Laptop life & overheating

I won't ever buy an HP again because of overheating issues. Like you, it started after a few years of use. (Up until then, it had been great.) I actually had to get a motherboard replaced because it got so hot. Thankfully, it didn't impact my saved material, but might have had I not gotten it fixed.

I think for mine, it was that the fan just didn't work quite so well and other things.

One big thing I noticed was using Firefox. For some reason, it really hogged a lot of processing power. Very strange. I ended up switching to Chrome.

I too bought a fan platform deal, but it just didn't seem to do a whole lot. Taking it apart and air-canning out the fan and dust and whatnot helped a little as well.

I finally just bought a new laptop. I took mine to Best Buy and they gave me like $150 store credit on it, which was nice.

I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro.
I've been very happy with it, even after it fell on the floor 18 months ago, and needed some serious repairs (thank you local computer genius).
The accident means it has a more limited life span, according to the guy who saved it, but *touches wood* it's still fine. It could give up the ghost any day now, because it's been on borrowed time, but I'd definitely buy the same again.

Before this one I had an Acer. Never again.

Pretty much all laptops overheat in someway or another; not just HP. We cram heat-generating equipment cooled by copper smaller than your finger and a tiny fan in a small form factor--no wonder manufacturers have verged away from "laptop" to "notebook" because if you put them on your lap, you're bound to get burned.

Anyways, I'm 90% sure you just need to clean it out. Rising stands and fan stands won't do any good if the fan and heatsink isn't working correctly. There's probably a good build up of dirt, hair, and dust between the fan and the heatsink. Canned air can help you get it out, but I recommend taking the laptop apart if you can and remove the dirt directly--this can be quite easy if the laptop is built for servicing.
Other than that, the thermal paste or thermal pad might have gone bad. That's a bit more work depending on the laptop.

If the laptop is getting on in its years, it might be best to get a new one. Windows 8.1 isn't any worse than Windows 7--actually, in the consumer-field, it's better in many ways. W8.1 is also amazing with a touchscreen laptop.
I really can't recommend a laptop without knowing your price range and what you'll be using it for.

HP laptops are pretty notorious for overheating.

And cleaning mine out helped a little. Not a lot. The position where the fan is (in many of the models) doesn't help. One of my pals works at HP and even he made jokes about their laptops overheating. So, yeah.

Before the HP, I had a Dell which I loved. I went back to Dell and haven't looked back.

I've heard great things about Toshiba as well, and Vaio. I got my Dell from Best Buy, but did some research before I went in and waited for a sale. And again, they'll give you store credit for what you bring in. I didn't tell them that mine overheated. They just made sure it turned on and that the OS was working properly. The model I have now (Inspiron N5050) got decent reviews. I can even play World of Warcraft on it. And it runs videos and streams movies just fine (though I don't use it for games/videos much).

It was like $399 on sale. I got max RAM and stuff, so it might have been cheaper w/o those perks. They gave me $150 for my old laptop, so ended up paying $250.

Supporting Firedrake, I've heard pretty much only good things about Toshiba. I don't need a machine that will launch the space shuttle, I just need a reliable laptop with decent specs that will let me write. In the past few years, I've had to change out the keyboard twice, but that's because I abuse the heck out of it. ($14.99 for keyboard and took me about a minute to replace.)

The only thing that bugs me about Dells is all of extra Dell-ware. Dell backup. Dell checkup. Dell PC health. I spent a good 15 minutes uninstalling all the programs I don't want/need, but I like a super clean computer.

I'm sure others will have reviews as well. My husband has a MAC. Don't know what kind, but I won't touch an Apple myself. No desire whatsoever.

Good luck!

Things that can make a laptop overheat:

1. Crud in the vents. This is the most common, and the easiest to fix.
2. Bad fan. A little harder to detect, not too expensive to fix. You can do it yourself if you're even slightly techie.
3. Old, degrading battery. Strangely, the heat might be coming from the battery and not the CPU. When they get old, the charge/discharge cycle tends to produce more waste heat.
4. Strangely, a nearly-full hard disk. Windows does not like a hard drive over 90% full, and when you get to that point, the HD will start constantly thrashing. This causes the PC to slow down as the disk activity steals cycles, and it causes the HD to be running constantly, which generates significant heat with the mini HDs that most laptops use.
5. Gremlins. We've destroyed their natural habitat, hey, they have to live somewhere.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you really can't go just by brand. Every OEM makes shitty laptops and just about every OEM makes some nice, reliable (usually more expensive) ones. You really have to compare specific laptop lines. Don't just go by brand. And even the same model's quality will vary year by year.

And companies that used to be good get bought out, or move their manufacturing plants, or change parts suppliers, or just make cruddy decisions about design and QA, and what used to be good isn't so much anymore.

