NP8170/P170HM loud and 65C with no load--normal?

I purchased a Sager NP8170 from XoticPC about a year ago. It's always been quite loud, but lately it's really started bothering me (don't know if it's gotten louder or I've just gotten sick of it). My CPU temperature right now is about 65C, and CPU utilization is less than 10%. It's like that all the time.

Is that a normal temperature for a mostly-idle NP8170? I use this laptop at work, and it's noisy all day. The guy next to me calls it his space heater. Just today I was on Skype with someone, they asked if I was on a plane taking off. Seriously.

What should I do?

(edit) My GPU hovers around 50-55C when not playing games. Is that normal also?

 

too hot for idle temps imo, you should think about repasting and cleaning the fans/vents. specially if it's a year old and has never been cleaned. pretty sure you've got a community of dust balls partying in there.

if you're not comfortable repasting the thermal compound, try cleaning it out first and see if y9ou really need to repaste or not btw

 

Are there any good instructions out there for repasting? I'm happy to do so, and feel comfortable doing so, but I want to be sure I have a good set of instructions for doing so. Also, which thermal paste should I buy? Newegg link?

 

BTW, I see Geekz that you have an almost identical set up to me. 4x4GB 1333 RAM, 2760QM, SSD + HDD. What temperatures do you see?

 

As for thermal paste, I like arctic silver 5, but IC Diamond 7 works good too. There are a few others some will recommend, but those are the two I've had personal experience with.

I'd advise you to check amazon for deals on it as well. I got a large tube of Arctic Silver and a small supply of their Arcitc Cleaning stuff for like $10. Should last me for quite a while lol

 

I'd suggest prolimatech PK 1, Arctic silver MX-4 or ICD 7.
honestly the differences in temps for thermal compounds is minimal for non overclockers so any of the suggestions here should work fine.

for instructions, it depends on the paste used actually like ICD 7 would use the pea sized method.

and as for my temps, with an ambient temp of around 27-30c, Idle would be around 45c-48c on cpu, 48-52c on gpu, on load my max cpu temp was 78c and 88c for the gpu on furmark for 5 mins.

currently using prolimatech pk -1 on mine.

 

I happen to have a few guides handy for how to apply thermal paste.

Application

Maximum PC | How-To: Properly Apply Thermal Paste and Install a CPU

The above links should help with application.

For thermal paste removal, newegg carries the Arctic Silver thermal material remover and surface purifier.

For actual thermal paste recommendations, each person has their own opinions on which pastes to use. As Geekz has his own list of recommended pastes, and it is a nice list, I have my own as well.

My own recommendations are either the Arctic Silver 5 or the IC Diamond. Those are only my opinions and I have personally used both on my own personal machines without any issues.

 

Great! I cleaned everything out thoroughly, repasted with Arctic MX-2, and my temps are way down. CPU idles in mid-40s, peaks in mid-70s, and GPU idles in low-mid 50s and peaks in mid-80s.

Thanks everyone!