system overheating

[miner49r]

Hiya Folks,
I have an Acer Extensa 4620Z that has serviced me well since new. When forced to upgrade to IE8 I found it needed more ram. 2GB from Crucial did the trick to feed the memory hungry IE8.
A few weeks go by and I am now experiencing random shutdowns due to overheating while surfing certain websites. HMEM being a top offender. I have disabled a slew of running processes in WindowsXP and disabled or removed most add-ons in IE8 which has helped a bit. Still, while reading some websites I can still watch the temps climb to about 208 degrees F... Black.

Hmmm... If the problem is with certain websites then what have I missing?
Alan

 

[Blogwitch]

Alan,

Because of where my computer is, at the back of a kitchen area, and having two dogs, and a cat that sleeps on my printer doesn't help, it soon gets clogged up with dirt inside. I used to suffer terribly with overheating and shutdowns.

So now, every six months or so, I suck and blow all the debris out of the insides, especially the cooling fins on the processor, and all problems have disappeared. A warning though, don't blow or suck through fans too much, they easily shed their blades, DAMHIK.

Now running windows 7 with AMD Bulldozer quad core, 16 GB memory and 128GB SSD main drive, with another 4TB of disks hanging on. Only 1 case fan and the CPU fan, cool as a block of ice.

Try getting rid of IE, I did a couple of years ago and haven't had any problems since, except with ISP's.


John

 

[metalmad]

Hi Alan
Computers mystify me but I have found with mine I need to keep the very memory hungry "shoutbox" on HMEM closed.
Try it and see if it helps.
My advise has to be worth what u paid for it :big:
Pete

 

[lazylathe]

I would try using Firefox instead of IE.
I made the switch about 10 years ago and have never looked back!

Also a good cleaning never hurt.
It is amazing how much dirt they attract!

I had to google your computer to see what it was, a Laptop!
Those small fans easily get clogged up and need regular cleaning.
A can of air will usually do the trick for you!
You may have to remove some of the back covers but it is easily done!

Andrew

 

[Blogwitch]

Alan,

I hadn't realised yours was a laptop, typical of me not to find out.

Going by my experiences over the years, they are VERY fickle to overheating and also of not clearing out the hard drive.

It doesn't take much for the processor to start to labour if your hard drive is clagged up with garbage and the registry gummed up with all old, unused program links. A good clean out, then a defrag on the hard drive will work wonders for getting your computer back to working like it should.

I do just that on all my hard drives every month, and normally there are a few tens of thousands of registry errors and unwanted surfing history links, even over such a short period of time.

I bought my wife a new laptop for use while she was in hospital, to play games on and to go onto Skype, and even in the short time she used it, less than 6 weeks, it had already started to slow down and get clagged up.


John

 

[moconnor]

Hello,

After losing my last HP laptop LCD to overheating, I learned a valuable lesson. First, hibernate it or shut it down when you won't be using it. Second, buy on of those cooling platforms that you can rest it on while on your desk or bench. So far, so good on the replacement.

Regards,
Mike

 

[miner49r]

That's some hot rod you have there John. I built my very first computer. It is a FIC 503a board with a AMD 350MHz processor. I pushed the core voltage and the FSB to bring it up to about 630 MHz with liquid cooling. By today's standards it's like running on steam. I still have it and will fire it up every so often just for giggles.

Back on topic.
I clean the heat sink every six months and once a year I will back up my files and do a clean restore of the operating system. I usually keep the 100GB hard drive between 30-50 percent capacity. It's clean and lean. I do have Firefox and the event is identical to IE8.

I have narrowed the event down to browsing any one of three websites I frequent. So what is the common factor?

Hmmm... I may have just had an epiphany.
Alan

 

[solver]

Alan, if I understand correctly, you haven't had a heat problem on your laptop before adding that 2Gb of Ram?

If so, maybe that additional memory unit is the source of excess heat.

Or maybe it's just an IE8; can't say, because I haven't used IE for years. Maybe even Firefox, that I use nowadays, is a major Ram hog.

What comes to Firefox, after version 4, nothing has changed for better.

 

[miner49r]

Solver,
You're pretty much correct. I upgraded the memory due to IE8 freezing after eating up my 512GB of ram. After that came the overheating. The folks at Crucial gratiously replaced the memory including return shipping. (A+ E-tailer) Still no happiness.
About the epiphany I mentioned earlier... I happened to click the "compatability view" button next to the address bar and whadoyaknow... the temps. started to drop almost immediately. This is only a preliminary observation and further assessments will need to be done.
Now. I wonder what will happen if I set the "compatability view" for all web pages?
Alan

 

[rake60]

Try downloading Google Chrome as a browser.
It is less Windows intertwined than Firefox.

Then go to your local discount store and buy a cheap laptop cool pad.
Walmart has a few of THEM.

I have one!

Helps to cool the laptop AND the lap it is resting on!

Rick