Skyrim overheating help needed

[arr0w]

Okay so its pretty simple. Been playing/modding Skyrim on my laptop since last Nov/Dec. Lately Ive been having problem playing for maybe 5-10 minutes and i just blackscreen with an over heating message. I play moderately modded with MO, i tested yesterday on a new profile with significantly less mods enabled and she lived momentarily longer, but ultimately, still same problem. Only thing so far thats done that lately, any advice? I use a usb Afterglow controller if that matters and I recently got a turtle beach headset that ive been using through Razer Synapse Virtual Surround Sound program/controller. WIth IObit's Advanced System Care's (which i HIGHLY recommend) Turbo Boost running, basically killing extra programs, services, ad processes. And yes, id been using all this before, besides the Razer audio. Any ideas? Laptop is not very old and Skyrim is well played on this setup

 

[Guest]

First download Open Hardware Monitor (http://openhardwaremonitor.org/) to figure out what it is that's overheating. Run the program, run Skyrim for 2 or 3 minutes (don't make your computer black out) and check the max temperatures on each component. 

 

What's likely happening is that somewhere in your computer is thermal paste that isn't correctly adhering to the stuff it should. This prevents heat from transferring from the overheating component to the heat sink. I think this is a relatively easy fix for someone who knows what they're doing, as essentially all you need to do is buy more thermal paste and carefully apply it to the right place in your computer.

 

Maybe you're like me, and very hesitant to bring your computer to a shop. (I don't want anyone to have access to the laptop full of my Loverslab mods and porn collection).

 

it is possible that there are steps you can take to remedy the situation without actually fixing the problem. My computer was getting extremely hot playing Skyrim, with the CPU reaching temperatures of up to 95 degrees. Amazingly I was able to achieve a 20 degree drop in temperature without a noticeable performance hit by underclocking my CPU (telling windows not to run the CPU above 50% speed), 

 

Obviously if your CPU isn't what's overrheating then underclocking it won't help.

[sorsharavenwing]

A lot of my clients take the hard drive out of their computer before bringing it in for service whether it's a laptop or a desktop. It's no skin off my nose as long as it isn't the hard drive that's causing the problem. In this case, it's definitely safe to say that your hard drive isn't the issue.

 

Like Bobbert6996 said it sounds like a thermal paste problem. It doesn't matter what kind you use it will eventually break down and be less effective allowing heat to transfer from component to heatsink. Components that are being leaned on generate more heat, which is why you're seeing shutdowns while playing Skyrim, but not necessarily during light use. My preferred poison is Arctic Silver 5. It's not as thick as some of the other pastes out there, but I've found that it creates a better bond and it takes longer to break down. It's a little more expensive though. Dust accumulation in the fans and vents can also cause heat to build up. It may be a combination of issues. I tend to pop the access panel off the bottom of my laptop once a month (since I live in a fairly dusty environment) and I clean out the fans, heatsink and vents. I do the same with my desktop.

[ds64]

How old is your laptop?
Maybe there are too many dust that blocking your laptop fan? (this is happened to me, after I cleaned it, I never had any overheating anymore.)
or maybe there are too many corrupt files or registry in your laptop? (Someone had this problem a few month ago)

[BringtheNoise]

Thermal paste issue's possibly but it could also be Dust Bunnies and/or other air flow blockage...

 

In other words:

Reduced airflow through a heat sink is almost as bad as thermal paste not having enough contact between the heat sink and the hardware its suppose to cool.

 

And it could also be caused by increased temp's where you are using said device...

But that's more on the line of the system is just stable at cool ambient temps and crash's at warmer room temps.

 

So try a can of compressed air, blow it into the vents in the laptop and see if that helps any (you may or may not see the blocking material come out of the exhaust vent, but it still may move out of the way of the air flow).

 

Just other things for thought on over heating issue's.

