Computer Burnout

[lord aries]

Since I don't know whats wrong... I'm not sure where to post this, but this should be a decent place.


So, I'm running a Gateway P-6860 FX
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptop...y-p-...?tag=mncol;rnav
And it was running fallout 3 just fine... I needed to use a laptop cooler or it might crash the game back to windows after a while when it got hot... I've got a belkin laptop cooler which has been working fine.
http://www.everythingusb.com/b...ptop..._pad_13845.html .

Now I've installed the new DLC for it, and it causes my computer to get so hot in 10 minutes or less, that it not only crashes, but shuts my computer down. it feels pretty cool except at one particular vent, where it is hot... but not that hot IMHO....

What are some ways I can fix this, or at the least diagnose what is wrong with it. Its no longer under warranty, so anything I do has to be not stupidly expensive...

Is there a utility that will tell me what the temp of my CPU is.... and why would it start getting so hot now? It doesn't do this with any other games I've tried, but I haven't ran anything as intense as FO3 on it in a while.


Ok... and now I'm trying to play Civ IV and it gets hot and crashes to a black screen, with no options but to hard reset the computer. It doesn't allow me to do anything else... tired Alt-tab, Ctrl Alt Del, Esc, Windows key, etc....

 

[Sea Moose]

Seems strange that a laptop is overheating, they are usually a fairly well packaged product. I believe that you can download applications that can tell you your core temperatures. In my pc, i checked my temps in the bios during startup.

If its a new laptop you should perhaps take it back, as the cpu or graphics card may have a heatsink issue?

 

[lord aries]

Its a year old now... and not able to be taken back.. Its become my main computer for everything now, and I would hate for it to fail...

I've used it for tons of games including FO3 in the past... but it just now starting having this problem, and it would suck to have this computer that wasn't able to play games.

 

[Eureka]

It has an nVidia 8 series card... weren't they the ones that were causing problems in some of the Dell XPS laptops? I know that 8400M GS were in particular bad.

 

[Sea Moose]

Well before you do ANYTHING.
Back up your information (assignments resumes etc) on a flash drive or external HDD.
Then perhaps, as i say download an app to determine what is overheating. (i think that by default if your cpu overheats your lappy should shut down) Once you have determined what is overheating you could take it apart and check heatsinks, and reapply heatsink paste etc....

I am not an expert, but thats what i would do, i am sure there is someone with more knowledge on this topic.

But the main point is, BACK UP YOUR INFO, you can always get a new lappy, but it sucks if you loose important stuff

 

[lord aries]

Using speedfan, my CPUs are running at 50c and GPU 71c without anything going on... basically with no load... that seems high on the GPU side... So I'm going to take the back panels off and clean the crap outta it with air ...

 

[Sea Moose]

Like i say ... before you remove anything or make any major changes..... back up data!

Anyway good luck with it, let me know how it goes (not a bad idea to run a vaccum cleaner with a brush head over the internals (carefully) using air just throws up a dust cloud in the air.

Good Luck
Seamoose

Oh amd i would look into what evil genius was saying about the graphics cards

 

[lord aries]

Cleaned it out and now i'm running GPU at 47c and CPU at 41c....


Goes to show you what West Texas Dust can do.... or what a good cleaning can do...

 

[Sea Moose]

Good to hear you resolved the issue without a problem

 

[MichaelD]

Glad it was just dust making it overheat and that it's fixed now. But...I hope you have backups of your data! Hard drives typically don't give any warning before failing; ESPECIALLY laptop drives. They just die.

If you save everything to the default locations you should backup your My Documents folder and export your .pst file (Outlook) and IE bookmarks. Just a thought.

 

[zerogear]

Originally posted by: Sea Moose
Seems strange that a laptop is overheating, they are usually a fairly well packaged product. I believe that you can download applications that can tell you your core temperatures. In my pc, i checked my temps in the bios during startup.

If its a new laptop you should perhaps take it back, as the cpu or graphics card may have a heatsink issue?

Macbooks are 'nicely designed' and they frequently overheat, which the end user have to place little rubber feet on them to get clearance. Laptop is definitely not all well designed in terms of heat dissipation.

Edit, yeah, it was a subtle mac-bashing

 

[ther00kie16]

You could also try undervolting. Undervolting the CPU should be no sweat and can lower temps by 10C at load. GPU undervolting is more involved and I don't have experience with it.