It's obvious laptops get hot...

Hello notebook pros! I'm here to gain some knowledge and information on a new (refurb) laptop I am using. I just recently purchased a z575 that comes with an a6-3420, 6650m discrete card, and 6gb of ram. I really enjoy this laptop, and a lot of its great features, minus it being a fingerprint magnet.

I do a lot of gaming on this, mainly dota2, but after playing crysis 2, I became concerned at the temperatures when the cpu read ~90c after thirty minutes of single player. The game runs great for me at around ~30-40 fps, on 'gamer' settings and with the laptop settings on high performance and 'efficient thermal dissipation'. The heat starts to become unbearable around my palms and playing the game with or without a notebook cooler (cm u3) doesn't seem to make a difference.

I have read plenty about how much re-applying new thermal paste can help, but being that I'm under warranty for a year I decided to call customer support and get their opinion. The first time I called they replied saying that the z series isn't a 'gaming' laptop, and after explaining that the game ran fine with no hiccups minus the heat, the reply was that it wasn't a 'gaming' laptop. I sort of got fed up and hurried to end the call. I called a second time and got a different representative, I clearly asked if the heat was something they could fix, and there was no clear response, just a 'send it in and we can look to see if there's something wrong'.

I understand this isn't a y series, but the components are capable of pretty decent 'gaming' imo. Is the heat something I am just stuck with, since it's a low-end notebook? Or could there actually be something wrong, worth sending it in for repair?

tl;dr: Cpu gets to about 90c playing crysis 2. Has anyone sent their laptop due to a hot processor during gaming, and what were the results? Or should I just re-apply new tim, void warranty, and hope for the best.

Thanks for reading. :thumbsup:

 

does the cpu throttle? If not, then don't worry about it too much. The cpu max temp is 100c.

set the power option to high performance, and run hwinfo64 sensors in the background and monitor the cpu clocks.

if you're careful, you can repaste and no one would know. I doubt your laptop has any warranty tampering stickers inside.



just to set a baseline for cpu temp, run prime95 for an hour and post your max temp.

the gpu adds to the heat, that's why you see cpu at 90c.

 

I ran prime95 in-place large ffts and maxed out at 80c on high performance, efficient thermal dissipation, and my notebook cooler on high.



I was also able to catch core 0 reading 0mhz for an instance, like literally half a second or less, it also does this during idle too.



As for throttling I can't say I fully understand it, but the cores were fairly consistent, no erratic behavior.

 

Well the CPU is clearly throtting to 1.6 GHz from its 2.4 GHz maximum. Apart from applying high quality thermal paste, there isn't much that you can do to the laptop. A workaround would be to buy a laptop cooler. It's not the most attractive option (to me at least) but it may help keep your temps down. Also try elevating your laptop so that the intake vents on the bottom have plenty of clearance from the surface the laptop is on. This may help cooler air cyle through the laptop better.

 

Different laptop maker, but I was able to replace TIM in a HP DV6 and later send it in for warranty work. They said nothing about it and fixed what was wrong with it. Just make sure not to screw anything up.

 

no throttling, because 2.4 is boost. The stock voltage they use is amazingly high, try to undervolt a bit using k10stat. Fact is you can undervolt + OC at same time.

If it is still hot, may downclock the gpu mem a bit and see if that affect fps.

 

notebootcheck has temp benchmarks on slews of notebooks. Best to read up on which ones stay cool before buying!

As for laptops,check the usual intel and amd cpu tech specs. Eg. I5 runs up to around 56-60watts in turbo mode. That's like a 60watt light bulb under your laptop! Thus, it'll get hot.

Cooler? Try laptop cooler, lower power cpu laptop, or simply run an external keyboard.

 

90C is a little hot though still in the specs of that CPU.

have you made sure your CPU/GPU heatsink fans are cleaned? if they are clogged up with dust that will seriously impact your laptops cooling ability.

otherwise i would suggest investing in a decent laptop cooling pad.