Graphics Card is too hot - how do I resolve this?

[nocturniauzuki]

Hello.

I bought (what I think is) a very nice laptop a little over a year ago. I've had no problems with it for a long time, but it has always seemed like it was running pretty hot. It never seemed to cause any issues though, and I don't know much about hardware, so I assumed it was just what happened with powerful cards and ignored it. However, during the summertime in particular (25-30C outside), the laptop is extremely hot and I am starting to worry about it. I am also now experiencing some keyboard malfunction issues that I suspect are due to overheating.

The laptop in question is an MSI GE62VR Apache Pro. The temperature culprit would seem to be the GPU (Nvidia GTX 1060). According to a GPU customization program I downloaded, my GPU temperature is at 85-95C while I have games open. From what I have read, anything 90C and above is bad. The games in question are fairly intensive, though I do not run everything on ultra settings. Games like Final Fantasy XIV and Witcher III are among major culprits. After turning off the game for around 15 minutes and idling my GPU, the tracking tool seems to indicate that it is idling at around 58-59C.

I did recently acquire a laptop cooling pad - a cheap one given to me by a co-worker. It doesn't seem to have made any difference. I could purchase a higher quality cooling pad, but I am concerned that it too will make no difference. The laptop's heat creates something of a negative feedback loop: the laptop acts like a space heater for the room it is in, heating it to a noticeably higher temperature than the rest of the house, regardless of air flow. The hot room then makes the laptop's internal temperature issues worsen, which just heats up the room even more. Blowing hot air into a hot laptop doesn't seem like a great option.

Some of my gaming mates have also suggested clocking down my GPU and CPU. According to them, my GPU is being throttled by heat, and so clocking it down may even increase its performance, rather than decreasing it. If this is a good option, I'm not sure how to go about it, nor by how much I should clock it down. I have no idea what clock rate benchmarks there are for running the games that I play.

With my moving to a significantly hotter country (34-38C summers) next month, I am worried that my laptop may just spontaneously combust one day (not literally... hopefully not anyways)... so what can I do to reduce the GPU temperature, and how can I do it?

Thanks a bunch for your assistance!

Edit: I just discovered that my laptop has a built-in cooling system called "Cooler Boost 4", utilizing heat pipes. After turning this on, my idling temperature dropped to 48C, and my gaming laptop dropped by 10 as well, to around 75-85C. However, a quick online search did mention that such systems can potentially shorten the life of the laptop?

Edit 2: Actually, even with it on, the laptop eventually hits 95 during effect-heavy areas of the game (like boss fights). This is with allied effects turned off as well.

 

[rhoban]

Laptops are generally hotter.
Even normal PC GPUs reach 70-75 C in games.
So your temperatures might be "normal" given that it's a laptop and summer.

Install MSI Afterburner.
From there you can set a temperature limit.
You can also cap the frame rate by using Rivatuner Statistics Server (it comes bundled with Afterburner). I keep mine capped at 60 FPS for any non-competitive games (e.g, single-player games such as the Witcher, Far Cry etc).