I'm scared to clean my laptop, is it really safe to do so?

[CallMeLeonidas]

So I've got an Acer Predator Triton 300 PT315-52 that gets hot whenever I do anything unless I disable Turbo in ThrottleStop, and even then it gets hot during heavy gaming with uncapped FPS. It's really annoying considering that laptops with similar specs get way lower temperatures even in very demanding games.

I found a video of a guy cleaning my laptop, and while he does use different tools from what I'm intending to buy, the steps should be the same. However, he doesn't fully clean the heatsink, but I hope that won't make much of a difference. Is that video a good tutorial? I'm still quite scared to do it on my own even with that video because I don't want to break anything, and it was expensive when I bought it back in December 2020.

[CallMeLeonidas]

Originally posted by WarBucks:

Uncapped FPS is always going to max out the thermals on any laptop.

A more useful temperature would be locking it at say 30, 60, 90 etc. If say a simple game is maxing at the temps at 30 then you have a thermal problem no doubt

The thing is even with FPS capped to 60 in demanding games it still gets hot unless I turn on Turbo fans, which controls the situation somewhat and GPU throttles less.

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Start with Undervolting the CPU and enforcing a 60-90 FPS cap and see how it does.

Already did that after finding out how to mess with BIOS, now it doesn't jump all over the place when not gaming.

[Overseer]

It looks like you can just remove the cover of the fans to get better access. Doesn't seem like beneficial to remove the entire cooler from the board as it does not provide better access to any dust.
Thermal pads are awful to deal with and you should do anything to avoid them. If you do that wrong you can kill your GPU. And in the video he uses 1 mm pads as replacement while i have the impression the installed ones are thicker. Which is a typical "A ♥♥♥♥, here we go again" moment with pads.

[CallMeLeonidas]

Originally posted by Overseer:

It looks like you can just remove the cover of the fans to get better access. Doesn't seem like beneficial to remove the entire cooler from the board as it does not provide better access to any dust.
Thermal pads are awful to deal with and you should do anything to avoid them. If you do that wrong you can kill your GPU. And in the video he uses 1 mm pads as replacement while i have the impression the installed ones are thicker. Which is a typical "A ♥♥♥♥, here we go again" moment with pads.

Are you sure I shouldn't mess with thermal pads, and just replace the thermal paste AND clean the fans? Are these the only things I should be doing?

[Overseer]

They seem to have used garbage cheap pads that rip apart. If you remove the cooler from the board you most likely have to deal with them by scratching all the remaining junk off the components and replace the pads with new ones.

[CallMeLeonidas]

Originally posted by Overseer:

They seem to have used garbage cheap pads that rip apart. If you remove the cooler from the board you most likely have to deal with them by scratching all the remaining junk off the components and replace the pads with new ones.

So you mean that I can go ahead and replace stock thermal pads with the new ones?

[Overseer]

If you know the correct thickness and they make proper contact without lifting the cooler. The exact distance you have to cover varies by 0.25 mm and each component can have a different thickness installed. Your best bet is a good Caliper.

[CallMeLeonidas]

Originally posted by Overseer:

If you know the correct thickness and they make proper contact without lifting the cooler. The exact distance you have to cover varies by 0.25 mm and each component can have a different thickness installed. Your best bet is a good Caliper.

I have the exact same model as shown in the video, and I've made sure of that. It's 1mm, so I'll go ahead and replace the thermal pads as well since the reviews say it does make a huge difference.

[Overseer]

Make sure to install it properly, and then remove it again.
Check if the thermal paste did spread correctly and covers the entire chip and if the pads show a clear visible dent from pressure at each component. Then remove the thermal paste again, clean the chips and apply new one for the final install.

[CallMeLeonidas]

Originally posted by Overseer:

Make sure to install it properly, and then remove it again.
Check if the thermal paste did spread correctly and covers the entire chip and if the pads show a clear visible dent from pressure at each component. Then remove the thermal paste again, clean the chips and apply new one for the final install.

I'll watch multiple videos about how it's done. Hopefully I won't ruin my whole laptop.

[Zef]

Cleaning a notebook once a year is always a good idea however do note that almost every regular notebook and standard gaming notebook will run hot no matter how clean the intake fan, heatpipes etc. are. if you game on it.

There are gaming notebook models with giant exhaust fans at the back and a raised profile for better airflow that manage to stay relatively cool for this type of hardware but these are the minority, not the majority.

[CallMeLeonidas]

Originally posted by Zef:

Cleaning a notebook once a year is always a good idea however do note that almost every regular notebook and standard gaming notebook will run hot no matter how clean the intake fan, heatpipes etc. are. if you game on it.

There are gaming notebook models with giant exhaust fans at the back and a raised profile for better airflow that manage to stay relatively cool for this type of hardware but these are the minority, not the majority.

It shouldn't be running THIS hot to be throttling, so there's something wrong with my laptop. It didn't use to do this when I first bought it and Metro Exodus and played it for two hours straight.

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

Originally posted by Leonidas:

This video shows my GPU having way lower temperatures, on par with my laptop when it's idle. Their CPU is an i7-9750H and mine is an i7-10750H, but even then the difference is massive.

I didn't watch it but look for sus activity like does it actually show the machine the way it's oriented? Like, is it elevated? Sitting on an ice pack? Playing outside in the winter? Enclosed in mini fridge?

Laptop never ever runs cool unless it's idle. This is why we try an discourage laptop purchases because of this very reason.

[Talby]

Originally posted by Leonidas:

Originally posted by Zef:

Cleaning a notebook once a year is always a good idea however do note that almost every regular notebook and standard gaming notebook will run hot no matter how clean the intake fan, heatpipes etc. are. if you game on it.

There are gaming notebook models with giant exhaust fans at the back and a raised profile for better airflow that manage to stay relatively cool for this type of hardware but these are the minority, not the majority.

It shouldn't be running THIS hot to be throttling, so there's something wrong with my laptop. It didn't use to do this when I first bought it and Metro Exodus and played it for two hours straight.

you might as well get new fans while you have it open, and maybe replace the battery if the lifespan is getting shorter. Saves having to open it up a second time in the near future...

[Raoul]

Originally posted by Leonidas:

Why not use thermal pads? I read a review (though old at this point) saying that it helped massively reduce their laptop's temperatures.

Problem is anytime you change pads you have to repaste anyway so how does that reviewer know what made the biggest difference in reality, was it the pad or the paste? 98% of the time it just needed a repaste.

The only time replacing pads will make a "massive" difference is if the original pads were originally badly installed which can happen btw have seen this for example missing pads, badly positioned, too thick or thin pads will cause bad contact and as a result bad temps on the core or vrms but this will be from the get go not something you experience after a while.

This laptop has a very simple bottom cover with just a few screws, should take you about 5 mins to open that and disconnect the 4 cables I said above to remove the heatsink. Then just clean the fans and repaste to see where that gets you there is no need to complicate things and your not losing anything to try a repaste first as you can always go back to change the pads if you want. Okay maybe you lose 5 mins and a little bit of paste but that's worth it to avoid having to deal with pads which can be a bigger challenge for you :P

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Re-Paste and Replace thermal pads in the same instance.

You can buy good paste and replacement thermal pads online. Arctic Cooling MX4 paste is more then enough.