Hot CPU / Bad Video Driver / Acer ePower ?

I am not much of a gamer but the 'what is a good first game' thread got me at least interested. Being a Star Wars Fans ......

I downloaded and played the Star Wars Empire at War Demo and initially I would get about 5 minutes into then 'Pow" my Acer would just turn off (complete shutdown) . I figured it was Video drivers issues - so as Chaz suggested I removed the Omega Drivers and I went for the Stock newest Catalyst drivers. After that I played for about 10 minutes and thought cool .

Yesterday I played for about 30 minutes maybe longer then 'POW' again with the instant power off.

So what I am thinking is maybe a heat issue with the CPU. I suspect this as when I looked at my Acer power management I had the AC connection with CPU at maximum . Latley I have been running my Laptop on a cooler all the time (HD temps went from high 40's low 50's to 37 sometimes low 40's) - this should have kept the CPU cool as well ...

I installed NHC and with the CPU ePower setting at max more or less idling (doing some surfing) and sitting on the cooler - I got a warning yestreday the CPU temp was > 85 ???

I have since set the CPU speed to High (not much I run is that CPU intensive) will monitor for a while. Since the change and NHC install CPU has been runing in the low 60's. I have not played star wars again for any extended period of time since (may later today)

Just curious if you guys think I am barking up the right tree or perhpas it is still a Video driver issue ?

 

Why don't you run a temp monitoring tool such as Speedfan with logging set to on? When you reboot, you can check the logs.

If I'm not mistaken, PM's automatically shut down around 125°C

Also: your cooler pad won't do much for CPU temps. It is meant to bring down the case and laptop inside temps. This is mainly benifitting all non-forced aircooled components such as HD, general MoBo, wireless card, power conversion etc. The CPU, GPU etc. also benifit, but to a lesser degree.

 

Interesting I am looking at NHC for logging options. NHC does tell me CPU Temperature shutdown is 95 (C - about 200 ish F) so no where near the 125 you suggested. And with the warning of 85 yesterday another 10 degrees seems doable.

I will see if I can log the temps.

 

125°C is the temperature at which the CPu signals the power supply to shutdown, no matter what. The 95°C you found is probably one of the speedstep thresholds. Could be the throttling startpoint or the shutdown point, where the OS is signalled to commence shutdown.

Then again: I could be suffer from catastrophic memory failure myself

 

Suspecion verified - with NHC running CPU temp went from 61% ==> 95 after a few minutes of Playing Star Wars NHC caught it and I was able to abort shut down sequence ....

Now my next question - aside from playing my games outdoors (It is winter here ) or resting the Laptop over an ice tray

How do I fix this ?

 

How old is your laptop? If you have had it for more than a year, i would buy compressed air in a can which have long, thin tubes and use it to blast air into ur laptop's vents to clean out dust.

If that doesn't work, or your laptop is newer than 1 year, try listening for the fan and see if it is actually working. If you can hear it, maybe it is not working as good as it should be or maybe there is dust blocking the airflow which you cannot reach, which you would have to open the laptop up to reach.

If your laptop is still covered by warranty, send it back to get it repaired by acer.

hope this helps

 

Compressed air is the fountain of youth for better temps. Last time I blew mine out, the temps went down nearly 10C. And the critical temp for the Pentium M is 100C as stated in Table 5-1 on page 60 in ( ftp://download.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/30526202.pdf)
. Don't worry about your Pentium M. My sat on 75C for about 10 minutes and I freaked out but no damage. Maybe there is a fan control program like i9kfangui for the Inspiron i9300/i9400/e1705. I would check into that. I always turn my fans on high before I play any game. I hope this helps.

 

Darbyjack / ccbr01

The compressed air thing I do regularly to my desktops, even vacuum out once a year and recommend to all the machines I am ‘default support’ from friends and family, especially with intermittent shutdowns .

So yeah ..........(ever hear the story of the Shoemaker and his kids shoes ....) ..The compressed air is obvious albeit...

I never even considered it for the Laptop Hey Zeus .....Good looking boy but stupid: o - I must of thought I bought the 'Anti Dust Package' when I bought the Acer and yes just about a year ago .... Apparently I passed on that option and Volia - blast of air - idling temp goes down from 63 ish to 48 ish .....

I cannot believe that never even entered my thought process – I almost considered opening it up and operating ……… must be low on Beer well I will toast you two at least , thanks !