My Laptop Is Hot

[dropdeded 0]

...and it drains the battery pretty fast with the fan thingy working so hard all the time. Its about 3 years old now, anything I can do without taking it in??

Cant afford a new one right now

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The Dude Abides.
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[piratemike 0]

Go into the BIOS on the laptop, see if you can turn the processor speed down.

Otherwise, do you have some process consuming a bunch of processor time or what?

[dropdeded 0]

Lets just say, for fun mind you, that I dont know what a "processor" is, or this "BIOS" that you speak of

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The Dude Abides.
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[dropdeded 0]

Isnt there just a filter I can take off and bang on the table to knock the dust off it

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The Dude Abides.
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[normiss 903]

There's a few reasons they changed the name from laptop to notebook. One is the amount of lint they pick up from sitting on our laps...it clogs the cooling path through the radiator and the fan. To the point of even burning away the thermal grease applied between the heat sink / radiator assembly and the processor.
You may need to find someone to open it up and clean out the lint and dust.
or you could try canned air through the ventilation openings...

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

...and it drains the battery pretty fast with the fan thingy working so hard all the time. Its about 3 years old now, anything I can do without taking it in??

Cant afford a new one right now

You probably have a software problem that's causing the operating system to kick up the speed (where it burns more power) and/or not halt waiting for an interrupt in its idle loop.

Look at what's running (task mangler in windows, top in Linux, etc.) and stop anything that shouldn't be there.

[Phillbo 11]

Put it in the dishwasher...but DO NOT use any soap. That may damage it

[piratemike 0]

uasually there is not.

Just as notmiss said, you might try blowing out the cooling paths.

If you take the laptop, and close the lid, pick it up and look around the outside edge. Your looking for what looks like a grill that goes to the inside of the laptop. You should see some sort of head sink in there. It wil look a bit like the fins of a car radiator. They might be a copper or silver color. Particullary if those fins seem to be cloged with dust, try taking some canned air to them.

Avoid using shop air, shop air is a higher pressure and can bend the fins. bent fins will lead to overheating.

You might find some holes on the bottom of the laptof that lead to the other end of the cooling channel, sometimes you blow things out by blowing the air in that end.

What type of laptop is it?

[dropdeded 0]

Averatec.

I'll do the canned air thing. Otherwise Im completely clueless about these things. If that dont work I'll find someone that can poke around this thing for me.

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The Dude Abides.
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[Snowwhite 0]

Quote

Isnt there just a filter I can take off and bang on the table to knock the dust off it

That's how I clean the filter on my chain saw, and it works EVERY TIME!!

skydiveTaylorville.org
freefallbeth@yahoo.com

[Royd 0]

If you're trying to have children, they say that the only that you should have in your lap that is hot is your wife!

[lawrocket 3]

Guess why the manufacturers and downstream sellers market them "Notebooks" now instead of "Laptops." Because they get hot, making the "lap" an uncomfortable thing.

I'm serious.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Beerlight 0]

mine heats up pretty good also. Think I'll buy a cool pad for it.....may extend service life?

[1969912 0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeWq6rWzChw

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG