[SOLVED] Can't figure out why CPU is overheating

[ObsidianVillain]

Hello everyone,

I have been seething at the fact that ever since I bought my laptop I have done every possible thing to run it cooler than it is with no avail, so short story I bought a Predator helios 300 2019 version, out the box this thing has been running at high temps I searched around and found out that this is a general thing. How ever I personally do not feel comfortable with my laptop running hot all the time, so I did some digging and found about ThrottleStop used it and did other tricks here and there such as but not limited to;

1. Debloating
2. Tweaking the registry
3. Closing applications
4. Undervolting
5. cleaning the damn fans
6. Upadting drivers
7. much more

The problem is usually one of these fixes will work a bit and then something goes wrong in the near future, for instance I at first used throttle stop and clocked my CPU at 3.5 ghz, that at first gave me a solid experience with max temps of about 82-83 degrees then a week or two passes and its back at its bs with 90-93 degrees with the same settings and my over analytical self making sure its all working smoothly.

Recently for instance I cleaned my fans fully thoroughly, applied some thermal paste and it was good for about 2 weeks 74 degrees to max 80. I though finally its good to go and then about 2 weeks later its rekt again. Today as I made this post with desperation, I played Runescape, thats right runescape(very basic game, low demands) at what? 78=90 degrees! Idle? 60!

My fans couldn't get dusty in 2 weeks and despite it being summer even in winter I had the same problems, I made sure of most basic things such as having the heat sink sit properly, cleaning, thermal application, elevation, throttleing, cleaning the system, updating. What else is a man to do?

Edit: Recently been getting BSOD Critical_process_died if it helps, but laptop boots back up and is fine

I just can't put my finger on what it is

Please help as Acer support is useless as it can be
Thank you for your attention.

 

[jojesa]

It will help if you provide your system specs (components).

 

[ObsidianVillain]

It will help if you provide your system specs (components).

Oh sorry,

Windows 10 64x, GTX1660Ti, 16gb DDR3 ram, intel core i7 9750h 2.60ghz CoffeeLake 6 cores
I also wanted to mention that the computer auto turbo boosts every time even on idle

 

[Rdslw]

What thermal paste did you use ? That cpu can go hard, so stuff with 6 W/mk or higher.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yqSq6qVDxvcsSQc3kFUvfG-970-80.png.webp
Anything from this list that lives above Arctic mx-2, including it is ok, pick whatever you have avaliable.

There are 5 things that can go wrong here:
Paste
pressure
fans
heatsink
system

and I will go through them in that order.

Paste as above, you want something that is conductive, and ideally don't dry fast, as laptops tend to bend, it can crumble away. Rule here is to aim for something that have 6W+ transfers and don't cost a lot, and have in reviews that it's not turning to dust next week. Stronger the better, it makes a lot of difference for daily driving, when your laptop CAN do browser without warm palmrest.
for application, this is enough:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHOBRvXYqEg


pressure you mount is important, you want to make sure paste is firmly kept inside, as any movement will make it crack after 2-3 months, and thermal performance will plumet.
Ideally use standard cross screwing method.

Fans can die, its not uncommon if random long hair got stuck and overheated the motor. Make sure they blow evenly, in case of dual fan laptop, OEM's mostly use same fans so they should have similar blow strength.

Heatsinks can be damaged without external visibility. Here easiest way is to idle your machine as low as it can, then as you load it to 100%, check how long it takes for heat to get out of the machine, lower the better, and if laptop overheats and output is not warm, then it might be the heatsinks/heatpipes.

System
Assuming windows:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/use-maximum-cpu-power-windows-10
instructions above,

you want to set your CPU to work minimal as 10/20/30% not higher, so it can cool down when it can,
max speed as 99%.
It will stop cpu from turbo, and will take ~10% of performance away, BUT around 50% of the heat. Power used in turbo grows exponentially, while performance gain is usually logarithmic. Most cases, you don't care about 5ms extra for task to complete, but you care about extra 10'C of your palmrest.
As you don't seem to run hard games, it's a good deal imho, in games performance lost is minimal, as gpu takes the hard part.
Make sure to check task manager for power hogs, services like origin, epic games, tend to be power hogs and keep CPU loaded even when idle. close if not used.
you want to disable anything that have very high power usage and its not directly used by you.

Gaming laptops are not designed to be cool and nice to touch, so you can help yourself with cooling stand, extra air moved though system never hurts. ( I use one that doubles as USB hub for me.

last resort is locking your FPS in games, I tend to set 45 fps on laptops, it keeps my palms from burning, and I dont care for higher fps.

 

[ObsidianVillain]

F

What thermal paste did you use ? That cpu can go hard, so stuff with 6 W/mk or higher.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yqSq6qVDxvcsSQc3kFUvfG-970-80.png.webp
Anything from this list that lives above Arctic mx-2, including it is ok, pick whatever you have avaliable.

There are 5 things that can go wrong here:
Paste
pressure
fans
heatsink
system

and I will go through them in that order.

Paste as above, you want something that is conductive, and ideally don't dry fast, as laptops tend to bend, it can crumble away. Rule here is to aim for something that have 6W+ transfers and don't cost a lot, and have in reviews that it's not turning to dust next week. Stronger the better, it makes a lot of difference for daily driving, when your laptop CAN do browser without warm palmrest.
for application, this is enough:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHOBRvXYqEg


pressure you mount is important, you want to make sure paste is firmly kept inside, as any movement will make it crack after 2-3 months, and thermal performance will plumet.
Ideally use standard cross screwing method.

Fans can die, its not uncommon if random long hair got stuck and overheated the motor. Make sure they blow evenly, in case of dual fan laptop, OEM's mostly use same fans so they should have similar blow strength.

Heatsinks can be damaged without external visibility. Here easiest way is to idle your machine as low as it can, then as you load it to 100%, check how long it takes for heat to get out of the machine, lower the better, and if laptop overheats and output is not warm, then it might be the heatsinks/heatpipes.

System
Assuming windows:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/use-maximum-cpu-power-windows-10
instructions above,

you want to set your CPU to work minimal as 10/20/30% not higher, so it can cool down when it can,
max speed as 99%.
It will stop cpu from turbo, and will take ~10% of performance away, BUT around 50% of the heat. Power used in turbo grows exponentially, while performance gain is usually logarithmic. Most cases, you don't care about 5ms extra for task to complete, but you care about extra 10'C of your palmrest.
As you don't seem to run hard games, it's a good deal imho, in games performance lost is minimal, as gpu takes the hard part.
Make sure to check task manager for power hogs, services like origin, epic games, tend to be power hogs and keep CPU loaded even when idle. close if not used.
you want to disable anything that have very high power usage and its not directly used by you.

Gaming laptops are not designed to be cool and nice to touch, so you can help yourself with cooling stand, extra air moved though system never hurts. ( I use one that doubles as USB hub for me.

last resort is locking your FPS in games, I tend to set 45 fps on laptops, it keeps my palms from burning, and I dont care for higher fps.

First I want to say thank you for such a detailed response no one has given me even in support,

The thermal paste I used is the following;
ZALMAN ZM-STC7

In terms of screwing, I did a cross screw as well (screwing in an X format) and the performance really plummets faster than that. as for application I found out that on my specific type of laptop I need to put more thermal paste as out of the box it had much more than generally advised on the internet which also didn't work for my laptop in terms of cooling.

The fans have not died, I even oiled them with grease to make sure they are running fine and they were they can max out at around 6120 RPM on both. Heatsink couldn't be damaged as this laptop is barely 10 months old and I have not done intense gaming nor damaged it. The heat does dissipate well when the laptop is not in its phase and works fine.

As for the system, ironically when I had 60-70 degrees on idle yesterday my CPU load was 8% I do not have any crazy load I am quite aware of my task manage and what goes on in it.

I do run hard games, such as BF4 BF1 Cod Warzone, Sea of thieves etc. I also run them on ultra and when the laptop is working fine the palm rest is not hot and max the heats get to is 80 at 110-90 FPS 144hz. Though keep in mind this is with ThrottleStop locking the CPU cores at 3.5ghz max

For the rest of the advice you provided I will try to limit my CPU and see, although I want to remind again I se ThrottleStop and already limited the CPU (correct if wrong)

Thanks

 

[Rdslw]

All you mentioned seems to be in order.

Windows might lie to you, it hides some of its own processes that might go bananas. It also might be bloatware, (if you will ever have dell, they LOVE to rev the fans with their bloatware).

I looked around the internet for Helios 300 issues, and they seems to be notorious toasters, so it might be just a thing of this manufacturer.

