Laptop CPU temperatures: 65°C in idle, 100+°C in heavy load

Question

The laptop is a 4 years old Asus N56VZ, ambient temperature is around 25°C.

I've already unmounted the laptop, cleared the (not much) dust and changed the original thermal paste with Arctic MX-4, but the temperatures won't drop. I'm on Windows 10, I've also checked the temperatures with a clean installation of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and they're pretty much the same. The situation seems to be pretty critical given that if I start a system scan in Bitdefender the computer will turn off automatically after ~20 minutes because of the activation of the thermal protection.

I specify that the CPU used to have normal temperatures, around 40-45°C in idle and 80°C in heavy load, before that this problem started. If it is not the OS/loads, the dust or the thermal paste causing these temperatures, what can it be?

Solution 1

Just a thought: If you changed the thermal paste and removed the heat sink yourself, make sure you screwed it back in the correct order.

Each screw is numbered to have the heat sink aligned properly with your cpu/gpu. I have made this mistake in the past and it really hit the temperature quite a bit.

Solution 2

My 8 year old laptop was also getting very hot, i opened it and cleaned it up(or so i thought) many times - didn't work. But then last time I opened it up completely(like remove the whole board), opened the fan screws removed the cover an behold there was a half inch thick dust clot on the fan outlet. Now it's running suppper nice.

See the dust on the fan outlet.

Look how how much it's.

Comments

[InterLinked]

Do you mean Celsius or F? 80 degrees C is 176 degrees F. Your computer should not be getting that hot. Not only is bad for the computer, but it could be potentially harmful to your health or even fatal.

[RVKS]

Celsius as said in the post, but I forgot to specify I'm talking about the CPU's temperatures. I'll edit the question.

[JCTechie]

Do you hear the fans kick on when it has a load or is it quiet?

[RVKS]

@JCTechie yes the fan seems to work well, it stays ~2000RPM in idle and ~3500RPM under charge. It surely goes even higher under extreme charge but I haven't measured its speed in this situation.

[JCTechie]

Well I suggest taking your computer to a repair shop. I would actually have to see the pc to fix it. It sounds like a hardware problem which is hard to fix over the internet.

[DDay]

As all else has failed to soccer your problem can you update the BIOS?

[RVKS]

@DDay I already have the latest version.

[Suici Doga]

You are throttling the CPU by reducing the CPU power.

[Suici Doga]

It will be lower unless the CPU is exposed