Laptop generates heat when causual use and light gaming?

[Kucabara]

I bought this laptop 3 days ago, a Acer Aspire E1-572G, and I've noticed that it gets warm pretty quick. When I'm watching Netflix, it gets hot (not 100C hot but you can feel warm wind very well), when I'm browsing the web and... just doing any causual tasks.

It gets very hot when I'm playing League of Legends. I bought this laptop mostly because I wanted to play League, and the heat is making me crazy. I have a HP ProBook 4540s that I use only for school. I've played LoL on it before, and it isn't as loud as when I watch a movie on the Acer.

Is this normal for laptops or should I return it? Also, when playing or watching movies on the Acer, no other background processes or any other 3rd party software was running. Thanks.

Laptop Specs:


Intel Core i5-4200U with Turbo Boost up to 2.6 GHz
AMD Radeon R7 M265 with 2 GB Dedicated VRAM
8GB DDR3 L Memory
1 TB HDD

 

[Akutalji]

The R7 M265 (a.k.a. the 8750M) is actually a pretty hot chip. (My Acer sports the same GPU, paired with an A10 wih two fans, still spits heat when gaming, around 85C). That particular chassis only has one fan, and chances are both the CPU and GPU are both on the same set of heat pipes, making the computer relatively warm under normal use, and hot under gaming loads.

Note the i5-4200U, it is an Ultra Low Wattage part, which most would assume would mean cooler running, and it does, up to a point. These processors aren't nearly as powerful as their full wattage counterparts, and run at higher frequencies more often to keep up with loads, which means running hotter, more often.

"No 3rd party software was running." There is always stuff running. Your antivirus, windows background stuffs, so forth. On windows 7, go to start, type *msconfig*, go to tab *Startup*, this tab shows everything that boots up when your computer does. Unfortunately, win7 does not have the ability to filter windows and non-windows processes, so proceed only when you know what you're turning off.

Still running hot? Maybe a virus or malware has gotten in, and is running in the background, taking up clock cycles and spitting out heat. Run a virus and malware scan to see if the system is clean.

 

[Kucabara]

Thanks for your detailed answer. What I meant with 3rd party was that only pre-installed programs were running (excluding acer bloatware), and no software that i installed myself. I've decided to return the laptop. I can't handle with it being loud while doing simple tasks.

 

[Akutalji]

Personally, I always do a little research on any laptop I intend to buy, or talk to someone who owns the same model. A quick google search on any model of laptop yields several reviews (I personally always check up on notebookcheck.net), and will give you a heads up on any of the faults or issues with a particular model.