Laptop overheating problems
Overheating is the primary reason for a laptop to work for a while when plugged into the wall, and then to freeze up or shut down on its own. There are two kinds of overheating involved, the first is component specific and the second is related to the overall temperature inside the laptop. Individual components, such as the CPU or video processor may simply get hotter faster than they should due to a manufacturing flaw or installation issue and we’ll talk about these issues in the section about troubleshooting motherboards, CPUs and RAM.
In this discussion, we’re going to restrict ourselves to problems caused by the whole laptop getting too hot. Overheating usually takes place in the body of the laptop, although it is also possible for the LCD electronics or the inverter in the lid to be adversely affected in a high temperature environment. Engineers employ a number of strategies to prevent all of the heat generating components crammed into laptop body from generating so much heat that they damage themselves. The most important strategy is limiting the amount of heat produced in the first place. That may sound like the ultimate design goal, but laptop manufacturers also have to compete with each other on performance, and higher performance components usually mean more heat generated. The main culprits in the heat generation cycle are the two large processors, the CPU and the video processor. Intel and AMD both manufacture special versions of CPUs for laptops, which run at lower power levels (producing less heat) when they aren’t fully employed. Temperature management in laptops goes handin- hand with battery life management, since less power consumed means less heat produced, and a longer battery life.
Increased fan noise may be your first indication that your laptop is running on the hot side. It can be extremely irritating to work on a laptop with a loud fan that frequently cycles on and stays on for extended periods. A well designed laptop with good power management should be almost silent in normal usage, with the exhaust fan becoming audible only during periods of intensive computation. Fan speed is also controllable, so a well designed laptop will run the fan just fast enough to keep the temperature in the ideal operating range. However, some manufacturers go overboard on packing in high performance components to create a power laptop in the “desktop replacement” style, and these monsters tend to run hot even when they are in new condition. Go online and read some customer reviews of your laptop when you first suspect overheating. If the reviews include a common thread, like “the left side of the keyboard becomes too hot to type after fifteen minutes,” it means your laptop was poorly engineered. It’s easy to find aftermarket products that are sold for the purpose of cooling down hot laptops. These range from passive devices that are intended to lift the laptop off the desk and provide for better air circulation, to stands with multiple fans powered from the laptop’s USB port.
These powered cooling devices might not hurt much while the laptop is plugged in with the AC adapter, but they don’t make any sense when you are running on battery since drawing power from the battery increases its internal heat generation. But if you expect a positive contribution from a powered cooling device, find one that has its own power supply. The most important thing you can do to prevent your laptop from overheating is to operate it in the proper environment. For starters, it should be placed on a hard, flat surface, with no obstructions within a couple inches of the sides and back. The flat surface can be at an angle, some laptops run cooler if the back is higher than the front as this increases passive air circulation. If you’re going to use your laptop on your lap or some other soft surface, like a bed, find a board or some other flat, heat-resistant object on which you can place the laptop. If you’re using the laptop for a short time on a non-ideal surface, like your lap, take a look at the bottom to see where the vents are and don’t block them. And remember, if your legs are getting too hot for comfort, the laptop isn’t very happy either.
Laptops are dependent on the surrounding air for cooling, so if you run a laptop in an environment that’s too hot, it will overheat no matter what other precautions you take. The maximum operating temperature for most laptops is in the range of the 85° to 95° Fahrenheit (30° to 35° Celsius). You should check your operating manual to make sure, but generally speaking, laptops have a much smaller operating range, cool or hot, than people. That doesn’t mean the laptop will immediately shut down or refuse to work if you take it up to the attic on a summer day, but heat is a merciless killer of electronic devices. Operating the laptop in a high temperature environment can lead to errors or data loss and shorten its life. By the same token, you can’t let the laptop reach a high temperature while turned off by leaving it in a hot car or on a radiator, and then expect it to cool itself off when you take it somewhere nice and turn it on. Better to let the laptop cool down before powering it on. Cleaning the laptop may solve your overheating problem if it’s filled up with lint or if it has accumulated a blanket of insulating dust on its heatsinks, which are the metal finned structures placed on hot components to increase the surface area that can be cooled by air.
Unfortunately, unless you partially disassemble the laptop, your cleaning efforts will be limited to blowing compressed air through the vents, which can also have negative consequences. You must use canned compressed air sold specially for cleaning electronics, as other compressed air sources may contain too much moisture and bits of foreign matter. You should also follow the instructions, especially if they warn you not to use the can upside-down, which may expel propellant. On the whole, if you’re going to try to clean out a laptop that’s experiencing overheating problems, you’re probably better off finding detailed disassembly instruction on the web and carefully removing the keyboard or getting the top half off so you can see what you are doing. As tempted as you may be to use a vacuum, don’t, unless you have access to a special static free electronics vacuum.
