Windows 7 Laptop fan constantly on/ running hot.

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InitialKev

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So long story short, my hard drive died on me so I installed a 1T SSD and got it up and running again. Couple days later it overheated twice. I wasn't doing anything that would require much processing. I only had a few tabs open in Fire Fox. The computer locked up and made a terrible noise from the speakers and I had to shut it down by holding the power button. The entire surface of the laptop got REALLY hot. After the second time it happened I immediately took it apart to clean the fan blades and used canned air to spray into the vents. It hasn't super overheated since that but now it runs somewhat warmer than before and the fan would come on and stay on and it would drain the battery really fast. The first 2 minutes after booting up would be fine. The fan is off, CPU usage at 20%, memory around 40-60%. After that the fan kicks on and memory usage jumps to 90%+.

I have seen videos where people completely remove the fan with the heat sink to clean the surface of the CPU and to remove the dust on the heat sink that's behind the vent. Before I do that is there anything that would cause the fan to be constantly on and running hot? Could the new HD be making it work harder? Could a hidden process running in the background cause this?
 
Solution
I would grab Speed Fan to check your CPU temperatures. SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer post a screenshot of your idle temps. If your computer is overheating I'd wager money that it's a problem with the heatsink. Either the vent is clogged with dust and/or the thermal paste/pad seal is broken or not applied correctly. If this is the case the computer will need to be taken apart, cleaned, and new paste applied. Arctic Silver is probably the best paste you can get.
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Hi Kev,
what was the storage size of the original HDD? If it was pretty small then you might be overloading the system?
Which laptop is it?
 
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The original HDD size was 640GB. At first I bought a 500GB SSD but it won't allow me to install windows because it said it was too small. It's a Dell Inspiron N5010.
 
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As the the hard drive is larger than originally intended it's probably making the system work that little bit harder and hence the warmth. Plus if it's a physically larger drive it could be blocking important airways?
 
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The heat may lessen the more you use the drive but as to whether this will ultimately be a problem I'm unsure. You could try posting in a lappie forum and see if anyone has a similar experience?
 
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Can anyone suggest a good Dell forum? Also windows just installed 214 updates but it said it failed to configure the updates and is reverting the changes. This has never happened to me before.
 
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I would grab Speed Fan to check your CPU temperatures. SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer post a screenshot of your idle temps. If your computer is overheating I'd wager money that it's a problem with the heatsink. Either the vent is clogged with dust and/or the thermal paste/pad seal is broken or not applied correctly. If this is the case the computer will need to be taken apart, cleaned, and new paste applied. Arctic Silver is probably the best paste you can get.
 
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Solution
InitialKev said:
Can anyone suggest a good Dell forum? Also windows just installed 214 updates but it said it failed to configure the updates and is reverting the changes. This has never happened to me before.
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The Dell community forum can be found here. Using Speedfan will give you a better idea of what kind of temps your dealing with and whether your system can manage with it long term.
Dell Community

Speedfan
SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

Lastly re' the updates, when you mention that it's reverting the changes that could be an upgrade, do you know what the updates were exactly?
 
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As far as I know the heat sink has never been taken apart before so the thermal paste should be applied correctly from the factory. Is it common to have to remove the heat sink and reapply thermal paste?

Is it safe to use canned air with the straw directly on the vents?
 
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They're security updates. I had to basically reinstall Windows when I got the new drive so I guess it's trying to get back all the updates.


 
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InitialKev said:
Is it common to have to remove the heat sink and reapply thermal paste?
More so with desktop computers.

Is it safe to use canned air with the straw directly on the vents?
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Yes it is. Try removing the dust first and see if that drops the heat any. Your system is running a tad warm looking at those temps but as I said above use google to find out what your temps should normally run at or ask at a laptop forum. If you do decide to re-apply the thermal paste try googling for youtube videos on your model for reapplying thermal paste. I've seen others out there for laptops so perhaps someone has done a vid for yours?
 
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