Sony Vaio VPCZ13 powering off on high CPU load (thermal paste burnt)?

My Sony Vaio VPCZ13 has been working perfectly since 2011 or so, until a few weeks ago. When I have the power plan to performance, and the Maximum processor state to 100%, it randomly shuts off several times a day, specially when I put a high load on the processor, which can be doing easily opening several Chrome tabs.

However, if I set the Maximum processor state to 70% or lower for example, I never ever have a shutdown, either using the integrated graphics card or the nVidia 330m.

It looks a lot like the thermal paste is burn or worn out. Searched on google for this issue and it seems a lot of Vaios are affected. What do you think, should I replace the thermal paste of the processor?

 

Well I have to ask first, how long is that since the heatsink was dusted off and thermal paste replaced last time?

 

I never replaced it.

 

Well that kinda explains it, it's probably the CPU overheating due to hardened thermal paste and dust clogging up the heatsink.

Your baby really needs a fresh thermal paste and a through dusting now. I do these to my laptops annually.

 

1. Under load, does the fan run full blast? If not, weird driver issue.

2. With the fan running full blast, can you feel the air blowing out of the vent at least 4 inches away? If not, clean the fan and air passages.

3. Is the air blowing out of the vent hot or relatively cool? If it is cool, the heatsink is not making proper contact with the CPU/GPU. Replace the thermal paste. This is trickier for our VPCZ1 than for most other laptops. The same heatsink covers both the CPU and GPU, and these are different heights, so there is a thick thermal pad over the GPU that tends to get damaged when you remove the heatsink. Be sure to read this entire thread. http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/vpc-z-change-thermal-paste.594314/

 

1. Yes, under load the fan speed increases.

2. Yes, with two cores at 100% use the air is coming out of the vent and I can feel it slightly warm, at say 7 inches (19 cm) in a straight line from the exhaust grid.

3. The air blowing out of the vent is hot, I'll post more temperatures information next.

 

Ok there's a simple spreadsheet of the temperatures. The cores and gpu temperatures are measured with CPUID HWMonitor exactly just before shutting down. The exhaust vent temperature was measured with a K-type temperature probe for a multimeter.

Notebook: Sony Vaio VPCZ13M9
CPU: Intel Core i5-460M
GPU: NVidia GeForce GT 330m
BIOS > Advanced > Platform Thermal Configuration > Throttle On Temperature: 93 ºC (default)

( TEMPERATURES\ STRESS STATE) || ......... IDLE .........|| ... CPU+GPU STRESS
ROOM TEMPERATURE.......................|| ..18 ºC / 64 ºF..................................
CORE #0...............................................|| ..65 ºC / 149 ºC.. || ...98 ºC / 208 ºF
CORE #1...............................................|| ..66 ºC / 151 ºF... || ...104 ºC /219 ºF
GPU.......................................................|| ..66 ºC / 151 ºF....|| ...93 ºC / 199 ºF
VENT EXHAUST (COPPER LEVEL)...|| ..59 ºC / 138 ºF...|| ...74 ºC / 165 ºF

If I select the optimus switch to Stamina (use integrated graphics), the vaio computer may shut down but much less frequently.
I'll duplicate all information on the most visited thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/vpc-z-change-thermal-paste.594314

 

If you can feel the air from the vent 7" away, the fan is fine and the air passages are clean. I expected the air to be hotter. Have a go at changing the thermal paste.

Note: the thermal pad on the GPU is very prone to damage. Be careful while removing the heatsink and you might be able to use it again, otherwise you'll need a new pad or a copper shim 0.5 mm thick.

The thermal paste on the CPU is hard cement - unless you have the special cleaner, it will take you a long time to get it off. Be patient - do not scratch the surface of the CPU - work at it until you get a mirror finish. The other thread has links for the cleaning solution and the shims. Careful with the fan - the blades are hard plastic - easily broken.

My place is a lot dustier than yours - I do this every 6-9 months.

 

Yes, there are about 25 ºC / 77 ºF degrees of diference between the CPU temperature and the exhausting air temperature at 100% load both cpu and gpu. Probably it's the BIOS that shuts down the computer. No idea what value should be the ideal?

Anyway, I'll have to decide if I'll repaste the heatsink, because I never did it and I'm afraid of breaking things, plus it would make sense to replace the copper shim and the fan+heatsink at the same time for futureproof.

In any case, setting the Maximum processor state to 80% makes the computer stable and the cpu temperature decreases enough degrees even in the worst case scenario.

 

Shop around and get the stuff you need, so you have it ready when you finally get around to doing this.

Also, don't let the shutdown happen if you can help it, because after some time Windows decides that the embedded fan controller is a rogue app that is causing random shutdowns and prevents it from running, and then the fan runs very slowly, causing a LOT more trouble. At one stage I was reduced to stamina mode only and setting the maximum processor state to 10%, and still it would shut down during the automatic virus scans, etc.

Btw. your fan and heatsink are fine. No need to replace those unless you break something, or scratch one of the contact surfaces.