Notebook runs WAY hotter on its side??

I have an MSI gx630. This is some very strange behavior.

Running furmark, GPU maxes out around 60c
Turned on its side, and it hits almost 90c in a few seconds

I've ensured good thermal paste spread and all screws are well tightened. I'm pretty sure its affecting the CPU as well. My only legitimate theory is that it somehow flexes the chassis and makes the heatsink break contact... but it doesn't seem quite right.

Heres a screenshot:

Spoiler

 

The grill of the fan is on its side. Are you blocking that?

 

no.

Look at the graph. Even if I was doing that, it would not change nearly 30 degrees in literally 5 seconds.

Also, it happens whichever side I tilt it towards, left or right. Its much worse on the right side.

 

Does your fan speed change on its side?

 

Only after the GPU gets to 70 or so.

FYI everyone, I measured the image and it seems the temperature graph timescale is roughly 1 pixel to 1 second.

So the 3rd peak (tilting on the right side) rose from 60 to 87 in 10 seconds to be more accurate.

 

I would ignore it.

You rarely game with a sideways laptop. LOL

 

your heatsink is gravity driven probably tilting on the side is preventing proper distribution of the coolant inside and thus causing it to overheat.

 

My HDX has done that once when I was playing GTA IV over HDMI on a external monitor and rested the entire computer on the backside of the lid at a 90 degree angle; freaked out when I started getting particle effects (I don't remember which part overheated, I just shut it off after I saw it). I think it took 5 minutes to do that?

 

OMG of course.
That makes so much sense and yet its so strange... would never have occured to me...
This gives me so much to think about. Thank you.

Its a weird heatsink... the gx620 and even gt628 heatsink don't have copper heatsink fins like mine, much less a copper fan shroud.
I wonder why MSI did that.
Well, as soon as I figure out how to mod the MXM II heatplate for MXM III cards, we'll see if it lives up to the gt627/628 cooling capacity. I'll be sure not to turn it sideways with a card 3x the TDP of this one.

 

Yup, those heat pipes operate best when they are in horizontal state (for proper distribution of the coolant inside). If you tilt it one side or the other it effectively becomes a copper stick.


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That is weird, why did msi cheap out on my heatsink

 

They didn't cheap out; heatpipes are much better at transmitting heat than a solid bar of copper. Now, admittedly, they may have cheaped out in the sense that there are heatpipes that are better at transmitting heat no matter what angle they're at (due to wicking materials incorporated into said heatpipe), but the fact that they used heatpipes instead of solid copper makes for better cooling.

 

No, I meant why did msi use aluminium heatsink fins and an aluminium fan shroud in my GT627, while they used copper in the GX630.

 

probably because ur GT627 was cheaper? Whichever way it is cooled , as long as its prorperly designed and works unlike hps useless designs, it doesn't matter what material they use.

Panther214

 

Cost.
Alu is much cheaper than copper. That's it!


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Yes, certainly... then why is the gx630 their extreme budget model? This has a 2ghz ql-62 lol

 

Oh, I got models confused somewhere in there. That you'd probably have to take to the engineers; I'm not sure I've ever seen the insides of either.

 

Its ridiculous. the gx630 and gx620 has the CPU socket and chipset reversed too, so my CPU is actually directly on the other side of my plamrest, right under my hand.
I want to say that it was designed earlier and they found some improvement with aluminum over copper, but who really knows...

 

The only improvement they found with the aluminum is to their bottom line.