Weird problem, laptop starts fine and works good but after half hour it loses performance

[Seymour sealess]

Hey people, I have a weird problem. Its my friends laptop and I am.not familiar with it yet, so I can't give any specs. The laptop boots fine and is running good for a 7 year laptop. When we stream a movie and we watch half hour, the performance drops so badly, we have to turn off the laptop. Not even restarting will do the trick. The longer the laptop is switched off, the longer it will run good! Apparently, this is going on for a year or so. She brought it for repair a few times and the guys told her that the fan has to be cleaned. So they did and it went better for a while but the problem keeps coming back! I am not sure if this is enough info or not but thanks anyway for every tip!

 

[jsmithepa]

The problem is, with age, the laptop is heating up and is not able to vent the heat as before. The CPU slows down to compensate. Slower CPU = less heat. New fan is a good start but maybe the heatsink too needs to be removed, thoroughly cleaned and re-pasted with thermo compound. The first thing you should do it, go into BIOS and set configure machine for PERFORMANCE mode. You will See something like Quiet, Standard, Performance. Performance mode says, turn up fan sooner as the laptop heats up, versus Quiet mode says delay turning up the fan allowing quieter operation but more heat.

Download a util, I recommend HWinfo, and monitor the CPU temperature, FAN RPM, CPU frequency.

I hope this is a good friend since you have to do all these things now.

 

[ttcboy]

Buy a decent laptop cooler with high air flow to help make the notebook run cooler. If you dun want to spend anything then the next best thing and effective way is to blow ur notebook with a normal fan while using. Make sure to blow at the air inlet instead of the exhaust outlets though coz it might make the matter worse.

 

[Seymour sealess]

Thanks a million! I downloaded hwinfo. It says that my core is running currently at 88c . I guess its not good since its red! And it says that core number 1 and number 0 is thermal throttling. Would it make any difference to run the laptop only on one core? Since I can change that in BIOS? Thanks again!

 

[mjslakeridge]

No, running on just one core will make that core work even harder, and thus more heat. You need to solve the overheating problem. When watching videos, is the laptop on your lap or on a desk/table? Try cleaning out the intake vent with some compressed air. If you don't have that, you can try a vacuum cleaner hose. I know some people have said that could cause static electricity and damage something, but we did that to all of the laptops at our office and had no problems. Is is likely the thermal paste between the cpu and the heatsink has dried out after 7 years and the heat isn't being properly dissipated from the cpu. Laptops are much harder to work on than desktops, so you will probably have to take it somewhere for service, if it is even worth it for a 7 year old laptop.

 

[Seymour sealess]

Thank you! Ya, the laptop is on the desk. I will try cleaning it out but she is buying a new one over the weekend. I guess 7 years is good age for a laptop anyway and it did his job! Time to retire. Thanks all for your help!