The Helios 300 are known for running hot though. If you undervolt the cpu and cache by -120mv and the gpu by -50, that could hopefully resolve your throttling issue. And if that doesn't do it, then peg the max turbo at 3.6. Hopefully that will help.

but I found an interesting part that cpu tends to run 1.4v when it's designed to stop around 1.2v (probably manufacturers did tweak the power sensing)
most people seem to undervolt a lot, 0.120 - 0.140v range, (~15%) so it makes sense that CPU had board overclock.

Second part is this:

Windows update has just introduced a new microcode update that neuters software undervolting apparently.

So make sure Throttlestop does something, and voltages are in the range, (dynamic ~0.1v lower than default). |
if voltages dont go lower in Throttlestop, switch to manufacturer software and do it yourself.

• CPU-Z
• Open Hardware Monitor
• HWiNFO

moniitor changes in software above, windows tools are unreliable.

if that does not help think about is your surroundings, 60'C on your idle might be normal if your room you are using it is ~40-45'C
or that its not CPU heat, but integrated GPU.

 

[ObsidianVillain]

All you mentioned seems to be in order.

Windows might lie to you, it hides some of its own processes that might go bananas. It also might be bloatware, (if you will ever have dell, they LOVE to rev the fans with their bloatware).

I looked around the internet for Helios 300 issues, and they seems to be notorious toasters, so it might be just a thing of this manufacturer.


but I found an interesting part that cpu tends to run 1.4v when it's designed to stop around 1.2v (probably manufacturers did tweak the power sensing)
most people seem to undervolt a lot, 0.120 - 0.140v range, (~15%) so it makes sense that CPU had board overclock.

Second part is this:


So make sure Throttlestop does something, and voltages are in the range, (dynamic ~0.1v lower than default). |
if voltages dont go lower in Throttlestop, switch to manufacturer software and do it yourself.


moniitor changes in software above, windows tools are unreliable.

if that does not help think about is your surroundings, 60'C on your idle might be normal if your room you are using it is ~40-45'C
or that its not CPU heat, but integrated GPU.

Since we last spoke I lowered the minimum cpu activity as in that article, didn't help much I turned off turbo boost which seems to have helped, but even with battery at low performance, when I play RunScape I quickly clock at 70-72 degrees.

My cpu core is undervolted by -0.1328 and CPU my cache is the same
Throttle Stop definitely does do something as its what initially lowered my temps, but then it keeps going back to its bs.

As for software I do not use windows software I used the above and others such as CPUID, QuickCPU, Throttle Stop

I just don't know what else it could be, I considered reinstalling windows and thought perhaps something in the system is just not right hogging out the CPU.

I am also sure its the CPU because the graphics card rarely gets really hot, do you think thermal pads for the CPU chips would be better?

Thanks

 

[Rdslw]

Since we last spoke I lowered the minimum cpu activity as in that article, didn't help much I turned off turbo boost which seems to have helped, but even with battery at low performance, when I play RunScape I quickly clock at 70-72 degrees.

My cpu core is undervolted by -0.1328 and CPU my cache is the same
Throttle Stop definitely does do something as its what initially lowered my temps, but then it keeps going back to its bs.

As for software I do not use windows software I used the above and others such as CPUID, QuickCPU, Throttle Stop

I just don't know what else it could be, I considered reinstalling windows and thought perhaps something in the system is just not right hogging out the CPU.

I am also sure its the CPU because the graphics card rarely gets really hot, do you think thermal pads for the CPU chips would be better?

Thanks

That paste was a solid choice, Pads are about half of that transfer, usually. I guess it's where you top out sadly, Only thing now is to get laptop cooling stand (they can take ~10'C without noise, and support yourself with desk fans,
I am using dell's g3 right now, and desk fan that I don't hear though headphones is enough to keep keyboard cool, while I got 75'C underneath.

There are 2 more things that can be done, which make you utilize the chassis as a cooler as well, but I don't recommend using it on your lap after that.
We Basically want to remove plastic covers where heatpipes are close to laptop external bottom cover, and put thermal pads there. It makes laptop heat up way more, but have 3/4 times as much metal for cooling, so it can take like 10'C from cpu temp. With cooling stand like this one: youtube it can be 10'C less with both gpu and cpu load.

Downside is that bottom of the laptop will be ~15-20'C off what cpu is, so if it ever reaches 80' its enough to cause burns.
no more game sessions on the lap, but maybe it will be enough for you.