topic Re: Hot Spot in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

Hot Spot

shutter — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 12:23:35 GMT

ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH71 17inch Laptop, running on Mains supply ( battery installed ) from about 0830 to 2359 daily.

There is a "hot spot" area of the keyboard and touch pad area. more specifically the top half of the touchpad and the left half of the keyboard, being quite uncomfortable to keep palm of hand in contact with when typing.

I have taken the keyboard off, and removed the cooling fan ( clean ) and the copper cooling piping, and replaced the Thermal paste on it.

Here is a screenshot of Terminal screen - "sensors" ( Linux Mint 20.3 )

I don`t know what all the information is telling me... so am guessing that the running temperature(s) around about 50c are OK. but would like someone with a more knowledge to interpret and advise if anything needs to be done .

Thank you.

Re: Hot Spot

Dan_the_Van — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:13:43 GMT

Hi @shutter

did you do any further research on your question? During the hot weather my devices (raspberry pi and desktop pc) have been running at around 50c

Was it clear when you opened up the laptop what component is in the hot zone?

To aid air circulation around my laptop is use one of these

HTH

Dan.

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:57:24 GMT

@Dan_the_Van Thanks for the interest.... No other research. other than monitoring the "sensors" on the Terminal window... seems to fluctuate around the 54c mark.

The main hot spot area is a large copper cooling pad ( presumably) that is situated where I have already described.

I use a 12 inch long by one inch square of wood, blutacked to the back side where the screen hinge is,. so it raises up the keyboard into a more comfortable position. (Also it aids circulation of air below. When I have my desktop fan ( situated at head level on a high chest of drawers which has the printer on top ( fan on top of printer)). and directed at me, the temps do go down to about 50 and the keyboard does feel much more comfortable, temp wise.

I have a USB fan similar to this one ....eBay item number 283397995788 ( mine was a bit cheaper !)

and I have made a box for it to stand behind the laptop. ( using a USB adpater and extension lead) but am concerned as to how long I should run it on the usb port, and also if it will cause more overheating than cooling in the process.

cheers

Re: Hot Spot

Dan_the_Van — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 13:34:38 GMT

Personally I wouldn't plug anything into a laptop other than a peripheral, but that's my choice, others may have differing views. The fan would most likely only have the +5 and 0 volts wires connected, but would still be a drain on the voltage regulator of the laptop.

How busy does System Monitor show the CPU's to be? Does that drop and system cool down when you stop the Windows 7 Vbox which I believe you use for your hobby?

My ubuntu mate system with Intel Core 2 processor is currently running at 50c with only the desktop running, I would image 50c is well within the operating temperatures of your laptop

Re: Hot Spot

7up — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 13:58:02 GMT

@shutter wrote:

I have taken the keyboard off, and removed the cooling fan ( clean ) and the copper cooling piping, and replaced the Thermal paste on it.

Bit did you take the fan assembly apart and clean the actual cooling fins? - here's one i did years ago that was badly overheating..

The fan itself looked fine, the heatsink looked fine but when i found that the fan was still going nuts on reassembly it was clear something wasn't right. Took it apart again but opened up the fan assembly (hidden screws) and found fluff as thick as a new carpet in there. Removed that, no more cooling problems.

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 16:32:23 GMT

@7up Yes, and all the cooling fins were clean..

@Dan_the_Van I don`t use VBox for my "hobby". I run it on WINE ! . ( No not the liquid version ! )and it uses hardly any resources, as most of the time it is "resting"..

Re: Hot Spot

greygit — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 23:05:17 GMT

That doesn't look too bad. I've seen worse.

Re: Hot Spot

greygit — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 23:08:26 GMT

To clarify.

When the fan blades have accumulated fluff-and-stuff then that is worse.

Sorry, don't have pictures. Days and years before smart phones

Re: Hot Spot

Baldrick1 — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 06:56:45 GMT

@shutter

Have you tried running it without the battery to eliminate the possibility that the this is faulty and the heat is coming from the power supply regulator?

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 07:09:16 GMT

@Baldrick1 No... The battery is new, well, about 1 or 2 years old. and the PSU is well clear of the abck of the Laptop. Could give it a try I suppose !

Thanks for suggestion.

The main question of the post was that I was concerned as to whether the given temps in the screen shot were "acceptable" running temps, or are they showing up some other fault if they are too high .

Re: Hot Spot

Baldrick1 — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 07:49:59 GMT

@shutter

As far as the devices are concerned 50°C is fine. What's intersting is that this heat is building up inside the case. As the fan is working I was looking for some other device that could be producing heat that isn't being monitored. The PSU regulator being my immediate thought. Apart from the CPU cores I don't know what the other temoerature figures are monitnitoring. The other component that comes to mind that can get hot is the graphics chip.

At the more basic level, whilst you have a fan expelling hot air, have you felt whether there is reasonable air flow with a clear duct for the cool air to get back in? To be honest I've never looked at how this is achieved in a laptop. but what's blown out must first flow in.

