P150HM: Maintenance and Big Performance Gains (FYI)

Many of the expert users will already be aware of the stuff that im about to summarise, so this is mainly an experience which may prove useful to those less in tune with their systems and have been suffering from performance loss. I should also give credit to this thread which I referred to:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...e-guide-upgrading-thermal-paste-your-own.html


Issue
I noticed recently a big performance decline in my laptop (equipped with 485m, see sig). I first noticed it when playing Far Cry 3. The first 5 minutes of playing were always fine (with FPS at 60 plus), but the framerate would start to drop after this period and the game would crash/ become laggy etc. I googled Far Cry 3 and it seems I wasn't the only player who had such issues. However, this was occurring on other GPU intensive tasks such as Deus Ex etc.

Using the temperature software SpeedFan it was clear that GPU temperatures were sky-rocketing when firing up some serious gameage.

Typically the 485m would reach a maximum of: 97 - 100 deg C (!!!)

Using FurMark showed that the GPU was throttling back (reducing clock speed) when the GPU reached 97 degC, in order to maintain a safe operating temperature below 100 degC. The result is obviously a performance decrease resulting in reduced framerates etc. while gaming. Idle temperatures even seemed high with the GPU sitting at 51 degC.

Solution

Given that this was clearly a temperature issue the solution would have to involve some serious cleaning of the internals of the laptop and a possible thermal re-paste job. I opted for both.

Opening the laptop revealed some pretty comical results. Unfortunately I didn't take pics of both CPU and GPU but here's a pic of the CPU heatsink. Clearly the heatsink was caked with lint (and even included a few pubic hairs to boot).



The GPU was in an even worse state, with a thick layer of lint caked across all the outlet fins of the heat sink. Not GooD!

So I went in a with a can of compressed air and some bits of card to ply away all the dirt. I also cleaned off the previous thermal paste and re-applied with some fresh stuff.

Results

Performance and stability have improved dramatically since the cleanout. During intensive gameage temperatures do not exceed 80 degC and therefore no drop in framerate occurs. At idle the GPU now sits at 38 deg C. (Note ambient is about 25 degC).

I therefore thoroughly recommend a regular cleanout to maintain stable performance.(obvious to many here as stated before).

 

Thanks for the write up! Cleaning the system is definitely going to make a huge difference as you noticed. Sounds like you had a rather extreme case of buildup to deal with and I'm glad it helped to resolve your problems. Now keep up the maintenance and you'll have your computer for a long time!