Problems with FL90

About a year and a half ago or so now, I bought an FL90 laptop, formatted with XP Pro 32. Despite never having monitored the temps, I had been gaming throughout the first few months of use, and never had a problem with stuttering or framerate drops of any kind. A couple of months I go, I reformatted the machine with XP pro 64 bit. I haven't played any games in awhile (which is the only cpu intesive activity I do with my comp), but have begun to do so recently, and noticed small periods of gameplay where my framerates would drop dramatically. And I do not mean moments where a lot of this/that were visible on screen causing the drop, I mean, I have an 8600M GT graphics card and a T7700, but even CS 1.6 would face the dip in framerate. It's not normal, so at first I checked my GPU temps to see if that was overheating and likewise downclocking, but that wasn't it. Then I downloaded RMclock, and saw that my cpu's core temp was very high (about 60-62 when idle, and eventually hits 90 after being under full load for awhile- ie. gaming). My cpu begins throttling down to half speed once it hits 90 degrees, cools itself down, goes back to full speed, eventually hits 90 again, and then throttles down (repeating that processs). That is why, as I mentioned earlier, whenever gaming, I have small periods of stuttering that go and come, eventually becoming more and more frequent.

Now, I mention that I reformatted to 64 bit only because I've never experienced problems under XP 32. That isn't to say that one day I was running 32, playing games fine, formatted with 64, and then went straight to this problem. I haven't played anything in a really long time, so I can't nail the cause of this issue to XP 64, which for everything else has been fine so far (although I imagine the core has probably always been this hot, although I've never noticed, monitored, or done anything that would trigger problems). I can say however that finding drivers for the 64 bit OS was extremely difficult, and that this issue may be driver related if not dust/dirt/summer heat related. The chipset drivers, I think I remember finding a 64 bit version of them, but got some error along the way of certain items not being installed. As the system ran fine for everything I used it for, I didn't think much of it at the time. And as I'm looking through the drivers now, I never actually found a 64 bit version of the "TPM 1.2 driver". I don't even know what that's for. Things like the fingerprint sensor, camera, and memory card reader I don't really care about and it's not as if that's essential anyways, but obviously the chipset drivers and perhaps the TPM driver is... (I don't even know what the TPM driver is or does). Anyhow, I'd like to solve whatever the hell is going on by fiddling with software if I'm able, as I have no confidence whatsoever with opening up my laptop. I really, really feel as though I'd destroy the damn thing, and I have very important data on my hd at the moment. I realize in some awful event I were to kill it I could eventually get it out and put it in another machine, but, yeah it's more of a money and time sort of thing... So anyways, there are a couple of missing items in the device manager. If I'm lucky, maybe they have something to do with it? 2 are noted as "base system device" both located on PCI, and one that is "unknown", located "on Microsoft ACPI-compliant system". Would finding drivers for these items possibly help me out?

And if you do recommend I clean the laptop, is there any easy way I can do this, without fully opening it? I read somewhere to use a vacuum on the outside of the laptop, while it's off, placing it near the air vents. To me that sounds just plain stupid/possibly dangerous, but I don't really know anything about hardware so I'm just curious.

Thanks for any help

 

May be due to Xp 64 bit or defective GPU, you can try XP 32 again, or check Dell lastet BIOs update for faulty Nvidia GPUs. check here: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4527

 

The gpu never downclocks or faces abnormal temps though, the cpu does, and during gaming, every time the framerate begins to stutter, the cpu begins throttling. The framerate drops are explained by the cpu throttling, which is explained by the core reaching its threshold of 90 degrees, I'm just trying to figure out why it's reaching that temperature. Also under device manager, under computer, it reads "ACPI multiprocessor x64-based PC". I'm guessing this is definitely generic, has anyone found a fully working XP 64 driver for the FL90 chipset?

 

The release notes indicates that this driver supports Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
http://www.bizcom-us.com/support/IFL9091/Drivers/030/Windows_XP/01.Chipset/V8.3.0.1013.zip

Cleaning a notebook with a vacuum???
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268807

Cleaning Your Notebook Guide Part 1: Cleaning the Air Vents - by Caleb Schmerge
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4020

 

This was exactly the problem I was having in TeamFortress2 - things got too hot, and the cpu would throttle down to half speed. Pull the bottom panel off over the heatsink (it's easy), and blow any dust out. If it's real dusty, maybe try a can of compressed air, but I just gave it a good puff from my mouth. Once you've got the dust removed, put the panel back on, and start looking around for something to raise the back edge of your laptop up off your desk a little. An extra quarter-inch of gap can make quite a difference, and also make sure you don't have cords or other junk behind the laptop impeding the airflow from your laptop's exhaust vent.

 

^^Can you tell me which compartment I need to open to do that

Also what exactly should I be looking for once it's open? I don't know what the cpu or heat sync look like (not that good with hardware)

 

You want the one you've labeled B. There's four screws, and it might seem like it's not going to pop loose at first, but it will, just work at it a little (same thing putting it back on).

(The hard disk is under A, and the memory is under C)

You're just looking for any accumulations of dust, pick any big clumps out with your fingers, and blow the rest away. Once you open up panel B, it should be pretty obvious...

 

i had a similar (throttle/stutter) problem, turned out to be dust covering the vent from inside (marked in the photo below). try getting the dust out with a thin, dull, prefeably plastic object. try not to make contact with the board.
Here is the disassembly manual, just in case.

 

Thank you, you remind me I have to clean my laptop

 

Ok I'm going to have a friend who's a little more experienced with handling hardware take any possible dust out, in the meantime I've undervolted from 1.2V to 1.1V, which hasn't caused any stability issues. Going further creates bsod errors but I've been at 1.1V for awhile now and it works fine, plus it seems to max out between 75-78 degrees after quite awhile of gaming, so it doesn't hit the 90 threshold anymore (at least for the amount of time I've been playing so far, which the longest for any one sitting has probably been ~2 hours). Looking at the temp graph after playing though it seems like the high 70's is its mature temperature. It steadily increases but seems to remain at that temp for awhile, I'm sure it'd stay that for quite some time. I also cut a plastic cup in half to wedge up the back of the laptop a bit, so that it's at about a 30 degree incline or so now. It does seem to help the heat escape a bit, if I leave it flat on the desk and put my hand behind the vent it feels like less heat's coming up than if I wedge it, which means more of it stays inside I imagine, causing issues such as mine to worsen a bit.

Thanks for the help guys