions, as if they're talking to 12 year old students they must scold. Bad day at work? Take it out on someone else. Why not just ask for the model number? Why even suppose to pretend you're punishing me, as if? lol.

You know where I said "Much longer story made very short..."? well...that's because I cut out about 85% of the story to make the post short. Maybe that large and meaningful phrase was lost on you..

Anyway, I spent 3 hours on tech support with HP. I scoured the web for hours looking for others who may have had cooling issues. I searched for and installed all of this model's updates (bios, chipset, etc.) before installing Windows updates, though somehow you gathered from my post that I had not (lol). Opened the machine up (removing the keyboard) to check for anything unusual. And the fan was moving air well, so there was no need to check for debris. I attempted to download the HP image of this computer to place on a flash drive so that I could reload the machine to its original configuration, but naturally, HPs image downloading utility doesn't work.

As for your awesome "sound familiar" link, I have seen that page before. No, it provided no further insight. the Bios were already up to date. the chipset was up to date. the vents are obviously clean. the computer is not moving slowly. it's just running hotter than it should. it's really interesting. when the fan quiets, any small task will make it kick up again. as I found out with my chipset monitor, any small task made the computer heat up. A clear sign that there's something up with the cooling solution. In fact, there is no difference between how these machines were set up other than that one has a problematic cooling solution. That appears to be the core issue at this point, as tech support and I worked through all of the other obvious potential causes to the problems.

But thanks for your rant. It was really...uh...worthless. lol. If you have something meaningful to contribute, feel free to post that instead of wasting my time and yours. otherwise, get the hell on. take a lesson from President Obama: don't speak until you have all the facts you need to make a judgment.

 

I would send the second one back, it seems like the heatsink was not installed correctly from the factory, resulting in that near 2x the temperature.
If its recent, return it to the store and tell them that you have two identical systems and one runs 2x as hot as the other, and they should give you a replacement free of charge if its under 15 days or whatever the stores policy is

K-TRON

 

Cool. I shall. It only just arrived yesterday. a replacement should be no sweat.

 

It totally is a defective product and It seems that you have no other logical option but to turn it back and get it replaced...