(6+-year-old HP laptop. No issues whatsoever, even when compiling Firefox with the lid down--I mean, if I'm using both cores to capacity for a while, it gets warm, but not to the point of overheating and shutting down. Not my primary machine, admittedly, but it sees enough use. HPs are not innately bad.)

I cheaped out on a Lenovo netbook that gathers dust inside the fan WAY too well. But it's five years old and still chugging.

Otherwise, they've been very good to me. Four Thinkpads (even the netbook had the Thinkpad brand name) and I'm using their Yoga 13 convertible right now.

Angry Guy said:

Things that can make a laptop overheat:

3. Old, degrading battery. Strangely, the heat might be coming from the battery and not the CPU. When they get old, the charge/discharge cycle tends to produce more waste heat.

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This is a good point that is almost never considered. I wonder how the waste heat relates to "durn thing won't hold a charge anymore"??

Angry Guy said:

4. Strangely, a nearly-full hard disk. Windows does not like a hard drive over 90% full, and when you get to that point, the HD will start constantly thrashing. This causes the PC to slow down as the disk activity steals cycles, and it causes the HD to be running constantly, which generates significant heat with the mini HDs that most laptops use.

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Not strange at all. Most people nowadays don't defrag, and with Windows after Win98, keeping it defragged is a constant battle. When the disk is nearing full, it is likely to stay fragmented even if you defrag every day, simply because there's not enough room to really do the job right. Fragmented files means the drive head has to run all over to retrieve the scattered parts of each file. It does more work (for a large file it may do dozens or even hundreds of times more work), so it generates more heat (and more CPU usage).

Side note: SSDs are different from mechanical HDs; you should NEVER defrag SSDs.

Angry Guy said:

5. Gremlins. We've destroyed their natural habitat, hey, they have to live somewhere.

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I have a computer named Gremlin. Perhaps this is why.

Laptops don't have the long life that desktops do. What they do have is over-heating problems. I only use my laptop when I go out of town or on the rare occasion that I want to curl up on the couch and dig around on the web. It's four years old and almost a virgin. The desktop is ten years old, gets a work-out every day, and is going strong.

Another reason I love my desktop is that I can look straight across at the screen. I can't be bending my bad neck downward for any length of time unless I want to pay with days of pain.

I've never had a problem with an HP overheating for at least five years, and then the cause was the fan itself. Fans get old. They just do. And no computer of any kind is intended to last forever. Sure, some go on and on and on. I know people with all sorts of laptops that are still going strong after eight to ten years. This includes HP laptops. But if your computer goes more than five years without needing serious repair, you're lucky, no matter who makes it. Four years is the likely trouble spot for most laptops.

Chances are you have a very simple problem, but also one you need to have tech check out before it becomes a more serious problem.

Jamesaritchie said:

I've never had a problem with an HP overheating for at least five years, and then the cause was the fan itself. Fans get old. They just do.

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Computer fans come in two basic types:

Sleeve-bearing (cheap) -- these have a typical lifespan of about 3 years. When they're tired they first make woo-woo noises (I once had a client complain that there was an owl in his PC!), then inevitably seize up. If the motor keeps trying to turn the fan, it can get seriously hot (and very rarely, catch fire).

Ball-bearing (not as cheap) -- lifespan usually much longer and a lot more variable; when they wear out they start sounding like a lawnmower, tho they rarely seize up entirely.

Sunon fans consistently outlast any other brand, but the penalty is they are relatively loud.

Sleeve-bearing fans are sometimes mislabeled as ball-bearing by unscrupulous manufacturers.

This has been your dose of useless information for today. I'll have more ready tomorrow.

If you ever replace a computer fan (even a laptop fan), don't go with either a sleeve or ball-bearing which is probably what you've got stock. For a few bucks extra you can get a fan with a fluid bearing. They are more durable (they last something like 3-4x as long... hundreds of thousands of operating hours), and much quieter with equivalent and in many cases superior cooling.

Katrar said:

For a few bucks extra you can get a fan with a fluid bearing.

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Not all created equal, and you may not be able to tell if it's really just a glorified sleeve bearing:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/The-Truth-About-Fluid-Dynamic-Bearing-FDB-Fans/1807/1

Reziac said:

Not all created equal, and you may not be able to tell if it's really just a glorified sleeve bearing:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/The-Truth-About-Fluid-Dynamic-Bearing-FDB-Fans/1807/1

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This is true, but then (not all created equal) applies to just about every computer part. If you spend $4 for a FDB fan you are probably getting less than you expect. Highly regarded fan manufacturers, though, like Noctua, Silverstone, etc... you get what you pay for (probably more in the $20 range for a single fan).

