HGL-30 CPU spikes with lag

I recently experience some problems with my HGL-30 hope you guys could help

Whenever I play games like Guild Wars, Battle for Middle-Earth and WoW, they run quite smooth at first. However, after maybe 2 minutes I suddenly experience a huge reduce in FPS, the games just suddenly start to shutter for about 10 seconds. I have no idea what's causing this but I do notice during that 10 seconds lag period my CPU usage suddenly spikes up to 100%, and the laptop fan goes into the highest spinning speed. (I could just hear it spins up). Any help would be appreciated, and if I did not provide enough information regarding the problem please do inform me about it. thx

HGL-30
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200
Vista Home Premium 64 bits
2 GB RAM
100GB Hard drive
Nvidia Geforce go 7600 (Forceware 165.01 from laptopvideo2go.com)

 

Did you try Defragmenting your hard-drive ?

 

I would recommend to do a CHKDSK in command prompt:
- START > RUN > type: CMD
- (in command prompt) type: CHKDSK C: /R
- say yes and restart.

hmm have you tried this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

and do you monitor your GPU and CPU temps?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81852

 

mujtaba:
Yes I have defrag my HDD couple times with AusLogics Disk Defrag, problems might not be emerged from HD.
Also I have reformat my laptop 2 times, each time I ran checkdisk after the formatting. But I still can't get rid of that problem...
As for the Multicore hotfix I think it's only suitable for XP anway

 

When it starts screwing around, check your CPU temperature and video card temperature using notebook hardware control and the nvidia display settings respectively. It sounds like your notebook is attempting to throttle things down when the temps get too high rather than an HDD problem. Let us know your numbers.

 

OK I've used RMClock to log an instance of the lag spikes and here's the stats.

An Excel data: red colored text indicates abnormalities during the period of lag.


The RMClock stats of core 1: notice the sudden drop spike which indicate the period of lag.


One more thing I notice is that my core temp went as high as 90.0 C, enough to almost boil water! Even with Targus Cooling Pat too! Is it normal?

 

I think it's on the hot side, since my processor goes to 75 degrees max under heavy load, and that's without a cooling pad!
Your cpu is throttling because it's getting too hot, which explain the decrease in performance you mentionned.
Maybe there's a contact problem between the cpu and the heatsink?

 

How do I check if there's a contact problem between the CPU and the heatsink? And 1 more thing, I notice that if I open up speedfan and compare the temperature values with RMClock, there's a 15 degrees difference, like if RMClock displays 50 speedfan reads 35. I guess Speedfan got the right temp?

 

I think RMclock is correct.. My GPU is about 55C under max load.

 

H O L Y H E L L.

Your core 2 duo is getting way too toasty. My CPU would get to 60 C max and it's the same processor. If you installed notebook hardware control, try undervolting it to 1 V for the largest two multipliers and running the test again. It'll probably still be very hot but should be a little better until you figure out how to fix it permanently.

 

I have no idea why my CPU is getting so hot. Could it be a BIOS problem?Also I would try to reformt ack to 32bit and try NHC...

 

Whoever assembled your system my not have put the heat transfer goo (very scientific name) on properly. That CPU temp is insane. The core 2 duo processor turns itself off at 100C and it burns out at 120C. Most people who own a HEL80/HGL30 have a temp at around 40-50ish, maybe even 60ish under load assuming an ambient temperature of ~20 degrees. Never have I heard of 80C+.

The fact that it runs near its max operational temperature is inexcusable, you may consider sending it back to be fixed. Before you do that though, you really should check the contact of the CPU to the heatsink. The only problem with this though, is that when you take the heatsink off, it may reduce the efficiency of the thermal grease. This is because it may put a pocket of air between the heatsink and the processor. However, to get temperature readings like what you have, you would need to have one or more of the following:

1. a LOAD of dust/dirt in your computer
2. live in the tropics with 50C+ room temperature
3. have all your vents in your computer blocked completely.
4. Your processor thermometer is whacked

Therefore it's quite likely the grease on your processor either is not there, or has not been applied properly. You could send it back under warranty, or you could put new grease on, though that may prevent you from getting it fixed under warranty later, though it's likely when you send it back under warranty, the techs will do the CPU check anyway.


To do the CPU check yourself, you will need to buy some thermal grease ( this is highly recommended, but you could also try this), a glasses cleaner cloth, or a similar lint free cloth (NOT a kleenex or a paper towel), some isopropyl alcohol (high purity, 99%; you can get it at a drug store), a Phillips head screwdriver, and do the following:

1. Take off the bottom covering for the fan on your laptop.
2. You will see a metallic plate with four screws and a copper heat pipe on it.
3. Take out the screws, put em somewhere close; you need to put em back later.
4. Put some isopropyl alcohol on the cloth, and wipe off the grey crap on the processor and the metal plate you took off. Try not to scrape it off with something metal, it may make a gouge in the heatsink, which is bad.
5. Apply some arctic silver paste. Use an amount equal to half the size of a grain of non-cooked, short grain rice (so a very, very small amount).
6. Some people say to spread the grease on the processor, and some say don't bother; the pressure the metal plate applies will squish it enough that it will spread out.
7. Put the metal plate back on, put the fan cover back on, and your done! see if that makes a difference...

 

Awesome how-to Lt.Glare

 

Follow the steps by Lt.Glare, he's got some good info in his post.

If you really need the machine stable (I know some people are doing finals right now), try using RMclock to run the lowest voltage possible at ALL speeds (I do this on my machine 100% stable), and if you want it even cooler, limit to power saving mode so it's clocked low..

 

I think I finally solve the problem. Opening the fan cover, I found heck load of dust on the fan and the little tiny gap between the fan and the side air-flow. I went and brought a can of compressed air and blow those bad boys out, that brought back my allergy and now I got a super runny nose.

Anyway, I think it was just like Lt.Glare said, I got heck load of dust blocking the air flow so the heat are forced to flow back inside the machine and thus cause an increase in the CPU temp.

You guys are of great help and now I no longer need to worry about burning my laptop right before finals, THX!

 

Sweet deal! Glad to hear you got an easy fix

 

Woot. Sending it in would've probably costed you sixty bucks to blow some dust out.