Sager NP2096 Problems

Hey folks,

I've been a happy owner of an NP2096 for just under two years now, and just a few days ago, my computer has started shutting down completely during large file transfers and moderately graphic heavy gameplay. For some reason, this is even happening for games that I have been playing for years (warcraft 3, Starcraft, and Counter Strike) without having changed my video settings. On top of this, my battery has suddenly plummeted to a 15 minute life span.

I've run a few tests and the have come up with a constant; if my GeForce 9600M GT card hits 105 degrees Celsius, then my computer will shut down... Should my card even be hitting that temp?!

Here are my specs:

Sager NP 2096
Windows 7 Ultimate
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAN at 800MHz
200G 7200rpm SATA 300 HDD
Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT 512MB DDr2


I'm guessing it has something to do with my fan or heatsinks?

Any help is much appreciated, if there's any more info that you need, I'll do my best to get it.

Thanks.

 

First off, batteries deteriorate - especially if you use your laptop while plugged in with the battery in. That's the biggest killer of laptop batteries.

More importantly, your graphics card should NOT be hitting 105C. That's why it's shutting down, as to not damage the card. It's a built in fail-safe. Here's what I would do:

1) Make sure that all your fans are actually working
2) Re-apply thermal paste to the GPU (this step requires you to open up your laptop if you feel comfortable doing so)
3) Get a laptop cooler. If you're using the laptop on a soft surface, it may be blocking the vents. And if not, the extra fans will help.

Also, are your fans revving up when your temps get high? Or are they just staying relatively low? There could be a problem with your fan controller.

 

Take of the backpanel, take out the fan and remove the dust in front of the heatsink. If you never cleaned those parts in 2 years, it's no wonder the GPU is hitting 105°C. Otherwise follow tehshanerator's instructions.

 

I've cleaned my fan, heatsinks, and heat exchange on a regular basis so none of it has been blocked.

After my computer shut down for the 3rd or 4th time, I opened up the back panel to take a look and found that my fan is in fact still working. It does rev when ever the temps start to rise, but when I place my hand in front of the heat exchange vent, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of air coming out.

I've been keeping my laptop on a hard surface the entire time, but do not have a laptop cooler.

I guess my next steps would be to reapply thermal paste and get the cooler base.

If my GPU already has a silicon based thermal pad on it, I'm guessing I should scrape it off and clean the chip before reapplying. Am I correct?

Thanks for the quick feedback, guys.

 

Yes, first clean the chip, then reapply new high quality thermal paste.

However, 105°C on the GPU is very very high. Simply applying new thermal paste or buying a laptop cooler will not help. Are you 100% sure there is no dust between fan and heat exchanger or heat exchanger and chassis? Such high temps would also be possible if the heat sink makes no contact with the GPU, but this would only chance all of the sudden if you dropped your laptop recently or something like that.

But there is a quick way to find out if the GPU is really the problem or your overall cooling is somehow impaired. What's your CPU temp? Both CPU and GPU share the same fan, so if something is wrong with the fan/heat exchanger the CPU temp should also be too high.

 

My thoughts exactly. Honestly I thought that your fans probably weren't functioning correctly, but Daniel brought up a great point that it's possible that your cooling system might not be making full contact.

 

Unless there's some vent on my computer that I don't know about hidden away on my computer somewhere that echanges most of the air, I'm positive that dust is not the issue here.

Here's the thing that I find kind of weird (and maybe I should have mentioned this earlier): While my CPU will start and idle at around 31 Celsius, my GPU will start at around 51 Celsius then will gradually go up up up as I idle my machine. Within about 10-15 minutes of idling, my GPU will rise to about 75 Celsius or so.

When I opened up the back of my machine and ran it, I noticed that no matter what, the heatsink connecting to my GPU would always be much hotter than the heatsink connected to my CPU.

Temps at start up:

CPU: 31 Celsius
GPU: 51 Celsius

Temps while running ORTHOS CPU loader for 15 minutes:

CPU: 86 Celsius
GPU: 85 Celsius

Temps while running Furmark for 1 minute:

CPU: 51 Celsius
GPU: 105 Celsius (power shuts down completely)

Just today, I also noticed that when I idle my laptop, the fan doesn't seem to rev up; only when I boot up some graphically intense program will it speed up. I left my computer for 15 minutes at the desktop screen and came back to a silent machine. I started HWMonitor to check the temps and they were at 44 for the CPU and 75 for the GPU. Not until after I started up Furmark did the fan kick in and start to rev faster.

 

86°C on a P8400 is actually too high as well. It's just a 25W TDP CPU... it should run at something like 66°C max. So +20°C. In that system the GPU will get a little bit hotter, something like 85°C max. So +20°C would mean a GPU temp of 105°C which fits the picture. BTW your system is actually no Clevo but Compal, so it would better fit this forum, but it's also a Sager laptop so it does not really matter.

I have some experience with Compal laptops and unless you dropped your laptop recently or there was some other physical influence it is unlikely that your heat sink makes no contact with the GPU all of the sudden. Unfortunetely Compal is not known for the strongest cooling solutions... I had quite some trouble with overheating components in my Compal FL90 which has basically the same cooling system than your JHL90. The main problems were always related to dust in the system. I believe you if you say you cleaned the system, but sometimes it can be tricky to catch all the dust... did you really remove the fan and cleaned both sides of the heat exchanger? In order to clean the outer side of the heat exchanger you have to remove the heat sink on both CPU and GPU so you will have to reapply high quality thermal paste anyway. Just in case you do not have a service manual at hand here are the parts which you have to clean:

Note: The picture from the service manual shows the version with onboard GPU, in your case there should be a second heatpipe running from the GPU to the heat exchanger.

 

Hmm, I haven't removed the heat sinks from the machine. It seemed as I blew air through the heat exchange, there weren't any blockages. Anyways, I'll try giving that a shot.

What are the chances of this being the cause of my laptop shutting down completely/Chips getting so hot?

Edit: Also, for some reason I'm unable to access my BIOS properly. when I hit F2 during the Phoenix screen, all I can do is access the time and date. Any pointers?