Signs of a laptop running too hot?

[thecoolnessrune]

Girlfriend has an old handmedown laptop. (well not that old, maybe 2 years old?). Anyways, I noticed while I was with her that it would always get burning hot and the fan would kick on in no time at all. It's a mere Celeron M running at 1.4Ghz. 90nm Dothan core. The GPU is integrated graphics. Usual fare. But I noticed when the computer is at a mere 30 % load (crossloop), that her CPU is running 81C. And that's with the fan on full blast. That seems way too high to me. She complains that her computer becomes really slow when running several things, but I think the CPU is throttling itself.

I'm not familiar with Celeron M's and was wondering if thats a little high to be running (I believe it's a Dell Latitude B130, but I'm not sure, just going off the top of my head there).

I don't go back till December. Should I tear into it when I get there and clean off all the heatsinks and reseat with some thermal paste? Think that would make a difference?

 

[iamwiz82]

My laptop has never hit anything higher than 140F, according to my logging software. I'd look at the heatsinks, they are probably caked with dust.

 

[corkyg]

Could well be a dust and dirt accumulation. If anyone smokes, then it could also be laden with nasty colloidal particles. 🙂

Get a good vacuum crevice tool and place it against the slotted exhaust ven of the laptop and suck out as much crap as you can. See if that helps.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Yeah, now that I think about it, the computer is in a home with a labrador that sheds like mad.. While I was there during the summer I was sweeping up soccer ball size wads of hair every week just from the living room.

Perhaps it really is clogged up.. I'll have to take it apart while I'm there and give it a good deep cleaning.