Routine maintenance of laptops:

[yourzfalsely]

Okay just tried running Tomb Raider on high (I'm using a cooling pad which means it's not rocketing to 90ish straight away staying at an okay 80ish. And yeh it does feel like it's hot so it may just need a clean but if it is software related how would i go about diagnosing/fixing that?

 

[Pagey]

If in doubt, clean it anyway. If you've not cleaned it for a while, then maybe it IS time.

 

[yourzfalsely]

If in doubt, clean it anyway. If you've not cleaned it for a while, then maybe it IS time.

I just opened it up and tried to clean the heat sink best i could, unfortunately I couldn't remove one of the screws (was really stuck on there) so I couldn't remove the whole heatsink, just had to lift it as far as it would go and hoover/paintbrush what i could. I did get rid of A LOT though.

 

[mantadog]

HMmmmmmmmmmmmm............

You removed the heat sink, the big copper thing that leads to the fan? or just the fan assembly? if you removed the heat sink then you may need to remove the thermal paste and apply new because it could be ruined.

 

[yourzfalsely]

I didn't remove the heatsink, I tried to but one the screws was pretty stuck. So I doubt I ruined the thermal paste, I have however ordered some so if I can get that screw out I'll probably reapply anyway and give it a thorough clean, so far I've just cleaned between the fan and the grate part of the heat sink.
EDIT:Okay just loaded up tomb raider again, with the help of the cooling pad (may do a test without) it doesn't seem to be approaching overheating point at all. staying around 60 hopefully it'll stay this way!

 

[bigben]

HMmmmmmmmmmmmm............

You removed the heat sink, the big copper thing that leads to the fan? or just the fan assembly? if you removed the heat sink then you may need to remove the thermal paste and apply new because it could be ruined.

I thought that too, but it appears that SDK has been doing it to his laptop for ages (as stated in this thread) with no problems.

 

[mantadog]

I thought that too, but it appears that SDK has been doing it to his laptop for ages (as stated in this thread) with no problems.

It's certainly not advisable to be removing the heat sink without re pasting. Any dirt, air bubbles or uneven coverage will result in exactly the problems the Op is trying to solve, making it impossible to figure out if it anything more serious than a dust issue.

 

[Pagey]

Cleaning shouldn't require opening up the machine, just blast the dust out with compressed air and you're good to go.

 

[bigben]

It's certainly not advisable to be removing the heat sink without re pasting. Any dirt, air bubbles or uneven coverage will result in exactly the problems the Op is trying to solve, making it impossible to figure out if it anything more serious than a dust issue.

Yeah, I'd always repaste anyway just because it's such a pain reattaching my heatsink and fans (big hands).