Thetownend.com

Right, apologies for this as there must surely be a thread on the topic but its easier to start a new one :) I've noticed for a while now my laptop gets abnormally hot, but dismissed it as nothing as my brother in law said it was normal, and I can usually trust him on these matters. But its baking hot and has just shut itself down - whats most likely to be the cause? I'd take a guess at a broken fan somewhere but I'm really not sure. If I get some ideas from here its a starting point.

Have you tried blowing on it?

Asides from that, from my experience it is very likely that a fan is broken.

Can you hear the fan? I suspect its just covered in dust and not working as effectivly

full of crap or bust fan at a guess.

If the fan wasn't working at all it'd shut down within seconds.

More likely to be a combination of dust and dirt in the heatsink (the copper pipe thing which dissipates heat) and dried up thermal compound.

Oh and in case spacey is reading, you need to buy one of these (http://ssjlogan.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/cheadle.jpg)

Go into Bios and check the temperature of it. Ideally it should be under 50'C in my opinionated opinion, although i like 'em under 40'C and once ran one at about 80'C although it did die once i got it to over 95'C. Surprisingly.

any amd chip will happily run at just over 60'C.... for a while.

Right, I checked everywhere in bios and saw no temperature (I checked and found it ok on my parents pc) so i downloaded this piece of software called Sandra. Looks a bit clever for me but I figured out how to get it to monitor the temperature. Seems to be running at a steady 55c. Seems a little on the high side (!). I've reported it to ASUS and will go from there.

Thanks to all.

Edit: It's up to mid 70s. Fucksake.

I had this problem the other month... turns out the casing around the fan had bent in when i moved house and was stopping the fan from doing its thang. Bent the casing back into shape with a screwdriver, and hey presto...

How old is the laptop? If Asus want to charge you to have it fixed and it's not that new you could try and use a vacuum cleaner over the air vents to suck the dust out. There is a risk of a static charge ruining it though, so take that into account, but jjedmunds says he does it all the time and has never had issues.

Or I don't mind taking a look at it if it's convenient. No point in paying asus for a clean and if it's the fan that's broken it should be a cheap and simple job to fix.

Your other option is to get a laptop stand with fans built in which will keep it cooler.

I bought it in August last year, and it came with a 2 year warranty so it ought to be covered. Its just the hassle of sending it away, etc. Anyway, I opened it up and the fan seems to be working ok. I do wonder if Lucien Sanchez might be on to something though - I tend to transport my laptop quite a lot so I'll check that out.

Did it look quite dusty around the fan?

I used to have a girlfriend who was like that. Dermatitis I believe.

Anyway - I would go with Si on this one. Stick a Hoover nozzle in the fan aperture. My laptop had a similar problem, it was turning off more and more often. I even bought a cooler for it. Eventually it got so bad that I took it apart and found a huge wodge of dust inside the fan outlet/heatsink (not visible from the outside). It works fine now.

Are you sure "wodge" is a cromulent word? :)

Hmm. After googling on what I believed to be a separate issue, I think I have found my problem! Its something to do with Asus Live, apparently its a bit of a memory hog (had loads of memory issues recently) and causes overheating. Was going to send it off to get it fixed but hopefully having uninstalled Asus Live Update thats my problem solved. Which would be nice, as I'm getting ready to start 3 essays now!

I got one of those USB fans on eBay for my laptop, worth every single penny. It keeps it nice and cool puts it at a better angle, only usable when its sat on a desk though.

The fan is busted in my laptop but I can't get at it. I managed to fuck up one of the screw heads so I can't get it out now.

Anyone used these 'USB cooling mats' I'm seeing here on fleabay? Are they just as effective as a fan? Will have to invest in one or the other it seems.

Read the post above yours

Oh. :D I take it they're the same thing then. Whoops.

'cooling mat' didn't have the word fan in it anywhere, so I assumed it was something else. Now that I think about it of course, I've no idea what method the 'cooling mat' would use if not a fan! Just bought one anyway, £9.

If you've still got overheating issues, you really want to clean everything out anyway, the problem will just get worse and worse.

Very true. My laptop overheated and ive had 3 new hard drives put in. Luckily the hard drives are under a 12 month guarantee and each one has bust within that period.
Still a pain in the ass tho. If you are doing 3 esays like you say, save them on to some kind of external memory thingy at the end of each writing session. Could save some tears.

I will. Lecturers are notioriously unsympathetic (and rightly so) to students who claim (either correctly or not) to have lost work due to computer crashes. Decided to use the cooling mat for the time being (when it gets here) and then over the easter break I'll send my laptop away. great excuse not to do any work!

If you search for "USB Fan" on eBay, I got the one that is clear plastic with three fans and blue neon lights. Lots of people are selling what look like the same thing, not sure who I got it from though.

It is cheap and the wires look like they will fall apart but they haven't so far. It does the trick and is well worth the money for anyone using a laptop on a desk or other hard surface on a regular basis. Even if you're not having over heating issues I'd recommend one, it will keep it cool and it gives a good typing angle.

Possibly the best £8 I ever spent.