Gaming On Hot Days

[Torchizard]

Here in Australia, we're already starting to feel the temperatures that come with summer. Today was around 34 degrees or so. When I started up a game on my laptop that would usually allow the graphics card to stay cool (no temp. difference from other parts of laptop body) but the card soon heated up to a point where you could still keep your hand on the part with the card but it would be unpleasant. (This is on a Dell Inspiron 7520 BTW)

Since I'm 99% sure that the fan used to rotate faster than it is now, is it possible that there is something limiting its speed?

Also, should a temperature change of like 7 degrees between now and a few days ago really be affecting the GPU temp this much?

[bphlpt]

As I always suggest first for any kind of temperature related question, you should be sure your rig is clean. Take the back off the laptop and blow out any accumulated dust bunnies with canned air. Physically cleaning your rig is usually a fairly easy task for most people and has little risk of problems as long as you take your time and are careful. At a minimum, do a close inspection of all the components, making sure that everything is seated firmly and that the fan(s) seem to be able to spin freely and smoothly and nothing is blocking any of the vents. If you want to do a more thorough job, you could actually unplug and replug all cables, connectors and modules. You could even remove the CPU and replace the thermal compound with fresh, high quality Arctic Silver or something equivalent. Once you have eliminated any physical problems, then you can do further troubleshooting.

Cheers and Regards

[jaclaz]

At a minimum, do a close inspection of all the components, making sure that everything is seated firmly and that the fan(s) seem to be able to spin freely and smoothly and nothing is blocking any of the vents. If you want to do a more thorough job, you could actually unplug and replug all cables, connectors and modules. You could even remove the CPU and replace the thermal compound with fresh, high quality Arctic Silver or something equivalent. Once you have eliminated any physical problems, then you can do further troubleshooting.

Not really easy-peasy on a laptop.

jaclaz

[Ponch]

Here's a video that (hopefully) shows the inside of the said laptop.The OP knowing (or saying he knows) where the graphic card is, we can assume he already opened the machine. Also bphlpt does say it's a laptop, so he knows.

That being said, if it's the the graphic card getting hot, I don't see the need for replacing the thermal compound of the CPU, that might even worthen things. Dusting the fan's grid will help.

You could get the temperatures and fan speeds with softwares like HWinfo.

[Torchizard]

I opened it and there's not much dust, if any at all.

When I finished gaming and moved on to just word processing, the fan turned on and went to a higher speed than while gaming. So what's mysterious here is that while then fan is needed in a task such as gaming, it doesn't spin up as much as simple routine cooling.

Also, because of the distance between the card and processor, it seems like there actually are two fans, one for each heat-generating component. This is only an assumption but is seemed as if the GPU fan was non-functional and only relied on the CPU fan for air circulation.

[Ponch]

I opened it [...] it seems like there actually are two fans

Well if it's open... can you see them both?

They can't place a fan in the middle of a laptop like you place one in the middle of a desktop. There is no air circulation, only the heat flow in the designed channel. The heat pipe goes from the CPU to the "external" FAN, passing through the Graphic card heat sink. Maybe the graphic card becomes hot to the point you can feel it but never "too hot", and so at this moment the fan only kicks in when the CPU needs it. Reading the temps would let you know if sensors are working properly.