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Pavilion dv7 2040eo: Graphics Card Overheats?

post #1 of 9
12/25/09 at 8:24pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,
I've had this laptop for quite a while and I've been experiencing this quite frequently. Whenever I play a game, sooner or later, the computer just promplty shuts down. The part of the computer which holds the graphics card is then generally very very hot, which leads me to guess that this is the problem. Note that it sometimes can run for several hours without complications, but other times it wont even take half an hour. It's getting very frustrating and this combined with a lot of other issues makes it an altogether very unpleasent experience using HP.

If anyone has any idea of how to stop or minimize this behaviour or has at least experienced it before please post here with solution or something


P.S. I have updated the bios, but not changed anything in it - no overclocking or anything.
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post #2 of 9
12/26/09 at 6:42am
I would first try to take it apart and apply thermal paste on the gpu and see. Clean it up whilst you are it. What about an external cooler pad?

cheers ...
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post #3 of 9
12/26/09 at 9:05am
Thread Starter 
Hi!
I'm not entirely comfortable taking it entirely apart but might have to.. I'm going to try the external cooler pad today though, see if it works any better. Heard from a few friends that they were having similiar problem with various hp models and was just wondering, is it really that a common problem - and if so, why? Don't they stresstest their products before release? :/

Anyway, thanks for the reply.
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post #4 of 9
12/26/09 at 9:26am
HP does tend to run warmer than other brands/models but shutting down at games is quite common to all notebooks from times to times.

cheers ...
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post #5 of 9
12/26/09 at 9:47am
Especially having gathered dust a year or more.
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post #6 of 9
12/26/09 at 9:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by zipperi View Post
Especially having gathered dust a year or more.
So true here. It was a surprise for a family member when we just cleaned out the dust/dirt and the fan on a Toshiba last week. The system went from howling (warm) at start to be so quiet (and cool) as if it was brand new

cheers ...
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post #7 of 9
12/26/09 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
All right, well. How would I go about picking it apart? I've done it with several stationary computers before but never with laptops. For example, the harddrive is easily removeable but the gfx card is not, do i need to unscrew the whole bottom?

I got an external cooler thingie today and so far it seems to work however the graphics card is still unusually hot.
Thanks for the replies
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post #8 of 9
12/26/09 at 7:10pm
For start, I would just vacuum around (all) the vents, use a compressed canned air along the vacuuming as well.

Do that first before contemplating taking the bottom apart.

cheers ...
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post #9 of 9
1/4/10 at 3:35am
Ditto on what qhn said. I tried and had to give up on taking my laptop apart numerous times. Half the time I was afraid I was going to break something off how tight some of the components were....and I was looking at the step by step manual too. The GPU and CPU are both cooled by the same piece of copper and exhaust fan. Your best bet is to simply pin the fan down with a paperclip or needle (to prevent it from burning up its bearings) and letting loose with compressed air in all the vent holes. For me this works every time. Also, consider using GPU-z to see how hot the graphics card is really getting.
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