Overheating problem

guys i've experienced for the first time game stuttering due to heat. I quit the game immediately and opened HWmon to check and heres the thing.


Card 1: 60 degrees

Card 2: 89 degrees (!!!!)

The game i was playing was NFS Shift, which is SLi compatible. SLi is turned on. I tried another game, CODMW2, same problem. The games run perfectly smooth until the temp mark is reached, and then drastically slow down.

Fans are unclogged, cleaned them last week even though they were in acceptable condition.

Drivers are 195.55 BETA.

Thing is i've never had this problem. the laptop has been running perfectly upto today and i haven't changed anything recently. I've just seen the new drivers are out so i'll install them and see if there's a difference. But right now assuming that won't change anything, what can i do?

 

Changed the drivers, still same problem!!

this time i left HWmon on during the game.

Card 1 recorded max temp: 70 degrees

Card 2 recorded max temp: 89 degrees

BUT while i was checking: card 1 was at 53 degrees, and card 2 at 83!

whats going on? is card 2 unexplainably throttling?

 

I know very little about the 9262, but are you sure one of the GPU fans didn't die, or get disconnected?

 

It is possible that a fan is not working correctly, unmount the laptop and check that the two fans work just anyway you had a program that marked the revolutions of the fans with this application you can also check the revs are right for each fan .

 

I'll check the fans now. FUMETAMAT, speedfan isn't compatible with this laptop, i'm not sure what other programs there are

 

Speedfan is usually useless for notebooks.

I recommend you to use the alternative programs to monitor the temps

As for fan control, use the Clevo built-in Fan Toggle (Fn+1) on that notebook to switch all fans to max speed or to auto speed.

Another important thing you should realize....
- cleaning out the vents, then the fans are important
- you need to check on the thermal compound on the GPUs and CPU each year (since it might need a re-application).

 

as i type i have the laptop tilted to one side.

Gophn i'm well aware of the fan toggle and the vents are pretty much clear. I'll look into an alernative monitor prog. All fans work, even with fn+1. If it were a thermal paste problem, both cards would show a tendency to overheat, or at least they would heat up by the same amount. This is not the case.

I never noticed this before, but the notebook "feels" hotter touching around the keyboard too, but that may be an impression since i'm pretty worried about the notebook right now.

 

I think you need to re-apply your thermal compound for the GPUs... they might have dried up and/or cracked by now.

 

Would a thermal paste problem cause just 1 card to heat up?

 

yes... easily.

you should re-apply thermal compound once every year or so.

 

ah. sad. if i'm not mistaken it takes weeks for thermal paste to settle. I don't have that kind of time atm.

I got a small syringe of leftover Artic 5 from when Xotic applied thermal paste to mine on order, it should suffice.

What should i do in the mean time? refrain from gaming altogether?

 

you should still re-apply the thermal compound since you should see an instant result of cooler full load temps.

 

OK. i'll do that while i'm away for christmas, but that won't happen for another two weeks. I still need the laptop for work and game, and work also implies some pretty heavy loading. should I avoid it? is 90 degrees going to cause damage in the short term?

 

just open it up and do the re-application.... just takes 5 minutes or less.

then close it up and continue what you are doing.... no need to wait.

do not continue to game if the GPU keeps on reaching 90C.

 

Gotcha! i was convinced the compound needed time to settle, after i read the instructions it was clear i had misinterpreted the break in period.

I found this guide to applying thermal paste
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3339276&postcount=1

do you have any 9262 tips you could share?

 

get the service manual to see how to remove the videocard module.

dismantle the heatsink assembly of the videocard

carefully clean off the thermal compound from the GPU and the heatsink using a piece of paper towel (that has some WD-40 lightly sprayed on it)
..... leave the other thermal pads alone.

then put a small dab of the thermal compound in the center of the GPU.
- you have the option of spreading out yourself a bit with a business card, plastic card, or something like that.

then firmly put together the heatsink assembly again and secure the videocard module back in its spot.

 

Ok. So you're confident this couldn't be any other hardware problem?

 

I have never read of a notebook overheating because of faulty hardware here in NBR... most of the time overheating is caused by dust clogging the fans/vents, thermal compound not doing its job, improper use or simply bad hardware design. Overheating caused by thermal compound cracking or being insufficient is fairly common, believe it or not...

 

I am pretty certain.

 

Gophn's usually right.