Suspect my laptop is running hot, need a thermal monitoring software.

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i_hate_toms

New Member
Hello friends :)
Bad news, i think my 1.5 years old laptop, is running hot.
It's not very serious, it doesn't auto shutdown, and is not hot to touch.
I think it's running hot because i can hear the fans, all the time, from the moment windows loads, till the moment i shut it down. The fans aren't running at their full speeds, because if i play a graphics heavy game, i can hear the fans getting louder, and about 5 minutes after i quit the game, the fans start getting quieter. Nevertheless, it never completely stops, like it did a year back. Especially, this room I'm in, is pretty cold, it's 4°C in my wall clock which shows temperatures too, and all I'm using the computer for, is reading an ebook in adobe reader. Isn't this abnormal for the fans to keep rolling even when it's this cold outside and the system isn't being used for anything heavyweight?
I would like to use a thermal monitoring software so I can give you guys actual numbers, can you help me with a link to something that's free?
It needs to be Windows 8 compatible. The computer is an HP ProBook 4530s.
Thanks :)
 
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2df8241ef2c08aa78a5e

Thanks for your reply salvage, i tried the first link, and am posting a screenshot of what it returned. http://www.use.com/2df8241ef2c08aa78a5e

Do you think this is ok?
Remember, the only thing this laptop is running, is firefox, and i am signed in to yahoo messenger and google talk in the background. plus the usual windows 8 live tiles are on. The room temperature is 6 degrees. The computer is plugged-in, but i am still using the "power saver" mode, because this is plenty fast even with the power saver mode selected. I switch to "balanced" only if i play a game, which is very rare. i play all my games on my desktop, the laptop is used only for internet browsing, ebook reading, playing music and videos, and writing/ testing homework programs, and all this works great in power saver so why waste electricity :P .

And i've got another small question, not worth creating a new thread so i'll ask here, will increasing the screen brightness, reduce the life of the LCD? I am using it at 0%, the lowest i can go. Screen contents are very much readable, and my battery lasts for an amazing 5 hours even after being used for more than a year. Since i upgraded to windows 8, it appears to last even longer, about 5 and a half hours!
but if i play a video, it looks bad unless i set brightness to at least 50%. Google says if it's LED increasing brightness is fine, but if it's CCFL, increasing brightness will kill the display. How do I know if it's LCD or CCFL? I've read all the user-guide books that came with the laptop, it's not mentioned anywhere.
 
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Yep. That seems reasonable to me. Laptops generally idle quite a bit higher than desktops do so 40+ is fine for your chip. It has a thermal max at 100c. However I would look into better ventilation or running the tough programs on your desktop if you see it going towards 85+. Make sure to dust it out with a can of air every once in a while to ensure that you are getting good cooling and airflow.

If you want to change how your cooling works go into your power settings for Windows 8 and under each power setting there should be an advanced control option. In there you can change it to active or passive cooling for each power plan. Personally I would keep it to active all the time but as long as the temps are in control, it is up to you.

Ok to the brightness question. I did a little bit of searching and it looks like if your display is back lit with cold cathodes you run the risk of burning them out faster when on high than on low. that makes perfect sense. If you run a light bulb rated for 60w at 20w you will see a longer life at 20w than at 60w.

These displays are built with certain specifications and the laptop manufacturers keep within those numbers. So yeah there is a chance that you could burn it out faster. But with the many things that can go wrong with a laptop, there is a bigger chance that something else will go out before your LCD does due to brightness settings.
 
Thanks salvage, this really helped a lot, specially that "advanced" power settings thing :)
I'll get a compressed air can tomorrow and try blowing out the dust.
I run all my games and circuit simulations on the desktop, the laptop is used only for casual internet browsing and occasional music/ video/ C++.
Screen brightness is set to lowest now, it's okay with lowest brightness as long as I'm reading/ writing text on the screen. Movies and videos look dull, so i move it up to about 50% when i play videos.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how bright is your computer's screen set at?
Thanks again. That advanced power thing was AWESOME :good:
 
Happy that I could help.

I usually have my laptop set to max brightness unless I need the battery life or if I am in a dark room and it starts to be too bright for my eyes.
 
OK great, if you can push your baby to 100% and it still works fine, I guess I can safely put my baby at 50% brightness. 100% is too bright for me, it hurts my eyes, might be because i use contact lenses, or might be a problem with this notebook model that pushes brightness to beyond human eye tolerance levels :P
Thanks for helping me out.
There's another issue that started since i upgraded to windows 8, I'll post a link to that here, if you can find some time off, it'd be wonderful if you take a look and suggest a solution to that :)
http://www.computerforum.com/219253...0-refuses-update-definitions-windows-8-a.html

Thanks again bro, you rock. CF rocks. Best forum I've ever been a member of :)
 
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