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 09:09:06 GMT

@Baldrick1 OK understood.

Been looking at the video I used to remove the cooling and replace the heat paste and taken some stills from it.

Main board as seen with keyboard, & cooling fan , removed.

The "darkened square" in the top right part is where the heat seems to be generated...( see other pics )

Underside of main board with cooling

Underside with cooling removed

in the last pic, I have "lightened" the area that seems to be where the main heat area is on the keyboard. So, it looks as though the heat is not caused by the cooling pipes and processor blocks on it.

Re: Hot Spot

Dan_the_Van — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 10:31:45 GMT

@shutter

Regarding the without battery theory. Regardless, a battery of the laptop being charged or not the voltage regulator I would expect it to be operating all the time, battery voltage would need to be stepped down to the required voltages for the components.

Example, my HP laptop power pack output is 19.5 volts 2.1amp

I would suggest taking the battery off charge to see if that makes a difference, my laptop is warmer when charging, the warm area is where the power cable plugs in.

Does the laptop have a 2.5 inch SSD or HDD as that can be a source of heat, from the photo it looks like M.2 SSD card to me

How much memory does your laptop have? System monitor will give a clue as if the pc is running hot for a reason

If the CPU usage is high then it will hotter, I expect you already know that. This result in the fan running and getting faster if it get hot inside the case.

As I've already indicated previously 50c is not that hot in world of comments, hot water from at tap is usually about 60c

Some research would suggest anything up 60c would be fine, 70 to 90c would be of concern.

Last thought are you overclocking the CPU?

Dan

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 10:40:52 GMT

@Dan_the_Van ok... will do some looking around and come back later...

cheers

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 12:50:49 GMT

@Dan_the_Van

OK... thought I would remove the battery.... but it is not an easy job, and is almost a full destruct method.. have to undo loads of screws around the base.. and then remove the keyboard (carefully) to access the battery. ( numpty design ! ) .

so.. next thing .. just pull the power plug out... and see how that goes.

Yes it does have a 2TB ssd installed.

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT ***************************8 SYSTEM PROCESSES RUNNING shows only my morse program and the system monitor actually running... cwcom using between 8% and 16% System Monitor at 16% oh,... and Firefox-bin at 8% to 64% depending on what is happening to this page. ( it changes every couple of seconds ! ! ! )

System resources pics

sensors report - after 20 mins with no mains power running.

Which does not look much ( if any ) different from the first posting.

Keyboard area still feels uncomfortable, though may be more concentrated around the are of the Z key spreading slightly west and more towards the south east to the left side of the touch pad area. ( this is probably "conductive" heat )

Suspected heat source area

Note the darkened area is only a "guesstimated" area, could be more upward and more leftward, as this is showing the underside ( therefore mirror image) of where the heat source "could" be coming from.

syste

Re: Hot Spot

Baldrick1 — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 13:02:18 GMT

@shutter

Is that a M.2 SSD that I see in the area in question? If so, that would be my guess as being the source. Have you checked the spec of it to see if you are inadvertently overclocking it.

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 13:07:24 GMT

@Baldrick1 The pics of the main board etc, are screen shots from the you tube video... not of this actual machine.. BUT.. i suspect it has the same SSD as it is the same model numbers.

Don`t know about "overclocking"... nor how to check the spec... as this is a 2nd user machine.. but it has always had this "hot spot"... just thought it was about time I tried to do something about it.

Any advice re checking the spec / overclocking ( reverting back to normal clocking ) gratefully received, so long as it is in easy to follow steps ! .

cheers

Re: Hot Spot

Baldrick1 — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 13:36:52 GMT

@shutter

You need the part number of the SSD. Obviously you can't read the label as you've now reassembled the laptop. I don't know about Linux but can you run a freebie such as Belarc Advisor under Wine or find a Linux equivalent. If you then run a speed test you can see how close to the limit that it is running.This should be automatically configured but you never know.

Possible Apps to see how fast the drive is running see: https://www.makeuseof.com/ways-test-ssd-speed-performance/

My system drive SSD CrystalMark results:

The other thing is that the SSD might be failing. Many years ago I had a PC with a twin core AMD processor. Once the core temperature on one of the processors got to about 55°C it went into thermal run away. In about a minute the core temperature shot up to above 120°C (the other stayed cool) and the computer crashed. The PC would work all day with the covers off but just putting them back on - bonk, dead. Let it cool down and away it would go again.

Re: Hot Spot

shutter — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 13:46:01 GMT

OK @Baldrick1 thanks for that... will get on it later on..

Re: Hot Spot

Dan_the_Van — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 15:46:00 GMT

@shutter

Try in a terminal window list all hardware and vendor details

inxi -F

extract for drives

Drives: Local Storage: total: 1.94 TiB used: 1.30 TiB (67.0%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SA400S37120GB size: 111.79 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST32000542AS size: 1.82 TiB
ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DataTraveler 2.0 size: 7.32 GiB

HTH