Overview

hot laptops can be caused by a number of things. for the hp/compaq presario v2000, it was the fact that they didn't use thermal grease, and the fact that the cpu fan was REALLY CLOGGED with hard dust balls ( the cpu fan must do an exceptional job at compressing hair and dirt).

you have to open the laptop to do this. I don't recommend doing this to anyone, unle3ss you really like taking apart your laptop. one of the problems I fixed while the laptop was open was a lack-of-thermal-grease problem in this model of laptop. and I cleaned the hard hair-and-dirt clods out of the cpu fan.

reasons to clean out the cpu fan

• laptop seems to gradually get hotter as it gets older
• you have pets
• laptop cpu fan has not been cleaned in 2 years (I prefer 1 year cpu cleanings, but in laptops that can get expensive)

compaq presario v2000 lack of thermal grease problem

apparently compaq didn't see fit to use thermal grease, and simply used a thermal pad instead. doesn't work well though.

use thermal grease (I didn't think about *both* sides of the pads - duh), I am told, and things work much better. Arctic Silver works REALLY WELL.

clean the cpu fan

If it's been a 1-2 years since you've opened up your laptop or had someone else do it, it's time for a service.

even in a clean household dust and hair can accumulate in a cpu fan and prevent airflow to the cpu, making it HOT, and hot will make the computer go into thermal shutdown (hopefully not damage too). Heat usually idn't good for laptops.

I like to clean my desktop cpu fan out once a year. some older houses with certain types of heating, or unclean ducts or really old rugs, however, may throw dust into the room and not only aggrivate you, it can put dust into your optical drives and all over inside your computer. in one house I had to replace the optical drives every 3 months due to caked on dust and clean out the computer. Never did figure out what caused it. guess you can't have everything you want.

What is my official recommendation? take your laptop to a manufacturer-authorized service center near you and have them fix any laptop problems you have have.

after 6 years you have acquirewd major cloggage or full cpu fan stoppage.

I had to clean the cat hair out of a cpu fan of an hp laptop once. fan survived, lucky the cpu survived. laptop was shutting down because the fan wasn't spinning.

clean the fan out. requires taking the laptop case off, IF you can do it - I don't dare do it with the toshiba qosmio, can't get the case apart safely.

laptop cooler - you most likely need one

you pretty much always need a laptop cooler, unless maybe you have a macbook, and even then I am told if you are doing video stuff it can get hot.

I recommend a high CFM laptop cooler. I was told to not let your laptop get even warm.

I do know that IC's (chips) typically on commercial grade equipment have commercial grade thermal tolerances. some components may have different tolerances than others.

for instance, IC's and actives like transistors typically can handle 85°C at which point they are destroyed. some IC's like the 130W Intel i7 can only handle something like 68°C/154.4°F and hard drives at 45°C/113°F(maxtor)-60°C/140°F(hitachi deskstar) max (depending on the menufacturer) before they are destroyed.

disclaimer

I don't guarantee or warrantee any of this, and if you break your laptop, you did it yourself, and you have yourself to blame, I still recommend a service center, I hate taking apart laptops.

I will tell you that in the process of taking this laptop (but not my first one) apart and putting it back together, the laptop's networking functions no longer worked, and I even reseated the wireless card twice (no wired either, which is built into the mb, which is really mysterious)! Like I said - you are on your own!

the laptop I was working on was a gamble, we did it because we didn't want to spend the money on a service center and we knew we didn't mind losing the laptop, we had the data on the hard disk, and we could always take that out and put it in an external drive case. but I got her permission before I started.

arctic silver