Compaq Laptop Goes Over 100C

MDM5280

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Jul 7, 2007
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My younger brother recently got a new Compaq laptop for his birthday. At first it was fine, he could play World of Warcraft on it all day while resting it on his bed. It never rose about 75C then, but now, no matter what he is doing on it, the laptop shuts off from overheating. I turned it on about a half an hour ago and left it on the kitchen table on idle. Then I just checked SpeedFan and both the GPU and CPU are over 100C! The fan is on max and there is plenty of room for it to breath. What could be the underlying cause of this?

Edit - Had to type it fast at first cause I was actually using the laptop to type the question and was scared it was going to shut off on me. :eek:
 

michael_92

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Jan 6, 2010
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hello,

are you sure it's not a faulty sensor? if not then you might want to check for dust build up.
and if that doesn't work you might just have to take it back to the store you've bought it from.
assuming you've still got warranty.
 

FeareX

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Mar 13, 2006
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Hello,

Your saying he was playing games while on his bed. Unless his bed is from steel or wood, i would guess the bed is all dust. I would put a vacium cleaner on the cooling exhausts of your laptop to clean out all the dust.
Since your brother was gaming, the fans have to go 100% and then they suck up all the dust out of the bed. That would explain your heating problems.

Grtz,
FeareX
 

frozenlead

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Don't do this. It's not really effective, and vacuums create a lot of static, which is bad for the machine itself.

Use an air compressor instead to blow dust out of the fans and heatsinks.
 

MDM5280

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Jul 7, 2007
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When I first boot it up, the CPU and GPU are both at 60C, which is really odd to begin with since it should be around 30C at boot up. That would seem to be a faulty sensor as you said Mike, but that doesn't explain the burning smell coming from the laptop when the sensors says it is 100C and it's ability to cause me to burn myself when I pick it up. :) Dust is defiantly not the problem, since looking into the ports ATM, they are both clear of any buildup and I can feel a steady flow of air coming out of them.

The usual procedure of the laptop recently was turn on, rise in temperature for the next hour, then Blue Screen and shut down. Then, if you tried to restart it, it would crash after the bios and refuse to start until you let it cool down. Another odd thing is, the CPU is located at the upper right hand corner of the laptop, yet the intense heat is coming out from the upper left hand corner, where I suspect the GPU (or should I say cheesy Nvidia 8200) is located since the VGA out is over there.

Finally, vacuums and me have had some history. When I was little, I vacuumed out the inside of an old computer cause it had a lot of dust in it.... and ended up frying the motherboard. ;)

Thanks for the help everyone, this thread was more of curiosity cause I still had the warranty, but I just wanted to know what could be causing it to overheat in the first place. I now know why Compaq's cost $380 and will try to stay away from recommending them to other family members in the future. :D Once again, thanks for the responses and now I'm off to Best Buy to return this laptop. :na: