HP Pavilion dv6000 Overheating - problem solved for dv6244eu

New thermal paste solved my issue: down from ~85 typically to under 50 degs C (currently cpu#1 = 46; cpu#2=41 as I type this).

There's a lot of stuff on the web about the dv6000 models overheating and being too hot to touch. There's also the class action in the US due to the faulty nVidia GPUs. My model, the dv6244eu wasn't covered by the recall and HP won't budge despite it having run hot virtually since new. I wasn't keen on the BIOS update as all that did was set the fan to run all the time and mine were on all the time any way The CPUs would regularly be up in the 80 degs. C and sometimes more. At idle it would sit in the 70s. The heat has fried on HDD, which I replaced, and the table got so hot it cracked.

I took the plunge and took it apart following the maintenance guide I downloaded from the HP site. Note the guide isn't 100% correct for this model and you need to undo 2 x hex screws under the track pad to get it apart, which took me a while to work out (search for "dv6000 mrfoo"). This isn't for the novice and there are a lot of fragile ZIF connectors to deal with. You have to take almost everything apart to get at the CPU heat sink. It had a crappy bit of metal heat transfer film that I got off carefully with a scalpel. Then once I'd cleaned the CPU and heatsink with a solvent I put on a thin film of new thermal compound (Arctic Silver 5). I put it together (twice as I forgot the fan connector first time) and then it works brilliantly again and is really quite now the fan isn't flat out all the time. As I said, it now sits under 50 degs so the crappy thermal film added over 30 degs to the CPU temperature.

I also cleaned the dust off the fan. I don't think you need to worry too much about getting Arctic Silver 5, just any reasonable paste would do. The whole job does take about 3 hours and you need to be pretty rigorous keeping track of all the parts and screws. Make sure you do the screws up tight again as they tend to fall out once they've been removed. I really should've used Loctite as this was used by the factory.

Tools needed:
Posidrive 0pt screwdriver
Scapel
Solvent cleaner
Thermal paste
Fine fox-nose pliers are handy
Tiny adjustable spanner

I hope this helps if you've been looking for a solution and nothing's worked that you've seen so far.

-g