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Laptop is crazy hot - help?

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WayOut

Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2009
Location
Seattle, WA
I just pulled out my old 2005 HP Pavilion Entertainment laptop from 5th grade and I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. My CPU is idling, well, fluctuating, at 60-70 degrees celsius. My first thought is a lot of dust, although it's had its share of use from my sister playing runescape and such :/.
I've really never seen anything like this. Here's some speedfan screens:

Right after boot:
Untitled-2.jpg

5 minutes after that:
Untitled2.jpg

It doesn't even seem like it's at a consistent temperature or anything. Cores are both at 1.83 GHz, no overclock (no option in BIOS to overclock or underclock which is a shame) but damn. Anyone have an idea what to do? Clean it out, if my dust theory is correct? Otherwise, is this laptop screwed?
 
what type of CPU is it?

I've seen a few laptops get pretty hot... but not THAT hot... i'd definitely clean it out and see if that helps.

We sure this is idle, and there's not some virus running in the background using up the CPU cycles and then idling down? If it was just dust, i think it would run hot all the time.
 
It could very well be a virus; like I said I haven't touched the thing in a couple years. I only noticed when my mom smelled something burning while my sister used IM on the couch; the laptop started searing the leather if you can believe it.

I'll download Avast and run that thing a few times to see what I can clean up. But I really doubt a virus gets it up to 60*C idle...

Oh, and it's some sorta Intel dual-core; nothing special, my dad bought the laptop for me when I started middle school four years ago so it's fairly dated.
 
Why not just check the CPU usage directly to see if it is cpu usage causing the issues?
 
I ran avast, cleaned up five viruses running around on it, but there were a few it "couldn't delete" for whatever reason, so I'm rescanning.

CPU usage is jumping around ridiculously. 85%, 40%, 60%, 28%, 14%, 2%, 62%, 98%, 54%, 23%, 45%, 56%, 36%, 75%, 61% in 30 seconds, and it's still idling at the same temps.
 
That is probably causing your issue. Figure out what is using the CPU.
 
Yeah, something is definitely using the CPU. Go to task manager and see if you can kill the process using all the CPU cycles.
 
I've cleaned up the computer, CPU seems to be in order now, but the temperature still hasn't changed. I'm gonna go ahead and open up the laptop tomorrow for a cleaning, see if that helps.
 
I've cleaned up the computer, CPU seems to be in order now, but the temperature still hasn't changed. I'm gonna go ahead and open up the laptop tomorrow for a cleaning, see if that helps.
You completely fixed whatever was using the CPU? I'm confused as to what is going on. From our standpoint, it is the CPU usage causing the high temperatures but you are going to take apart the laptop? Under load, those temps are about right.
 
You completely fixed whatever was using the CPU? I'm confused as to what is going on. From our standpoint, it is the CPU usage causing the high temperatures but you are going to take apart the laptop? Under load, those temps are about right.

He's saying he got reid of the processes, but the temps are still high.
 
Is that a core(2) duo cpu>
If so, 60-70*c is just fine, and probably where they wanted it to run so the fan could go slower and be quieter.
 
Yeah it is. Are you serious? That's ridiculously hot. I'd be scared crazy if this computer was idling even over 40*... to hear the laptop's supposed to idle at 60* is ridiculous.
 
My dad's Athlon x2 would idle at 60C but not climb any higher than roughly 80C when it was under full load for a few hours.

Keep in mind that laptop's aren't meant to be run under full load for extremely long periods of time either. A few hours is really about the max, so they can idle warmer without any issues. It's mainly just battery and acoustic management.

Fan spins slower, more heat, less noise, longer battery life.
Fan spins faster, less heat, more noise, shorter battery life.

(My Atom idles upwards of 50C most of the time during the summer outside... under full load it'll hit 75 or 80C, and it doesn't hurt it at all. CPUs can take a good bit of heat before they melt down.)
 
The higher the temp of the chip the less air movement is needed to get rid of the same amount of heat. Hence, they let the chip run quite hot so that it doesn't take much fan power.

Core2duo laptop chips throttle at 100*c, but can run at that 100*c for years without issue (except being slow).
Core Duo i don't know, but you could look it up.
It's almost impossible to fry a CPU these days if you have the thermal monitors turned on and aren't way over voltage.
 
Core Duo i don't know, but you could look it up.
The Core Duo in one of my laptops will hit 100c load and trip the throttling trigger when running Prime. This is only a dual core 2.6ghz even; it isn't really fast. Does dump a bit of heat though...
 
It's bad if it starts to throttle. The T7300 in my Lenovo T61 idles at about 31C and tops out at load at maybe 55C. I use RMClock to undervolt it and step it down at idle.

RMClock is a pretty nifty tool - you should check it out. It ought to work for most Core2Duo CPUs, though your mileage may vary. If you're going to use it to check out a bunch of voltage/multiplier configurations, make sure you test them with Prime to ensure stability.

Your laptop is from 2005 - are you SURE it's a Core2Duo?
 
You know, that's a good point.
Core Duo/Solo (the first Core cpus) were released in January of 06.

Download CPUz and post a screenshot of it.
 
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