Need advice on an over heating Laptop (not one from PCS)

Frank

Bronze Level Poster
Hello all

My brother recently sent me this email, since i know nowt about laptop upgrading/alternate cooling solutions, I wonder if any one has any ideas for a solution?

Specs Follow:

Manufacturer : Acer
Model : Aspire 7720 laptop

Processor Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7300 @ 2.00GHz
Speed : 2.19GHz
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Mobile, Dual-Core

Email Follows:

My laptop previously ran at 67+ degrees on normal usage, word processing, browsing &c and when looking at videos would climb to 89+ and eventually crash.

I attached a micro fan to the base, directly over the standard fan, powered from USB and it dropped to 57 degrees climbing to 68 when working hard.

Have just lowered hardware acceleration in display/properties/advanced/troubleshooting/enable hardware acceleration. Since then the laptop runs cool at 37 degrees, that's 30 degrees cooler than original...

It means that I am using another form of graphic acceleration but basically everything works beautifully without it. When I want to play a game I can always turn on the hardware acceleration, then put it on a coolng pad and crank up the fan!

It has an Nvidia 8400 gs which is clearly running so hot it brings the system to a halt.

Do you know if it feasible to exchange a laptop graphics card for another? Any suggestions?

Email Ends


So, on behalf of my brother and I TIA for any ideas.

Rgds

F
 

Gorman

Author Level
Do you know if it feasible to exchange a laptop graphics card for another? Any suggestions?

99.999% of laptops have their GPU's as part of the mainboard, so no is a safe bet.

You can always replace the TIM and see if that works, the grease put on as standard by most makes isnt too cracking.
 

Sleinous

Author Level
Hello all

My brother recently sent me this email, since i know nowt about laptop upgrading/alternate cooling solutions, I wonder if any one has any ideas for a solution?

Specs Follow:

Manufacturer : Acer
Model : Aspire 7720 laptop

Processor Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7300 @ 2.00GHz
Speed : 2.19GHz
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Mobile, Dual-Core

Email Follows:

My laptop previously ran at 67+ degrees on normal usage, word processing, browsing &c and when looking at videos would climb to 89+ and eventually crash.

I attached a micro fan to the base, directly over the standard fan, powered from USB and it dropped to 57 degrees climbing to 68 when working hard.

Have just lowered hardware acceleration in display/properties/advanced/troubleshooting/enable hardware acceleration. Since then the laptop runs cool at 37 degrees, that's 30 degrees cooler than original...

It means that I am using another form of graphic acceleration but basically everything works beautifully without it. When I want to play a game I can always turn on the hardware acceleration, then put it on a coolng pad and crank up the fan!

It has an Nvidia 8400 gs which is clearly running so hot it brings the system to a halt.

Do you know if it feasible to exchange a laptop graphics card for another? Any suggestions?

Email Ends


So, on behalf of my brother and I TIA for any ideas.

Rgds

F

The problem is coming from the Nvidia 8400M GS

See this article: http://apcmag.com/nvidia_disaster_thousands_of_gpus_faulty.htm

The same thing happened to my Sony Vaio laptop VGN-NR21Z/S, currently battling away to have it repaired/replaced as I can prove it was inherently faulty - I can win in small claims court.

Basically, Nvidia used some fail solder that comes off the mainboard after a while due to teh chip overheating after a while. This is known as cold-solder and you're basically left witha chip thats no longer properly making contact with the mainboard, now it doesnt look like its happened to your brother's laptop yet because you would see weird streaks and lines appearing if so. But...with those shockingly high temps it won't be long before it does happen.

Now obviously Nvidia had to fork out millions to get this sorted, the greedy resellers like Sony arent coveringa ll laptops, which, ofcourse is why i'm battling away to get mine sorted as they claim my model has no problems with it, despite many a forum thread proving otherwise. Ridiculous consdering you either have an 8400M or 8600M or not, its not rocket science. Anyway, if you want to prolong its lifespan, cut out the gaming or HD videos, otherwise, wait for it to mess up and battle your way through whoever you bought it off. Doesnt matter if its out of warranty, if you can prove its one of the inherently faulty ones, you'll win.

Im nearly 100% certain this is the reason your laptop gets so hot ^^ Mine did the same 'till I realised it was the GPU
 

Sleinous

Author Level
How did it come along? It is very easy to win this kind of case, you need proof of it being inherently faulty, then you make a copy send it off to the dealer, if no response, you move from there :)
 

Frank

Bronze Level Poster
welll, looks like my bro will just use his custom cooling system and will get another Laptop when funds allow.

If he findss any solution ill let you chaps know.

I too would like to know how the civil action works out tho. Keep us informed!

rgds

f
 

Sleinous

Author Level
Will do, need to take the lappy over to a little store to get this documentation though first :) Will get round to that soon
 
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