Laptop Experiencing Overheating Issues

Hey everyone, I have a hp pavillion dv6tqe from December 2012. It has an intel i7-3610qm cpu and gt650m gpu.
Recently, in the past week or so, I experienced two computer crashes/shutdowns from overheating. The first time, I was gaming when the computer blue-screened. I assumed it was either overheated or a driver problem, but wasn't sure at that point. More recently, approximately yesterday, my computer again crashed from overheating during gaming. This time however, it entered hibernation (I was on battery, so i assumed it was the battery.) and when I turned the computer back on multiple hours later I found out it was a result of overheating. The screen looked similar to the screen advanced boot options screen, except with a different color scheme and different fonts. It said something round the lines of, "Critical temperature reached..." I don't exactly remember the message.

I after this occurrance, I installed CoreTemp on my computer to measure its temperature. I should note that I have a cooling mat with a fan underneath my laptop, I bought it a few years ago for a different laptop. The two crashes occurred without use of the cooling mat, but the following temperatures are with:

idling/minimal activity my cpu is approximately 50 degrees C
when gaming (Civilization V) for about 30 or so minutes my cpu reaches about 80 C
i didn't strain my laptop further, beyond about 80 degrees, as i thought that was reasonably high.

does anyone know what may be the problem here? I'm not an expert on computers

 

You need to repaste. IC Diamond is the best, in my opinion, and the easiest to apply. I'm sure you can find a youtube video about someone repasting the cpu with the same laptop as you have. It will show you how to take it apart.

IC Diamond Application

You don't need that big of a blob, being you're not trying to cover the entire thing, just the glass. But with inexperience, it's better to put a little more than not enough.

 

thanks for the reply. i did see a video..... but i have a strong inclination that i would have great difficulty completely disassembling and reassembling my laptop, especially remembering and correctly reassembling all the small parts. is it possible for me to give the laptop to a hp support center or something, and have it fixed? my laptop is still under the warranty, but im not completely sure this situation is covered by it. Or, is there any other solutions to the problem that are less, intensive on disassembling things? would love any additional opinions/suggests as well.

 

Call a few local computer stores and see how much they'd charge for the repaste. I fear that if you send it back to hp for anything, you'll be without it for at least a month.

 

Overheating is covered by warranty, and most vendor warranty repairs shouldn't be a month, especially for a repaste (for which HP will most likely give you a new thermal module). That should be maybe a week, they usually ground/express, depends on the warranty you got.

 

gaming on battery doesnt help as its a sure fire way of killing the battery early.

i dont know your laptop but those temps look ok to me. when it hits 90c it will downclock to protect the hardware.

what hard drive have you got. if its a spindle drive then the max temp for that would be 65c

when was the last time you cleaned your vents and fans out with compressed air. its advisable to do it every 3-6 months.

download who crashed from my sig below and post the bsod dump report on here and we can advise what was causing them.

 

As MrDJ already asked, when was the last time you cleaned out your air vents and system from dust?
It IS recommended to clean them out once per 3 to 6 months (depending on how dusty the environment you live in is).
Usually, overheating is caused by a buildup of dust in the system - especially in the area between the fan and the air-vent.

Re-application of the thermal paste would be recommended if the system is about 2 years old. - although the paste itself could be left longer, even if you have a gaming system (unless of course the system is dust clean and you see temperatures climbing).

As for sending the laptop back under warranty for thermal issues - it would certainly make things easier considering they designed the thing to be disassembled completely (I really dislike those kinds of laptops that prohibit easy access to the internal components - I certainly see no advantage to close the system like that from an engineering point of view, although its likely a deterrent from people opening the thing themselves and instead having to opt in for the manufacturer doing the repairs).

You could try and find the disassembly guide online for your laptop and do the cleaning yourself.
Still, I think you can reach the internal cpu and gpu by pumping compressed air inside, and while it can clean up the system ok, its not always equally effective compared to opening the laptop and cleaning it yourself.

 

i havent cleaned the air vents since ive bought it, which may be a cause of the problem. does anyone know of any tools i can use to blow compressed air into the laptop? preferably a common household item, as i don't believe i have anything for that.

the blue screen occurred a while ago, and it hasn't happened since, so im not TOO worried.

my system is less than one year old as of now, so i guess ill hold off on the paste, and try cleaning the vents.

im not entirely sure if this is the info you want, but its an 750gb HDD with 7200rpm i believe.

 

A hair dryer blowing on the coolest setting possible might work, but seriously, go to your nearest Best Buy, Staples of whatever and buy a can of compressed gas for cleaning electronics, they're dirt cheap.

 

might sound a silly question but do you have a cat or dog around the house. the amount of laptops ive heard of that have been clogged up with pet hair

blowing from the outside will move it but it will most prob still be inside the lappy. the only sure fire way of clearing it out is to remove the baseplate. normally a Philips watch screwdriver will be all you need and of course a can of compressed air.

there is lots of handy free software in my sig below to monitor your temperatures.
download core temps for cpu and gpu-z for gpu. you could also download HD Tune for the hard drive to check the temperature of that. as i said anything below 60c is good. 60c-65c is bad.

 

i laptop processor reached up to 90 degrees while gaming, which i felt was extremely high. as a temporary fix, i lowered the maximum processor state to 95%, which actually significantly reduced temperatures, probably about 10-15 degrees less. i'll still probably be cleaning up my fans and stuff too though, thanks for all the replies everyone!

I also tested civ V (yes, not very intensive, but its still a relatively new game with solid graphics) at 40% maximum clock rate, and it was completely smooth, no noticeably poor frame rates.

edit: no i don't have any pets, nor any major source of dust in the primarily location of my laptop, except maybe dead skin cells (which actually comprised 66% percent of dust around a typical house!)