Laptop running hot and slow

Dan_P · 24 Mar 2017 at 19:59

Hi All,

My Laptop has been running quite hot and slow recently, every time I have tried to use it (browsing on the sofa) and is getting to the stage where it's quicker to use my iPhone.

Is there anything anyone can suggest??

Thanks,
Dan

Dan_P · 25 Mar 2017 at 20:33

Anyone able to help?

Zefan · 25 Mar 2017 at 20:44

Has this just started happening recently or has it slowly got worse?

It looks like something is smashing your disk in the top screenshot, although it's difficult to know if it's just a temporary thing with out seeing more. In the bottom screenshot it does look a little toasty, but doesn't look like any thermal throttling is going on. You will be able to get a better idea of the problem if you take a look through resource monitor. If you're experiencing almost complete lockups, followed by periods of normal performance, I'd suggest looking very closely at the disk usage in resource monitor while you're experiencing the problem.

Dan_P · 25 Mar 2017 at 21:04

Zefan said:
Has this just started happening recently or has it slowly got worse?

It looks like something is smashing your disk in the top screenshot, although it's difficult to know if it's just a temporary thing with out seeing more. In the bottom screenshot it does look a little toasty, but doesn't look like any thermal throttling is going on. You will be able to get a better idea of the problem if you take a look through resource monitor. If you're experiencing almost complete lockups, followed by periods of normal performance, I'd suggest looking very closely at the disk usage in resource monitor while you're experiencing the problem.

It is becoming more and more regular and the fans seem to be 'kicking in' (suggesting load and heat) when i'm doing very little. Right now i have only google chrome open with this tab open only and the fans are quite loud and the temperature reading is 88-93c and just opening resource monitor takes some time (which i dont think it should considering the specs aernt that bad)

Heisenberg · 25 Mar 2017 at 21:08

Clean out fans etc and possibly repaste cup. Failing that, virus scan/Windows reinstall. Like above, looks like something hammering the disk usage.

Dan_P · 25 Mar 2017 at 23:04

Heisenberg said:
Clean out fans etc and possibly repaste cup. Failing that, virus scan/Windows reinstall. Like above, looks like something hammering the disk usage.

i just reinstalled windows as have very little installed on the machine anyway and it seems to have reduced the load and general temperatures. Sitting at 50-55c however within 5/10 seconds of starting a stress test it jumps up to 100c again. I will take the screws of the back and clean out the fans etc as suggested.

When you say repaste cup, do you mean apply new thermal paste on the cpu?

Thanks,
D

Minstadave · 25 Mar 2017 at 23:06

Yeah give the fans a clean, the tiny heat sinks often get clogged up. Just blowing hard down the exhaust vent (easy boys!) is enough to help.

Heisenberg · 26 Mar 2017 at 07:40

Dan_P said:
When you say repaste cup, do you mean apply new thermal paste on the cpu?

Thanks,
D

Yeah, clean old paste and reapply new decent stuff. Sometimes the manufacturers use mediocre stuff that doesn't do so well after a few years. Try just blowing out fans and vents first though.

IrishChr1s · 26 Mar 2017 at 12:18

I had a similar problem, my idea Temps were 20 degree higher than normal,

I took apart my Hp envy 17 (i7 4770), I had it since 2014 so there was a fair bit of dust, I cleaned it internally and seen a 10 degree decrease immediately, I then removed and reapplied thermal paste and seen another 10 degree idle drop,

My laptop is idle around 30-35 degrees now, well worth the effort as it's back to like new Temps

Previously I had seen load Temps of 99 degrees and now it doesn't go over 80

Dan_P · 26 Mar 2017 at 19:14

IrishChr1s said:
I had a similar problem, my idea Temps were 20 degree higher than normal,

I took apart my Hp envy 17 (i7 4770), I had it since 2014 so there was a fair bit of dust, I cleaned it internally and seen a 10 degree decrease immediately, I then removed and reapplied thermal paste and seen another 10 degree idle drop,

My laptop is idle around 30-35 degrees now, well worth the effort as it's back to like new Temps

Previously I had seen load Temps of 99 degrees and now it doesn't go over 80

Thanks for the advice, I've started taking it apart this evening and will report back once I test it later this week (I'm also taking the opportunity to add a New SSD).

IrishChr1s · 27 Mar 2017 at 11:04

Dan_P said:
Thanks for the advice, I've started taking it apart this evening and will report back once I test it later this week (I'm also taking the opportunity to add a New SSD).

