Vaio Z (VPCZ1) Overheating help! need to underclock

Hi,
I have a VPCZ1
It has an Intel i5 520m @2.4GHz

The problem is that my laptop overheats and shuts down by itself constantly.
This especially happens when I try to either use the wifi, or the bluetooth (to tether to my phone).
It also happens when I try changing the notscripts setting in google chrome for a website, where it reloads the pages...
In all of these cases the fan starts spinning like crazy, and it just turns off.

In CPUID HWMonitor it shows that the CPU temps are running up to over 100C at that time.
When not busy, the temps are usually from 60-80C

This is obviously overheating, but I've taken my laptop apart a million times (i replaced the DVD drive with a hard drive a long time ago and ive made sure to clean all the dust I can see with a air can, and this has not helped.

The way I see it, there is either a ton of dust below the motherboard (I have never actually lifted the motherboard from the casing yet as that is below), or this laptop has serious problems.

Does anyone have any tips?

I thought I am willing to underclock the CPU a bit if that would help (someone else mentioned somewhere that it does help, but I have no clue on how to underclock. I tried downloading CPU tweak and CrystalCPUID but I have no idea what these terms mean, or what I can do.

Can someone help?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/594314-vpc-z-change-thermal-paste.html

 

i read through that already.
it is quite complicated, most people who tried it were worse off at the end.
This is because the Z uses thermal pads and not paste, so it was always too thin and overheated more.
People then had to use copper shins for them....

 

When the fan is spinning like crazy, is it actually throwing out hot air? Put your hand about 5 inches away from the the vent - you should feel the hot air on your hand. If the air flow is too weak, you need to clean the air passages and/or clean and lubricate the fan shaft. If you can feel the air flow but the air is not hot, then the thermal paste needs changing.

I was lucky - when I separated the motherboard from the heatsink, the (thick) GPU pad came away intact so I was able to reuse it. Otherwise I too would have had to either buy a fresh GPU pad or put in a copper shim.

In any case, you can't leave it like it is now. You have to do something about this.

If you want to throttle your CPU severely so it doesn't overheat, there are advanced settings under power options. Change plan settings> change advanced power settings> processor management> maximum processor state. Reduce that to 50% or even less if needed. Remember to change the setting for all power plans that are active on your system.

How usable your laptop will be under these conditions I can't say, but this is what you asked for. Personally, I would get the dashed thing cleaned and lubricated.

 

its blowing pretty hot air when it spins like crazy.
is there dust that can get trapped underneath the motherboard too? or is it just on top.
Bec, as I said, ive cleaned the top in the fan area tons of times, so that is not dirty

im also worried about bending the heatsink if i attempt to remove it and clean it, so that really is not an option.

thanks for the tip about the power settings, i was looking everywhere for programs to do it which all were for overclocking so were complicated, didn't know it was a basic windows setting.
Someone else wrote that underclocking to 98% would even be enough, so i may try that next time it goes crazy. Hopefully I won't notice the difference.

Thanks,

 

When laptops are used in bed, etc. fibres from the blankets etc. get sucked in. These form a layer over the intake of the heatsink (behind the vents, on the fan side), drastically slowing down the airflow. I cleaned my laptop about 2 years after I bought it and was amazed at the difference it made. I couldn't find a way to remove the muck without separating the heatsink and motherboard, though.

The heatsink is quite sturdy - doesn't bend easily. Don't scratch the contact surfaces. Removing the heatsink mounting screws and twisting the heatsink back and forth worked for me and it came loose. The GPU has the infamous thick thermal pad. The CPU has hard thermal paste similar to Arctic Silver that's not easy to get rid of - took me a good couple of hours and more. Replaced with generic white thermal paste - no problems.

The fan blades are delicate - need to be wiped clean carefully. The fan shaft needed to be cleaned and the shaft lubricated - with grease, not oil, as the oil doesn't stay in place very long (I oiled it at first, then had to do the greasing after just a couple of weeks).

 

Huh I have a problem with not freezing but going high on temperatures nad fan speed because no serious reason. Described it here -> LINK

Maybe you have any idea? :/

 

If your fan isn't the problem I highly recommend changing the thermal paste. Had the same problem before where it would auto shut down after booting into Windows and even when in bios.

Temps would reach as high as 104 degrees before shutting down. I am using Arctic MX-4 and temps are now around 90 degrees max when playing games like Skyrim on Nvidia.

Idle temps are around 45-50 degrees.

If you don't want to take apart your machine then do what 'anytimer' said and decrease 'maximum processor state' in Windows power options and use intel graphics. This keeps the temp much lower and maximum temp is probably around 80 degrees. I did this while I was waiting for my thermal paste to arrive from ebay.

 

I know that this thread is a little dated but I have also suffered from high temps due to the factory thermal paste hardening. I have since stripped the laptop and I am going to update all the thermal interfaces. I got all new updated thermal pads form frozen cpu for around $20, and am doing a custom copper shim mod. I measured the gap of the GPU with feeler gauges and I found that the gap is no where near .5mm putting a shim in that thick lifts the heat sink off of the CPU. The gap measured .014(.35mm) I used a spaghetti noodle roller to perfectly re-size the shim to .35mm. I then cleaned and glued the shim to the heat sink with arctic silver thermal epoxy and clamped with a jumper cable and a square lego. This should ensure a nice flat surface at the perfect height to allow thermal paste to be used. If everything fits when I am done, I will post a picture.

 

Hi,

Just to let you know I managed to sort mine with a 0.4mm shim. I have some spare: read here.

Cheers