HP 17-ca1000 running red hot

[pccobbler]

I have a laptop that Newegg advertised as refurbished, but I think it is an old-stock, gray-market one. The warranty status states that it has 26 days left, but HP's website informed me that "This product is no longer serviced by HP." Nice of HP to wash its hands of inconvenient products before the warranty runs out.

The laptop runs hot. Really hot. I took the back off and discovered that the heatsink is made of thin aluminum, The high processor temps -- 80 c is common -- are mainly due to the crappy heatsink which is incapable of drawing any heat away from the processor. My old (2013) HP laptop had a copper/brass heatsink which works well.

I cannot find a spare parts list for the laptop. I would love to buy a copper/brass heatsink for it, but I'd need to know that it fits. Any hints?

P.S. If I cannot find a copper/brass heatsink, I'll reinstall the processor using Arctic Silver and jury-rig some aluminum foil on top of the so-called heatsink to hopefully draw some heat away from the processor. I'm already running a fan under the laptop, but it doesn't do much.

[pbroussard]

I tried looking up a service manual with parts list for Model 17-Ca1000 but all I got was a driver page. Is that the full model number? You can check the label on the bottom of the laptop. And or the Product ID maybe we'll have better luck. 

[pbroussard]

The problem was on my end. I was in the wrong Support country.

Your service manual is here- Service Manual  It has a parts list that has several heatsinks-

Heat sink
(15) For use in models with discrete graphics L22531-001
(16) For use in models with integrated UMA graphics L22530-001
(17) For use in fanless models L22532-001

What they are made of I don't know. Maybe find a retailer with good product pics and you can see.

[pccobbler]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I saw that. Mine has integrated graphics. I surfed around and found a photo of it that looks exactly like mine, thin and black. I was hoping there were multiple versions of that heatsink, but no. HP saved maybe a dollar by making it out of thin aluminum instead of copper. Okay, it's plan-B with Arctic Silver and aluminum foil.

[pbroussard · Accepted solution]

I'm under the impression various models are the same motherboard with or without igpu's. If yours has an empty socket space at the bend of the heatsink, myself I wouldn't mind trying out a heatsink made for models with 2nd gpu. Just put a small rubber or foam spacer there.

Also, I don't know if that will help you out much. Most laptops I've seen lately run at 75-80C normally. Mine does. I'ver never heard the fan ramp up much either.

[pccobbler]

That's an interesting idea. Even if there was a clearance problem, I could remove the extra material with a Dremel Tool. I'll look into that.

By the way, the thing that got me started on all this is the drawing in the Maintenance & Service Guide you referenced. The drawing on page 57 shows the heatsink as being made of copper, which made me hope that such a thing really exists.

[pbroussard]

Yep, the one for 2nd gpu does, check them out on eBay or resellers that have photos from several angles. I see them on eBay for $10 to $25 with and without fan.

[pccobbler]

Here is an update that people might find useful.

I was sick of seeing temps for the processor exceed 80c. The temps for the NVMe SSD actually reached 100c when copying tens of GB of music files. Clearly the lifetime of these components would be greatly shortened.

So I did some surgery on the laptop. I drilled six holes under the NVMe SSD and three on the side of the case to provide cross-ventilation. I increased the size of a number of holes under the processor/fan area. I drilled two holes under the memory. I replaced the thermal paste with Arctic Silver and added a heatsink. This heatsink is low-rent, as it consists of a piece of aluminum foil maybe six inches long (I did not measure it) folded again and again, resulting in 6" x 1/2". One end of the heatsink lies at the end of the factory heatsink, if I can give it that much credit, with the other end lying over the end leading to the fan, with this end secured to the metal bar by two tiny plastic zip-ties. Obviously if the heatsink ever became loose, the aluminum foil would serve as an excellent conductor, possibly frying the motherboard, but I was willing to take that chance. And I now use a stand that allows for the use of a 120mm fan under the processor holes and a 92mm fan under the NVMe SSD (the stand is simply an aluminum frame, but the fans are powered by a spare 12v power brick I had lying around). Ejecting the CD/DVD drive also seems to help reduce temps, as it offers yet another way for air to escape.

So far, no processor temp has exceeded 58c, with the NVMe SSD temp not exceeding 63c. Most of the time, processor temps stay in the 30s and NVMe SSD temps stay in the 20s, as measured by Psensor in Linux. My efforts were worth it.

As a postscript, certain websites cause both processor and SSD temps to skyrocket, with Reuters and BBC News being two examples. They're so filled with video-autoplay and other JavaScript porn that PCs are almost brought to their knees.