Laptop - overheating graphics card

writer22816

United States5775 Posts

June 05 2011 00:14 GMT

Hi TL.net, recently my laptop's GPU has been overheating like crazy. Literally cannot play anything besides BW and WC3.

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo P7350
2 GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
Mobility ATI Radeon HD3470

I use a laptop cooler so my temperatures are all fine except for the graphics card. The GPU idles at 100 degrees Celsius

Something is seriously wrong here. I don't understand how I could have such high temperatures when idle AND when under a laptop cooler constantly. Screenshot below.

[image loading]

It's not 100 degrees right now because I just turned on my laptop. It'll get there

In fact its at 90 right now lol.

And BTW, is it normal for the graphics card to have a voltage of 12V?

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

June 05 2011 00:18 GMT

It's probably just reading an incorrect value or interpreting it wrong, in terms of the voltage. The GPU chip itself is certainly not running off of 12V.

If you can't get this fixed under warranty, you probably have to open the laptop up and figure out what's wrong. Maybe there's a dead fan in there that needs replacing, or the heatsink mechanism for the GPU needs reseating (and maybe thermal paste).

writer22816

United States5775 Posts

June 05 2011 00:23 GMT

I opened up my laptop but I don't know which one is the GPU. The fan works fine though. And any way to get an accurate voltage reading? Should I undervolt?

Sablar

Sweden880 Posts

June 05 2011 02:35 GMT

There should be a fan by the GPU spinning?

jaj22

United Kingdom1376 Posts

June 05 2011 02:40 GMT

Are you sure your other temperatures are ok? 60C is very high for an idle temp on a C2D. What usually happens with laptops is that you get a thick layer of dust built up between the heatsink and the fan. No airflow => everything overheats.

Other option is that the GPU isn't in proper contact with its heatsink. You can usually spot the GPU by the memory chips around it.

Don't worry about the voltage. It's normal for GPUs to have a 12V input.

Molybdenum

United States358 Posts

June 05 2011 03:26 GMT

On June 05 2011 11:40 jaj22 wrote:
Are you sure your other temperatures are ok? 60C is very high for an idle temp on a C2D. What usually happens with laptops is that you get a thick layer of dust built up between the heatsink and the fan. No airflow => everything overheats.

This is probably it. Get some canned air, open it up, and blow out all the dust from the fan and clean out the case and such. On my laptop, my GPU would sometimes hit 90 C, but now it hardly breaks 75 C when gaming after cleaning out the dust.

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Laptop - overheating graphics card

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