"Laptop Slows down, fan speeds up" issues

Zephyron

Distinguished
Nov 6, 2011
7
0
18,510
Hey first post! Just wanna say that i love this site and it has been my way out of PC hell for a long time. But now i got a problem i cant seem to find the answer to.

OK i have a 2 year old msi cx620 with win7 ultimate, and it ran perfectly up till a couple of months ago. Now i have a strange problem. Every time i run an application (photoshop, office, chief architect etc) the laptop has a habit of suddenly slowing down, after which i can hear the fan loudly speeding up, and after that (about 2 seconds in total) the laptop will continue working.
This is really annoying and its really weird coz the laptop doesnt technically freeze up, it kinda ... stops, takes a breath and continues. At first this happened ALL THE TIME with office so i thought it was the software. But now it happens with almost all applications (tho not with the games). Is this a fan issue? Coz i havent cleaned the inside of the laptop since i got it (2 years ago).
Any ideas?

PS. I accidentaly posted this in the "mobile" section so it would be nice if some of the admins delete it from there. SRY!!
 

frozenlead

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It might just be your machine heating up. Your processor will down-clock itself when it gets too hot and performance will drop. Clean out your heatsinks and see if that makes a change.
 

inzone

Splendid
Moderator
When a fan speeds up it usually means that the cpu is over heating , the cpu has built in heat protection that will slow the processor down and eventually shut it down if the heat issue isn't resolved and the best thing to do is get a can of air and try to clean out the air intake for the fans.
 

Zephyron

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Nov 6, 2011
7
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18,510
aha ok then. how about thermal paste and stuff? should i freshen up the fan with some too? or is that not necessary? or can simply removing all the dust from the fan be considered well maintained fan?
 

frozenlead

Distinguished
The thermal paste isn't connected to the fan; there's a heatsink and probably a heatpipe assembly between the two. You can replace the paste if you want, but it's easiest just to clean out the heatsink and fan with air.