Overheating Lenovo G580 laptop - various causes and solutions
Recently I noticed my almost 5Yr old Lenovo G580 laptop which comes with a dual core 2.3GHz Pentium B930 processor, was running hotter than usual. Generally I use my laptop for internet browsing, little bit of office documents and mainly watching movies and TV Serials. So it was not as much bother, but upon looking into it - I noticed with the help of HWMonitor program, that even on idle it's running at about 60 degree celc. This is hotter than average. Two problems I could see was 1. The thermal paste has dried out and become useless, 2. The fan is not kicking in.
After going through a number of articles on internet about thermal paste I decided to get the cheaper version abd try it out. Mind you the average ambient temps here are in 35 degree celc range these days, this being summer. So last week I ordered an el cheapo thermal paste for 130 INR, that about $2 - qty is 10gm. Got it yesterday. Went home and after unscrewing a dozen screws and getting nicked here and there, I managed to get to the motherboard. After removing the heatsink-fan combo, I used simple cotton to wipe out the old grease. It was indeed dried out. I wiped out the underside of the heatsink as well. Then fumbling about I managed to fix it on the chip. Then screwing a buttload of screws and then done.
It all took me about an hour. After practise it may be a 20 mins job. But good learning experience for me. So after all was packed in, I learned I have missed couple of screws. Put them in the thermal compound wrapper for next time. Then crossing my fingures I turned on the laptop. Apparently I managed to put everything back together in working order. After running it for about an hour, I could see some improvement - the temps were down by about 4-5 degrees. Now idle temps were hanging around at about 55-56 degree celc from the 60 degrees.
The fan though is acting like a turd. It just doesn't move fast enough to expel the heat. Maybe I need to see what's wrong with it. The only time it moves fast is when I run the dust expelling routine in Lenovo Performance Management app. Found couple of suggestions on the net - but the fan control is not available in my BIOS, and other ways to control fan speed didn't work.
So still something to be done. But some improvement too. Cheers!
After going through a number of articles on internet about thermal paste I decided to get the cheaper version abd try it out. Mind you the average ambient temps here are in 35 degree celc range these days, this being summer. So last week I ordered an el cheapo thermal paste for 130 INR, that about $2 - qty is 10gm. Got it yesterday. Went home and after unscrewing a dozen screws and getting nicked here and there, I managed to get to the motherboard. After removing the heatsink-fan combo, I used simple cotton to wipe out the old grease. It was indeed dried out. I wiped out the underside of the heatsink as well. Then fumbling about I managed to fix it on the chip. Then screwing a buttload of screws and then done.
It all took me about an hour. After practise it may be a 20 mins job. But good learning experience for me. So after all was packed in, I learned I have missed couple of screws. Put them in the thermal compound wrapper for next time. Then crossing my fingures I turned on the laptop. Apparently I managed to put everything back together in working order. After running it for about an hour, I could see some improvement - the temps were down by about 4-5 degrees. Now idle temps were hanging around at about 55-56 degree celc from the 60 degrees.
The fan though is acting like a turd. It just doesn't move fast enough to expel the heat. Maybe I need to see what's wrong with it. The only time it moves fast is when I run the dust expelling routine in Lenovo Performance Management app. Found couple of suggestions on the net - but the fan control is not available in my BIOS, and other ways to control fan speed didn't work.
So still something to be done. But some improvement too. Cheers!
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