Even so, I'd guess $20 fans are mostly taking advantage of the same mindset that pays $100 for a 'special' audio cable. There's no way it costs that much more to make what is basically a sleeve bearing with lubricant grooves, even with Matsushita's patent. (Tho fact is, the best way to own electronics that never die is to buy Panasonic.)

But for comparison, I have $5 Sunon fans that have 15+ years on 'em running 24/7. In fact I don't think I've ever had to replace a Sunon fan. They make more noise, but they also move more air. (Conversely, you can just about write the expiration date on an Evercool, which will reliably die at about 3 years old.)

As to other parts, know where all the manufacturing seconds wind up? in namebrand computers. Which leads to crankiness about driver versions.

Reziac said:

Even so, I'd guess $20 fans are mostly taking advantage of the same mindset that pays $100 for a 'special' audio cable. There's no way it costs that much more to make what is basically a sleeve bearing with lubricant grooves, even with Matsushita's patent.

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I guess you haven't had to replace a case fan lately. lol $20 is very middle of the road for anything branded that is of decent quality, even at discount/wholesale prices. Add $5 if you plan on buying it from an actual store. $10-15 will generally get you one no frills old school fan. $15-20 gets you into hydro territory. There are fans that fit your description, of course, but they certainly aren't $20. They're more like $45-50 each.

You don't seem to care for hydraulic fans though. Simple sleeves are just fine, so long as they're maintained and repaired or replaced promptly.

Edit: Fans in general are definitely sold at great profit, I do agree with you there. It probably costs $1.50 to put together, but commercial price points are what they are. You'd have to know exactly where and when to look to find a premium quality hydraulic case fan for $5. That said, you can often find very good fans in combo packs... what would cost, say, $40 individually is sold for $25 or $30. That's how I buy mine when building a new rig. What I don't use immediately I'll certainly use later. =)

You're not shopping in the right place. I'd buy fans from these folks, whom I've known and done business with (in person and by mail) since the mid-1990s:

http://www.cablenbits.com/COOLING-STUFF/CASE/CASEFAN.html

Or Roger's, whom I've known and done business with since 1994 or so:

http://www.rogersystems.com/shop-bin/sc/productsearch.cgi?storeid=*14b9cf3aab9d51e61a55a9ef

Or if you want a wider brand selection, these folks, whom I've also bought stuff from:

http://www.directron.com/120mmfans.html

The prices at outfits like Worst Buy are obscene. (Realworld example from some years ago: DVD-RW drive at Worst Buy, $169. At the clone shop across the street, identical drive, $45. I remember this because I was trying to spend a $50 gift card, and it was still cheaper to go across the street.)

Reziac said:

You're not shopping in the right place. I'd buy fans from these folks, whom I've known and done business with (in person and by mail) since the mid-1990s:

http://www.cablenbits.com/COOLING-STUFF/CASE/CASEFAN.html

Or Roger's, whom I've known and done business with since 1994 or so:

http://www.rogersystems.com/shop-bin/sc/productsearch.cgi?storeid=*14b9cf3aab9d51e61a55a9ef

Or if you want a wider brand selection, these folks, whom I've also bought stuff from:

http://www.directron.com/120mmfans.html

The prices at outfits like Worst Buy are obscene. (Realworld example from some years ago: DVD-RW drive at Worst Buy, $169. At the clone shop across the street, identical drive, $45. I remember this because I was trying to spend a $50 gift card, and it was still cheaper to go across the street.)

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Best Buy is definitely the choice of last resort for any self respecting tinkerer. lol Your links are definitely great if you're looking for no frills fans. My Noctuas (the best fans I've ever purchased) are listed at directron for $10 more than I paid each, sadly. They do have some decent combo offerings, $30 for two Corsair SP-120s isn't bad.

The best deal I see there are the sleeved Zalmans at directron for $5.99. That's a good deal.

Considering the motherboards I've seen shook apart by Zalman HSFs, their stuff ain't touchin' mine...

I lived where there were huge computer "swap meets" (local vendors selling at wholesale) all the time. It sure cued me as to what real prices are for this stuff. And yeah, you still gotta shop around... when I was building custom boxes for clients, their usual instruction was "spend as little as possible". Truth is, most of the "higher end" models of fans and many other components are just rebadges of some mid-grade item you can get for a lot less if you know what it really is. Like all those $100+ cases that just add a pretty shell to a $20 RaidMax chassis.

Yeah, good swap meets (wholesale market variety) can be awesome. The most impressive I've ever seen was an IT supermall in Thailand (Pantip Plaza). So long as you were on strong lookout for knock-offs, you could walk away with incredible deals. Premium stuff wasn't THAT much lower than you'd get through more traditional channels but the quality mid-level merchandise... pennies on the dollar.