[zxcvb999]

I would not advise blowing compressed air into vents. You can freeze your computer with rigid cold gas if applied badly. It can be bad, since person doing it may have just experienced overheat, thus GPU would still have high temperature (up to 90 deg. C if it was recent). Not only to mention that notebooks are not very cleaning-friendly and the dust would be just pushed further and/or broken to smaller pieces (however doubtful that is). Its even more pointless if you dont have proper fan under your GPU - most of non-gaming laptops dont even have them, thus manual disassembly is needed. Good thing is, that if laptop is really dusted inside, then the dust must have found a way into it and you probably can get it out ;P

 

If this computer is fairly new then i very much doubt its termal paste. It usualy takes months for them to wear down enough. Id say its just poor design and high environmental temperatures.

 

I have similar issues about every month during the summer - i live in 'not so clean' environment and have ton of chinchillas, cats and dogs bringing their fur into my room. I cant just kill them (my woman loves them) so i have to clean my PC often . And here is what i do - it is not entirely safe but its cost-effective and helps for a while (but needs to be repeated fairly often during the summer):

 

First of all download software to monitor GPU temperature - i use speedfan for most occasions. Its needed just to measure the progress after cleaning. After you do that, force your computer to overheat and note the time and normal temperatures - nothing bad can really happen - modern GPUs can withstand often more than 110-120*C without dying and they turn off at about 90*C (so overheat isnt really that dangerous - In some cases you can even easily modify the emergency shutdown temperature to some extent - i.e. BIOS settings, although i dont recommend that). After you know how fast you computer dies and what is its normal operating temperature (only the GPU temp. matters really in this case since its most heat-emmiting hardware most of the time) then you can try to fix it.

 

Let the notebook cool down a little. If you can open it no problem thats fine (and you dont probably need any help whatsoever ;P ), but you got to be somewhat proficient with disassembly. Not to mention that many computers are generally assembled poorly and some pieces might just break even when maintained properly (i lost keyboard and touchpad in that way in my notebook - pins on the motherboard just fallen apart when i barely looked at them xD ). So i would advice something less intrusive.

 

If you have that damn compressed air, thats fine, you can use it to loosen the furry stuff in the gpu fan. Be carefull with tilt angle of the can tho. After that, shift that dreaded computer upside down and take a good look at its belly. There is one particular place near jsut between the cooling fan and the copper heatsink leading to the GPU, where "bunnies" like to live. If you can locate it (its probably dark out there, so i dont blame you if you cant ), you can try to manually (with some pins for example) to remove some of the bunnies from there. I guarantee you 100% that if your cooling system has that little bay between fan and heatsink, then removing dust from there can lower your general GPU temp for 20% at least. After that is taken care of, every freakin hole in computer casing is your point of interest. Most of them are useless, but in some cases they can improve things a little.

 

And now the most important part - take the vacuum cleaner out of your closet and suck the shit out of the hardware

 

Just kiddin - be really gentle and dont put the end of your tool too far. Stick it just close enough to the fans that it works, but dont risk. It probably sucks too hard, so maintain healthy space between you and your patient to lessen the sucking force Try every possible hole and remember that sucktion will be stronger when you cover all other holes during the actual suck. This little procedure takes me anything between 5-15 min and my laptops overheating problem disappears.

 

Also, after cleaning, you can buy any cheap cooling pad for your notebook. For few bucks you dont only actually cool your computer, but also filter the dust that is normally sucked into its belly.

 

 

 

TL;DR - vacuum cleaner works wonders for dirt (short-time). Disassembly and thermal paste application works for really old, really messed up computer (also not expensive). Also, use external cooling.

 

PS:

lowering the temperature might also improve your FPS ingame, since GPUs tend to lower their clock speed when temperature rises too high.

[arr0w]

I actually received quite a variety of answers lol. -sigh- ill be taking it apart,, but hopefully no thermal paste needed, its only MAYBE almost 2. And it has been around a variety of animals and smoke