Hot Spot

[#1]

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.

[#2]

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.

[#3]

@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

[#4]

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

[#5]

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@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.

[#6]

@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".. 

[#7]

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

[#8]

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

[#9]

@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?

[#10]

@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 .

[#11]

@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.

[#12]

@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.

[#13]

@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

[#14]

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

cheers

[#15]

@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