HP Touchsmart Tablet PC overheating and shutting down constantly

[Thebean1]

I have an HP Touchsmart tx2z and I'm having the exact same problem. I get about an hour's worth of time in before the laptop just shuts itself down. I used to be able to hear the cooling fans working (quite loudly-and constantly), but for the past two days since I've been having this problem of the pc just completely shutting down, I haven't heard the fans at all. And ideas?

[Zirdaj]

Usually when you start up tx2z's, there will be a sort of fan boost during the first few seconds that it turns on. Do you still hear that? Also, do you feel any warm air blowing away from the vents on your laptop? (vents are located on back-right corner)

If you don't hear the fan nor feel any warm air blowing out of the vents, then definitely your fan is broken, and you would need to contact HP for a repair service. Hopefully your tablet is still under warranty.

[yermiyahu]

I have a similar problem.

I have an HP Touchsmart 2, AMD Turion X2 - 64, runing Vista 64

and my machine gets so hot it' not bearable.

It doesn't shut down but the mouse pointer starts jumping all over the screen.

About 3 times per hour I hold the notebook up to the air conditioner in my home-office.

Yes, I feel super hot air blowing out of the vent and the fan is audible.

I also use a cooling fan table to try to assist but it doesn't work.

It really stinks when I want to sit with the notebook in my lap or in tablet mode b/c it's just too hot to hold.

Are there any solutions?

[Slyppry]

First of all, try some canned air. I know it sounds simple and you probably already tried it, but it is the issue about 90% of the time. Shut your computer down, extremely important as sometimes liquid gas can come out of the can and really cause a problem to a running system! Then simply spray this compressed air into your exhaust vents and watch the cloud of dust and debris fly out! If this was your problem, you will see an immediate increase in performance from your machine and you are done!! Congrats!

Second, you have an AMD processor. These naturally run hot, not much you can do about it really. Search for a program called Speedfan. It will tell you the temps of your processor cores and help you see if you have a problem with your fans or if it is just your processor. An AMD runs between 60 and 75 degrees Celcius (much higher than Intel and Speedfan will warn you that it is too hot), if yours falls in this range then you are probably ok, it is just that darn AMD. Intels run cooler but no X64!

Lastly, try running your laptop in Balanced power mode. This helps to moderate your Processor speed, so that in idle times, it is not running at 100% consuming power and creating heat for absolutely no reason. You can always brighten your display manually and this will help with the heat issue a little.

Good luck, if you have any other questions, you can email me direct at [text removed for privacy]

-John

[S_Rouault]

Like the previous poster said it is probably dust in the heatsink. But beware of gpu failure. GPUs on these laptops are connected to the heatsink with a 'pad', and run much hotter than the cpu. Over time the excessive heating and cooling of the solder connecting them to the motherboard causes disconnection between the gpu and the motherboard.

You may soon be one of those users blowdrying in their computer's exhaust port to reheat solder to temporarily create a connection again. This will happen to you all the sonner if you consistantly run at high temps, translated, beware of using your GPU or CPU at full load, and even better, don't run your GPU at all, and keep CPU below 60 percent load.

The only real fix is to insert a metal shim between the GPU and heatsink. This will lower the GPU temp by about 15 C, ensuring that you don't suffer from this problem.

If you don't want to do this to your laptop call HP support, tell them about the people on this forum with failing GPUs and overheating problems, and point them to this forum. Request a recall and if the talk about warrany this, warranty that, tell them you want them to excalate the issue to a higher level of support and they will.

[Ninjetteh]

I read through the other replies, and I'm going to guess that a few of those weren't from owners of these laptops. 

I personally have owned one, and although I love the idea of the touchscreen, I won't be getting another HP computer or computer with an AMD processor again.

I downloaded speedfan as I have the same problem, and my computer was getting upwards of 90C inside. And with a laser thermometer, upwards of 200F on the case. 

I used the compressed air, and even tried changing settings in the BIOS to make the fan run more often, and the processor run less/cooler, all to no avail. 

Sadly, I think your only options are to grin and bear it, make sure your files are backed up incase something important melts in there, hope some action is taken for the later versions of tx laptops as well, and maybe look into something different.

[UniqueLana]

I hope someone can help me... My TX2 shut down about a week ago and won't re-boot.  I took it to the shop for a diagnostic and was told that my motherboard was fried because of the overheating problem, and a bad hard drive set up.  This will cost me $600.00 to get fixed, because HP won't help since my warranty is up.  Any suggestions?

[S_Rouault]

You could always try heat method everyone else has been using. 600 dollars buys a new laptop, don't spend the money on a fix.

In my previous post I suggested a shim will fix it, but this is just what others have been saying.. mainly the people who make money fixing HP laptops. Seeting all TX laptops have of will have the same problem (probably sooner if 3d apps are used though I have no proof of this) I suggest checking back here as I've been posting to tons of these same type thread and together we'll figure something out. Enough people will equal press and maybe HP will think twice if they don't want negative publicity.

In windows advanced power management there is an option to set the percent of CPU to be used. Set it at 50 percent and it will cut the clock speed in ahlf as well as cutting alot of the voltage down. You laptop will run much cooler. Also don't use any 3d apps and you will probably make you laptop last longer that way.

[Spudwisa]

I have been having the same trouble and turned down my processor power and it has kept it from crashing. I have taken the computer completely apart and do see why there is a cooling problem because of the small hole size vs. the fan size. I am interested in knowing more about the potential soldering problem with the GPU. Can you describe exactly where I can find the GPU disconnect so I can repair it? Thanks

[Waaayno]

So glad to come across this thread.

My HP tablet is now in the shope for the 3rd time to be fixed for this exact problem.

When it comes back I'll look at trying some of these because I suspect it is going to do the exact same thing...boot up 2 or 3 times and after half an hour of being left there doing nothing it will shut down and not reboot again.

I'm all for putting pressure on HP to provide soem solid solution and help us out in some way to fix such a huge fault ina product as I feel quite ripped off with being dumped with a dud!!!!