Sony Vaio Overheating

[rushman64]

I have a Sony Vaio VPCF1, It is overheating, I downloaded speedfan and according to it Fan#2 in not working. The CPU fan is running 5160rpm. the CPU cores are at 180 degrees and the GPU is at 175. What is Fan #2 and can it be replaced? or is my computer done. I noticed this problem after the DC power port was replaced, is it possible the fan was not plugged back in or not inserted properly? Please Help

 

[vegettonox]

is this while gaming or just while sitting idle, do you have it on a desk or are you putting it on your lap/floor/bed ?

 

[rushman64]

I am sorry i did not give enough info. I have been using a laptop cooling pad on a desk or my coffee table. and I am still getting the high temps.However, I no longer get the shutdown I was getting before the pad. While gaming, I play mostly Fallout New Vegas on medium settings, back when the computer was new the fan speed would change with the load on the GPU and I could play on high settigs. It would get pretty loud too, nothing that concerned me. Lately, I haven't been hearing it. I did take the keyboard off and the fan is spinning. I also noticed that there is not a second fan. I dissasembled it while I waited on a reply to my post. I tried to update the Bios but I am alreadyup to date. Any Ideas, I am thinking the fan is going bad, but want to make sure before I spend the money on a new one.

 

[rushman64]

Also I was reading on the internet that it could be the thermostat on the mobo that is bad, can that be fixed?

 

[SonyListens]

I have a Sony Vaio VPCF1, It is overheating, I downloaded speedfan and according to it Fan#2 in not working. The CPU fan is running 5160rpm. the CPU cores are at 180 degrees and the GPU is at 175. What is Fan #2 and can it be replaced? or is my computer done. I noticed this problem after the DC power port was replaced, is it possible the fan was not plugged back in or not inserted properly? Please Help

Good morning!

This is Kevin Krause from Sony Support USA. I am very sorry to read about the problems that you are having with your VAIO. If you email us at Sonylistens@am.sony.com we will be more than happy to try and help you out. In your email, please include a brief description of the issues you are having, any event ID numbers you may have, and your contact information.

Thank you,
Kevin Krause
Sony Support USA

 

[chugot9218]

Well, I am assuming those temps are in Fahrenheit, if the system does not have a header that would be described through speedfan as "Fan #2", then it will not present any value for it; i.e., it is looking for fan #2 but because your laptop does not have one, it says it is not working. Just my guess, if ^ is actually from Sony just ask them!

 

[rushman64]

I called sony support and all I got from them was "Your laptop is out of warranty, Bring your laptop to a sony service shop" I decided to take it in to my local computer repair shop. I'll pay the $49.99 diag fee to find out what it is and then fix it myself. Every place I called seems to think is a dust problem, and the fan and cooling fans are clogged with crap. I wouldn't have that kind of luck though. It will be somthing that requires a motherboard replacement probably. At best, the fan is going bad and that would need replacing. I will find out next week.

 

[rushman64]

I found the problem. Even though my fan and heat sink did not look like they needed cleaning that was the problem. I used a canned air and cleaned out the heat sink fins. Now my laptop works like it did when it was new.

 

[rushman64]

Best answer selected by rushman64.

 

[dhaxton1]

I had the same problem in my VAIO. The reason sppeedfan reports no speed for fan #2 is that there is no such animal; just a CPU fan. This is where the problem lies. Actually 2 problems. Over time, the exhaust from the fan accumulates dust inside the box where the fan blows the hot air out. The second, I suspect larger problem, is that the thermal paste SONY uses, to put it blumtly, sucks.

You need to remove the cover from the laptop to get inside but this wasn't as bad as IO thought it might be. Lots of help here on the web. There are about a dozen small screws, just don't lose any.

Once that's done, you need to remove the fan/heatsink; another dozenish screws. You will have already bought: Arctic Silver thermal compund and cleaner ($12.99 at Amazon). Follow the directions and use the cleaner and surface prep liquids to thourouhly remove the old compound between the copper heat sink and the processor. While the fan is off, use the brush attachment on a vacuum cleaner to remove all the dust accumalted at the exhaust port. Now apply the Arcic Silver, sparingly (a dab'll do ya), reinstall the fan/heatsink, put the box cover back on and and be cool, VERY COOL!

 

[dhaxton1]

Oops, forgot to mention, my VAIO now runs 30C (almost 100F) cooler and I can't hear the fan anymore because it's turning so much slower; it no longer needs to turn fast. Between this fix and the SSD I replaced the hard disk with a while back, this puppy is cool, silent and fast.

 

[rahul12308]

can the sony service centres help me clean it??

 

[dhaxton1]

I'm sure they can clean it but it's really not hard to do it yourself.

 

[kentaro88]

The info I found was exactly as dhaxton1 and rushman64 described. I disassembled my Sony F12 and decided to explore a bit. (You can find a good tutorial on YouTube for doing this.) I removed the cooling fan and copper heatsink unit for further examination and found the unit to be generally clean on the outside. The surprise is what you don't see; if you look into the fan box (I was not able to disassemble this unit), you will see that the copper fins are very close together and that lint accumulates on the inside of the box, and is not visible from the outside. I use canned air to blow out as much as I could and was able to see light pass through in certain areas. I then proceeded to use cotton swabs dipped in alcohol and cleaned copper fins inside the fan box. THIS is the key. After doing this, I was able to see light pass into the inside of the fan box. I reassemble the laptop and started it up. The fan no longer ran at high speed and was quite quiet compared to before. This solved my problem. I have since used the laptop for weeks and the fan is still quiet and I haven't had an unexpected shutdown (probably due to thermal protection). Problem solved. Issue was poor design of the fan box making it essentially a non-serviceable part from a average user standpoint.

 

[jetlab]

If you use Chrome, try Shift Esc to bring up the Chrome Task Manager, it will tell how much CPU each tab is using, maybe some website is using a lot of CPU which can cause overheating.

 

[sellexx]

Had the same issue. I cleaned and re-did the thermal paste and it really fixed the overheating. So remember if there is no thermal paste the computer will overheat and shutdown in 5 min so if there is only dried out thermal paste itcan still add 20-30 degrees of heat. See this vid: https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrEOcjFOOM for doing the paste an cleaning. Once done is hovers around 45-50 degress. Before if was 70+. My paste was like dried out clay.