Just to add another update,

My own laptop is now idling around 27-28 degrees, when I loaded up WoW and let it run, temperatures never went above 65 degrees!! This was previously 99-102 degrees :eek:

So, I then took my partners Hp laptop apart, did exactly the same. Baring in mind this laptop is relatively new, cleaned fans and replaced thermal paste and seen a dramatic drop in Temps also! Its an i5 and idling around 30 degrees but since new it was 40+

My conclusion, Hp are just dreadful at applying paste or they're using incredibly poor quality paste, but also it may be of benefit to repaste cheaper laptops anyway to improve Temps and prolong laptop lifespan!

Dan_P · 31 Mar 2017 at 10:23

New SSD and thermal paste arrived last night however I was working so its still waiting to be put together. Frustratingly, my compressed air canister didn't arrive and I have run out of stock in the garage. #

Would a blow up bed pump with a nozzle do the same job safely?

jpaul · 31 Mar 2017 at 11:36

Vaccum cleaner plus small paintbrush ?

Zefan said:
Has this just started happening recently or has it slowly got worse?

like Zefan, I wondered if you had done sufficeint profiling with task manager (process explorer my favourite) to determine that it was not some 'process' that was responsible

Dan_P · 31 Mar 2017 at 12:29

jpaul said:
Vaccum cleaner plus small paintbrush ?

like Zefan, I wondered if you had done sufficeint profiling with task manager (process explorer my favourite) to determine that it was not some 'process' that was responsible

This has been on-going for some time and a fresh install of windows has helped but still higher than average numbers ( see below):

Dan_P said:
i just reinstalled windows as have very little installed on the machine anyway and it seems to have reduced the load and general temperatures. Sitting at 50-55c however within 5/10 seconds of starting a stress test it jumps up to 100c again. I will take the screws of the back and clean out the fans etc as suggested.
Thanks,
D

JimboJet · 1 Apr 2017 at 09:31

Incidentally, whilst compressed air is useful for shifting and dislodging dust, I prefer to use a regular vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment. The bristles shouldn't damage anything and the dust gets removed rather than displaced.

Dan_P · 1 Apr 2017 at 21:09

HELP!

I am installing Windows 10 onto my new SSD however it seems to keep getting stuck at the file partition stage. I've waiting 15 minutes and nothing seems to be happening. I've restarted and tried again but same thing happens?

Dan_P · 1 Apr 2017 at 22:26

Dan_P said:
HELP!

I am installing Windows 10 onto my new SSD however it seems to keep getting stuck at the file partition stage. I've waiting 15 minutes and nothing seems to be happening. I've restarted and tried again but same thing happens?

After 45 minutes of waiting and nothing happening, I restarted the laptop and it's showing a partition of 450mb which isn't enough to install on, when formatting or selecting next on the unallocated space it freezes again.

miral79 · 1 Apr 2017 at 22:30

Dan_P said:
Hi All,

My Laptop has been running quite hot and slow recently, every time I have tried to use it (browsing on the sofa) and is getting to the stage where it's quicker to use my iPhone.

Is there anything anyone can suggest??

Thanks,
Dan

ok first things first what is eating up all that disk usage? u need to do it again under disk usage priority to see whats eating up all the resources, 98% of hard disk being used, thats causes a lot of heat to go around the inside that could be 1 reason, i have my old sony vaio 5400 rpm hd it does similar it gets really hot anything with hd heavy resources and the whole laptop gets hot as a result.

Dan_P · 1 Apr 2017 at 23:14

Dan_P said:
After 45 minutes of waiting and nothing happening, I restarted the laptop and it's showing a partition of 450mb which isn't enough to install on, when formatting or selecting next on the unallocated space it freezes again.

I have been able to increase the size of the allocation, however when pressing format - nothing appears to happen for 30+ minutes.

darael · 1 Apr 2017 at 23:35

Boot up your Windows setup disk, but don't do anything at the first screen just yet - the part where you choose the language is enough for now.

When asked to choose your language, press Shift + F10 and command prompt windows will open. Do the following in command prompt:

Type in DISKPART
Type in LIST DISK
Find the disk number for your the disk you want to perform a clean install of Windows to. If there are more than one disks, make sure you have the right disk number before continuing.
Type in SELECT DISK x - replace x with the disk number you want to install Windows on. Ie: SELECT DISK 0.
Type in CLEAN. This step will erase everything on the disk, partitions, files and all.
Type in EXIT to quit DiskPart and type in EXIT again to close the command prompt window.

Now continue with setep as normal and try installing Windows to the disk.

I'm guessing the the disk is your SSD. If so and the DiskPart process fails, it might be worth your time downloading UBCD and installing it on to a USB stick and running Parted Magic. On the desktop of Parted Magic there is a secure erase program. Try both secure and enhanced to be safe.