Question Why is my computer overheating?

[dblokillo]

Hi!

So, a little bit of background before I get into my main point... I have an HP envy 14 that bought new in the 2014s, and have had since then. I took care of it as best as I could back at my home country (tropical country, not much of a climate change during the year), and tried doing the same when I moved to a full 4-seasoned country.

The battery finally died one winter when I decided to take the laptop out of my room to my University, tho it was a less-than-5-minutes walk... Ok, no big deal, it's old anyways. The problem is, everything started to get weird from then.

Fast forward some months later and the fan started to sound really loud out of the blue, when literally the day before was completely fine. Then I started having thermal issues until it got so bad that the thermal throttling was preventing me from using Windows normally (I have ruled out other software, or viruses or whatever because it happens the same -true on a lower scale- running Linux).

And so I did what most would do as their first step, I changed the thermal paste, but this didn't make a change at all, I am still running at around 70° C average and peaking 90° if I have too many programs opened or use Windows at all.

I have checked the fan, it seems to work fine. The copper heat transfer unit seem fine, no cracks or anything suspicious. The laptop is pretty clean on the inside. Software running is minimum.

So my question after all this is, what can be still causing the thermal issues?

What should I try doing next? (unfortunately buying a new oneis not an option) Could the temperature change due to moving have affected something?

Appreciate any help!!

Edit: Hardware specs
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210U CPU @ 1.70GHz
6GiB System Memory
Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller
BCM43142 802.11b/g/n
RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
HP Truevision HD
Swipe Fingerprint Sensor
1TB ST1000LM024 HN-M disk
(If something else is needed please let me know)

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full laptop hardware specs.

My thought is a faulty/failing PSU....

 

[dblokillo]

Update your post to include full laptop hardware specs.

My thought is a faulty/failing PSU....

Why would a faulty PSU affect heating on the laptop? Also, since the battery died I have not replaced it and I have been using it with no battery, plugged to the AC adapter... Could that be part of the issue?

 

[Ralston18]

The PSU is critical to the computer and power related problems can cause all sorts of errors and performance issues.

Especially if the PSU is not fully up to providing the power demands of the laptop.

Doubt that going without the battery caused the problem.

However, there may be other thoughts and comments about that.

After all, the laptop was designed to have a battery.

Going without a battery may have had some adverse consequences.

 

[dblokillo]

The PSU is critical to the computer and power related problems can cause all sorts of errors and performance issues.

Especially if the PSU is not fully up to providing the power demands of the laptop.

Doubt that going without the battery caused the problem.

However, there may be other thoughts and comments about that.

After all, the laptop was designed to have a battery.

Going without a battery may have had some adverse consequences.

I see... would that be the case tho even with the original charger that I've been using all along since day 1? Also, if there is any negative effect because of not using a battery, would that be permanent?
I will test the adapter and test with a different one if possible, and post the results.

 

[Ralston18]

If the charger is [now] over or under voltage then that would lead to problems.

Whether those problems would be permanent or not I honestly and objectively cannot say.

However being a natural cynic and all the more so when it comes to design EOLs (End of Life), planned obsolescence, and ensuring ( via fine print) that the end user can be blamed for warranty issues, etc. .... Enough said.

After 5 years very likely that the laptop is showing its' age.

You still have another option.

This:

" if I have too many programs opened or use Windows at all."

Reduce the number of programs as much as you can. Both those launched at Startup [Task Manager] and any that you manually launch.

There may be some background Windows apps running that you do not need to have running.

Take a look in Task Manager.

If you can reduce the noise and temperatures by reducing the load then that may provide a temporary fix.

Start thinking about replacing the fan.

 

[jsmithepa]

U will forgive me if I failed to read your entire post, am adversed to long winded posts.

Your battery died and what? did you remove it? or just left it there? A dead battery sitting there may cause addition heat, is possible.

Fan is fine... so just a visual inspection? do u hear it turning? you should hear a pretty good swoof at 70-90c.

That's the problem when users don't look at these things when it's working, now you have no base for comparison. I know my fan idles inaudible @2000 rpm and increases when heat is up to 4500 rpm and audible >60c and goes like a jet engine when pushed really hard.

If your box has an adjustable fan curve, play with that.

 

[dblokillo]

I have checked the charger, and it seems fine. Tho I don't know how tolerant to voltage up or down the device is. So, instead of 19.5v that the charger should be outputting, I am getting 19.93, which is not a huge difference, tho I never until this point tested it so I have no idea whether or not this was the original output. Tho, I don't know if .43v make a big difference...

Another annotation, those 19.93v are out of one of the positives of the charger, the other is outputting 13.3v. This is the one that has me thinking, since this is new for me, I didn't know that they have 2 outputs. There is no information in the label on what should be the 2nd output or anything like that, so I don't know if this is expected, or how much should I see there. Nonetheless, I will try to find a new charger and change it, see if it helps.

Reduce the number of programs as much as you can. Both those launched at Startup [Task Manager] and any that you manually launch.

There may be some background Windows apps running that you do not need to have running.

I know, and believe me when I tell you that I kill absolutely everything that does not crashes my PC immediately (I've tried lol). Still no issues. Anyways, the problem also shows up in Ubuntu, tho it takes more (because Ubuntu is more efficient?) for it to happen. Say, several tabs on Brave, plus a YT video fullscreen.

U will forgive me if I failed to read your entire post, am adversed to long winded posts.

Your battery died and what? did you remove it? or just left it there? A dead battery sitting there may cause addition heat, is possible.

Fan is fine... so just a visual inspection? do u hear it turning? you should hear a pretty good swoof at 70-90c.

That's the problem when users don't look at these things when it's working, now you have no base for comparison. I know my fan idles inaudible @2000 rpm and increases when heat is up to 4500 rpm and audible >60c and goes like a jet engine when pushed really hard.

Yeah, there hasn't been much said in the post yet, it's not so difficult to read at least the original post...

No, I don't use it with the dead battery because I know that doing that tends to cause issues. Also, yes, I hear huge usage spikes when the temperature rises. That is how I started to notice the issue on the first place. It used to be hardly able to hear (as still does when the PC is idle, tho there are still random spikes), and goes apeshit when I do the minimum resource-consuming task.

I say that the fan is OK because I don't see any damage, it turns fine, goes up when the CPU gets hot and goes back down when idle.

If your box has an adjustable fan curve, play with that.

What do you mean with this?