Laptop performance drop

[AndroDev]

Hello everybody,

I have a problem with my 2-year-old Asus laptop. A couple of days ago, I was playing a game when the temperature hit 96°C (204.8°F) for about 10-20 seconds. I immediately closed the game and let the laptop cool down by itself. However, since then, I noticed a significant performance drop, even in high-perf mode and even when I'm not playing (plugged-in or not). The weirdest part is that now the laptop doesn't heat like it used to; in normal usage (& Entertainment mode), the temperature is ~38°C (100.4°F) when it was ~50°C (122°F) and above before.
I made an antivirus scan (just in case), cleaned-up my computer, verified nothing was running in background...
So I was wondering what could be the cause of the problem : thermal paste? Damaged CPU/GPU?

Thank you in advance for your answers.

Best regards.

Specs :
Windows 10 Home edition 64-bits
Intel Core i7 4710HQ @ 2.50GHz (3.50GHz Turbo)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M with latest drivers
8Gb RAM

 

[webworkings]

Well, all that you mention could be the cause. Without checking them there is no way to know for sure.

First try cleaning it out. Make sure there is no dust/debris, in it. Also, make sure it is getting good airflow. If that doesn't do it, next would be changing the thermal paste. If that doesn't work, you may need to replace the fan.

 

[AndroDev]

Well, all that you mention could be the cause. Without checking them there is no way to know for sure.

First try cleaning it out. Make sure there is no dust/debris, in it. Also, make sure it is getting good airflow. If that doesn't do it, next would be changing the thermal paste. If that doesn't work, you may need to replace the fan.

Thank you for your answer. The fan doesn't seem to be the problem, the airflow is good and can turn up to 3000rpm when the computer gets hot.
But I will open my laptop to clean up the dust.

Also, do you really think 10 seconds is enough to actually damage the CPU/thermal paste?

 

[webworkings]

Well it only takes a moment to damage a part. So yes that much time could do damage. It just would depend on where the heat was centered, what parts were involved/near it and how good of a quality the parts are.

However, in regard to thermal paste, that goes over time. Since you have had it for a couple of years (per the original post), if you haven't done anything with it before now, it could easily need new paste.

 

[AndroDev]

Well it only takes a moment to damage a part. So yes that much time could do damage. It just would depend on where the heat was centered, what parts were involved/near it and how good of a quality the parts are.

However, in regard to thermal paste, that goes over time. Since you have had it for a couple of years (per the original post), if you haven't done anything with it before now, it could easily need new paste.

Ok, so I will open it this weekend to see what's going on in there.

However, after a few days of use, I have the strange feeling this is a software problem rather than a hardware problem. Everything seems to work perfectly despite the laptop slowing down. I can even run some games without a problem (with quite low temperatures). I will maybe try to factory reset my computer before replacing thermal paste.

Thank you for your time.