On 08/08/2015 03:40, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
HP Envy m6 laptop (with AMD A10 processor), which arrive with a bad
case of overheating. Here's what the radiator grill looked like after
I tore apart the laptop to clean out the filth:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/rep...ogged_fan.html
That's about 50% clogged. It took about 45 mins to overheat and shut
down in self defense. The owner didn't really notice that there was
an overheating problem, but did notice that the machine seemed to run
slower when hot. I certainly noticed when I tried to do an image
backup for 100 GBytes of kids games and found that it overheated and
shut down in the middle of the backup (3 times). Note that the
picture was AFTER I had hit the fan with my 60 psi air hose from every
conceivable angle to try and clear out the crud. No luck.
Here's what I had to do to the laptop to clean it out:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/rep...A10%20CPU.html
General lack of easy maintenance features is one reason I don't like
HP products.
The real problem is the mechanical design. The grill on the heat pipe
is made for maximum cooling, not minimum filth accumulation. I did an
experiment once with some dog hair clippings (don't ask) to see what
really happens when a laptop sucks in short hair cuttings. The long
hairs are blocked by the small holes in the grill work. The dust goes
right through and out the exhaust port. However, tiny hair fragments
between about 4 to 6 mm go through the holes, through fan, and get
jammed up against the radiator grill. Initially, most of these short
hairs went right through, but as the few that got stuck increased,
more and more began to get caught until air flow was constricted to
about 30% of maximum. It happened quite fast and was impressive to
watch through a clear plastic fake cover. (I should do a YouTube
video). After the test, I found that I could easily blow out most of
the hair because there was no grease or goo to hold the fur ball in
place. The laptop in the photo was possibly used near something that
produced greasy fumes (kitchen or oil burning furnace). It took about
3 years to look like the photo. I forgot to take a photo of the fan.
It was fairly clean except for greasy dirt stuck to the blades. I
could hear the fan struggling, but it was against the back pressure,
not friction from the filth. Again, the picture was AFTER I had blown
out the laptop with 60 PSI compressed air from my blow gun in both
directions.
Related to that, notebooks and laptops, ie often used on laps.
I'm surprised how few outlet grills have a bulge around them to stop
loose clothing blocking the air outlet. Cut bit/s of blue hotmelt glue
stick and glue the disc/crescent to the periphery simply sorts that one