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My laptop is hot

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Not in a sexy way, but in a temperature way.

When it's on, it gets very hot. The fans are working ok and everything but it just seems to heat up loads when it's been on for a while?

Is this normal?

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Many laptops do get rather hot. What make and model is it? Some are worse than others. Sometimes things can be improved by removing the processor and heatsink and removing all the dust and crud that accumulates. Sometimes replacing the thermal compound between the two helps as well.

    If it is a semi-modern laptop, then you may have the ability to control the speed of the processor via power management options. Less speed should mean less voltage, and less heat - most people won't notice the difference between a 1.4ghz and 2.8ghz processor 95% of the time. Obviously the extra speed makes a big difference when gaming or encoding films, but for web browsing, email, working on text files and listening to music, you'd likely not notice any significant performance gains from running at the higher speed.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's not hot to the point of sore to touch but it's just hot. It doesn't really bother me that much but I was just wondering if it might have been doing any damage...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Always make sure that a laptop can vent air. If you lay it on a soft surface (eg, bed) then it will sink into it and not be able to exchange air properly - get a knee desk or a big hard back book so there is always a gap between the bottom of the unit and the surface its resting on.

    Also the point the first post mentioned is a good one, not only will lower speeds keep your unit cooler, but save battery and lengthen battery life. Two programs you might be interested in are Speedstep and PowerNow!

    Look for SpeedFan (free download, just google it) as it displays the different temperatures inside your computer, and lets you change clocking speeds (for advanced users only!). If overheating is a very big worry check your bois settings to make sure the temperature alarm is audible and will shut down your computer as soon as it (temperature) reaches unsafe levels.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Mines bollox'd.

    It gets hot and coz its got a safety thing on it turns off when its too hot. :|
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The fans in most laptops never turn unless the processor is working semi hard.

    Stopping services and tweaking things can reduce the load on the CPU a lot.

    My HP is totally silent when not loaded but once it is the CPU fan starts spinning and it's well loud.

    However I found recently vacumming our the fan and heatsink seems to have removed any dust that may have causing extra heating accumulation
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