Notebook temps high?

Hey everyone! I'm not sure if this would be the right subforum for this topic, but I didn't see a better option!

I have a P150HM that Ive had for a couple years, upgraded with an nvidia 680m, 12gb ram, etc etc. I haven't noticed temperatures being very high until recently(I actually just installed speedfan, but I occasionally check the back of the laptop and underneath to see heat issues). Anyways, while gaming lately, the notebook has been slightly laggy, fans have been going at max speed like crazy, and the temps were over 80 degrees when I had put speedfan on. I'm honestly nervous to load a game now because I didn't think the temp would get that high! I've had the laptop just idle(other than browsing the internet) for about 45 minutes, and the temps in speedfan are:

gpu: 44
hd:39
core 0: 57
core 1: 58
core 2: 57
core 3: 50

should i be worried at all? i was considering buying a new laptop(and have made a couple threads but havent decided), so i'm not sure if sooner would be better.

I do have a notebook cooler that i constantly use under the notebook to cool it off. I just cleaned it off(its not very dirty anyways).. hmmm

 

When was the last time you actually cleaned the insides of the laptop from dust?
Specifically the areas between the air vents and the fans?

Also, if that (dirt) isn't that much of a problem (better recheck anyway)... then you could look into cleaning out the old thermal paste from the cpu and gpu and replacing it with a fresh thermal paste (the old coating can dry off after some time, resulting in increased temperatures).

Apart from that... have you considered lowering the maximum voltage of your GPU (if it's possible) to the minimum sustainable one while its operating at full capacity (such as gaming)?
I did it with my previous 9600m GT - I lowered its voltage from 1.1V (I think) to 0.85V at the time.
It reduced my temperatures between 10 - 15 degrees C - so, perhaps you can do something similar on your 680m.

 

Hmmm... i somehow managed to not even think of that, lol. I'll have to clean the vents in a little bit! The thermal paste was added maybe a year ago. I'm not sure how to lower voltage and not sure I want to mess with it; I don't want to blow my laptop up! I remember that when I bought my p150hm, it had an older card, but a year or so later, i upgraded to the 680m... would that have anything to do with it? I haven't been able to find a working driver since i had the new card installed(mythlogic installed the card for me, and sent me a link to download the specific driver).

 

Right... my suggestions would be to:

1. Clean the laptop internals manually of any and all dust buildup.
2. Remove the thermal paste from CPU and GPU and replace it with a fresh/new one.

As for undervolting... actually, you cannot blow up the laptop by doing that.
All you'd be doing is reducing the amount of electricity/power the GPU uses while operating under full load (such as gaming).
Doing this, you are not reducing the GPU's performance in any way... you are simply reducing the amount of power it draws, and as a result, you end up reducing the temperatures.

There is windows software available which can allow you to undervolt the GPU without doing bios modding.
'Nvidia Inspector' could allow you to do this I think, and possibly 'MSI Afterburner'.

You will have to consult with others who have the 680m to see if/how it can be done, but realistically, doing a software undervolt is not harmful in any way.
Worst case scenario is that you undervolt too much while searching for the lowest stable voltage - in which case, the system would hang.
But if/when that happens, you simply restart Windows and bump up the voltage to the one where the system was stable.

Its quite simple.
Granted, I'm not too familiar about undervolting procedures on new GPU's because most people seem to want to overclock them instead.

 

OP,

Like Deks said, clean the fans etc and use some new thermal paste.. I strongly suggest IC Diamond or Gelid GC Extreme.. I've been using IC Diamond and that thing dropped my CPU Temps by 10C compared to MX-4 which was junk..

Secondly, as for undervolting, do it for the CPU and for the GPU, you really shouldn't mess around if you don't know what your'e doing..

On third thoughts, you can undervolt your i7-2xxx processor so just leave it as it is... Use some proper paste and your issues will be sorted.. I cleaned my fans + applied IC Diamond on CPU and temps dropped by 15C.. I hadn't cleaned them for 9 months and the amount of dust collected was absurd..

 

Undervoling the newer generation of Intel CPU's is not exactly a cut and dry job... but undervolting the GPU should be relatively simple by comparison.

Ultimately, one wouldn't lose anything by informing themselves on how to do it and do a software undervolt (which to my knowledge cannot harm the system).

 

For GPU's I wouldn't say its clear cut... Also the 680M runs cool so the problem is more with probably the thermal paste and pads used on it.. Repaste and Repad with Fuijipoly Extreme pads or use Phobya XT pads..