OVERHEATING! PLEASE HELP with VGN-SZ330P

Hi, i have a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ330P (the regular version, not premium), and recently the fan has been making a lot of noise. So i searched on google about this fan noise problem, and people are saying its because there is too much dust so the fan can't rotate properly, hence the loud noise. Therefore, i unscrewed the laptop from the bottom, and looked at the corner fan, and there was only a little bit of dust! I was surprised because i've had this laptop for about 2 years and never opened it before. So i cleaned the dust that was there, and turned on my laptop. The noise still continued! Also whenever i feel the bottom of my laptop; where the corner fan is and also the center (which im guessing is where the CPU is located), it is VERY hot! Even when im just browsing websites!

Now, i do play games on my laptop, but never before have i had a heat problem or a fan noise problem. I was really worried that my laptop might overheat and like melt the video card or something, so i stopped playing games. But today i was just viewing this video, when suddenly my laptop just shuts down!!! So i felt the bottom of my laptop again, and it was hot. Without knowing what was going on, i just retstarted my laptop, and googled "random laptop shut down," and discovered my laptop had overheated. This was when i decided i HAD to do something before it was too late.

Out of desperation, i kept searching google for answers, and found out that my heat sink might be the problem. Very little dust was on the fan itself, but i think that the heatsink might be loaded with so much dust that my laptop is heating up VERY fast. BUT if this is true... why the loud fan noise? I still don't have an answer for that. But im very sure that i HAVE to clean out my heat sink ASAP. So once again, i googled for answers on how to clean a heat sink, but found no help on my sony vaio model! So after hours of search, i was led to here. This is basically my last resort for help.

I am in desperate need for help, and im so worried that the heat will soon melt the video card (this happened on my alienware PC before) or something might happen to the cpu. I haven't really said what i need help with exactly. So i will try to list them in detail the best i can:

1. Can anyone find me a tutorial for cleaning a heatsink for my laptop model? Or does anyone know how himself/herself, and can provide a picture tutorial? Meaning like a tutorial on how to dismantle the laptop, and removing the heatsink, etc.

2. Does anyone have an idea why the fan noise is so loud lately? Im pretty sure its not cause "it runs at max speed now'' because.. it always has run at max speed. Also this sound is sometimes like a rattling, viberating noise, which i certainly know is not normal.

3. Please tell me your opinion or suggestion because im very amateur in this catagory with laptops/computers, so the problem might not actually even be the heatsink (this was just an educated guess made by me). So if you have any ideas or can comfirm/agree with my assumptions, please let me know!


Thank you for reading this, as it ended up being longer than i anticipated. Thank you once again, and im am very desperate at the moment, so ANY help is very much appreciated. I will resist gaming for a while until i find a clear solution to this problem. (Yes im a gamer, so this is actually hard for me, lol). Oh yeah~ also if you need any additional information, please let me know.

 

No need to panic

Here is a website that teaches you how to open up SZ and change your hard drive. This should give you a good idea how to pop open the laptop.

http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=43&PHPSESSID=c2d2ac9a83004093c19398362984be38

I only hear fan noise when I am on "SPEED" mode. Majority of the time I am on STAMINA, running at 1 Ghz.

If you know what you are doing, you can always get some Arctic Silver 5, pop open the back of the laptop, remove the old thermal compound and put some Arctic Silver 5 on. This should reduce the temp.

Since you have SZ3, I assume you are running on XP. Vaio Power Management should have an options to turn down fan speed.

Another cheap solution is get a laptop cooler. Just put it under you laptop while you play games.

Hope that helps

Ch28Kid

 

Thanks for the reply ch28, but my dad decided to go to this computer store and buy me a new gaming desktop instead ^^'' And the store said they would replace the thermal compound with a new one for us. Thanks anyways though. Lol moving from a 13'' laptop screen to a Digital 22'' monitor is as crazy as it gets. Its so big, and when i saw my old laptop screen a week later (it was getting fixed) i was like "OMG ITS SO SMALL!" lol. Yeah i just got my laptop back from the store (thats why i cudnt reply for so long, i forgot the site but it was in my favourites). Its very very quite now, yay. Well thanks~ byee