CPU Heat Spikes After DC Jack Repair

Hey all,

I just recently got my laptop back from a repair of my DC jack.

The DC jack itself is perfectly fine and it works great. The problem is my CPU.

On start up, the fans go extremely loud (very very loud) which is NOT normal for my laptop. I know that prior to sending in my laptop, start ups would be virtually silent.

Furthermore, I got a PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable when I started it up. I fixed this through BIOS settings and it wen't away on next start up.

But back to my CPU problem, at random times temperatures on all 4 cores would spike from 50C to 90-100C. A huge jump. This would be coupled with a very fast increase in fan speed which would result in a lot of fan noise. And note, this is under NO stress at all.

Prior to sending in my laptop, it rarely hits 100C even during intense gaming. And now for it to spike to 100C while idle?! This makes no sense at all.

My CPU: Intel i7-2630QM btw

ANY help at all as to what I could to do fix my laptop/suggestions would be very greatly appreciated.


Thanks so much all!

 

The most likely culprit is a problem with your CPU heatsink or thermal paste.

You didn't mention which model of laptop you own. But this should be an easy-enough fix for an end user to apply, if you are comfortable with it. It will require you to research the correct procedures to partially-disassemble your laptop to the point where you can access your CPU heatsink. Remove the heatsink, remove all of the thermal paste (using rubbing alcohol - 90% is preferred), apply new thermal paste, and then re-seat the CPU heatsink.

In all likelihood, your laptop manufacturer probably "fixed" your DC jack problem by just replacing your entire motherboard. Doing that would require that they also remove the CPU and CPU heatsink during the repair process; and they probably failed to properly re-install the CPU heatsink when they were re-assembling your machine.

 

Hello and thank you so much for your response! I have an MSI Force 16F2/XoticPC Force 16F2. I'll post a picture of my laptop tomorrow probably but there are 2 locations where heatsinks are installed and I'm not too sure as to which one to disassemble/or how to.

And on a side note, I sent my laptop to a repair service and not the original location where I bought my laptop as my warranty ran out and they refused to repair my laptop.

Any recommended thermal compounds in the meantime?

Thanks so much for the help! I really appreciate it!

 

I'd recommend looking up the documentation for your system.

An MSI system should be pretty straightforward, since the designs used by MSI machines tend to be a bit less "design-y" and easier to partially-disassemble.

As for thermal compound... if you have some lying around, just use that. If you are buying new thermal compound, you might as well get Arctic Silver 5. The difference between generic thermal paste and name-brand thermal paste is nearly unnoticeable for real-world usage. The only time it makes a difference is for people that use thermal measurement tools and go through extreme steps to squeeze every bit of performance out of their machine. Not because there is practical benefit in doing so; but rather because they get personal satisfaction from watching benchmark measurements going as high / low as possible.