laptop overheat and auto shutdown when gaming while plugged in but works fine unplugged

[Mindcracker]

Hello everybody, and thanks for reading this!

Please accept my appology if my writtings aint fine enough!

I got a hp am 101 ne laptop about one year past and it is working fine until now. A few days ago I've got a tricky prob with it:

When I play Dota 2, which I love it very much since warcraft III, and the laptop is on battery, every thing goes fine and I got a relatively good fps on lowerd graphic options. But, when I plug it to wall, with the same settings and same fps result, its temreture rises just as the fan does and suddenly laptop shuts it self down (hibernate) to prevent itself from damage, I assume.

No lag nor error happens but the machine turns of with out no sign. I tried to check cpu and gpu usage while this happens and they were something around 45% and 64% both, even at shuttingdown moment!

I've found out that if I disable the dedicated graphic card (AMD R5 M430), and use Intel HD Graphics 620 even while plugged in the problem wont come out. But, disabling AMD R5 makes the laptop fan to always work on medium speed and as soon as I re enable it fan(s) slow down, which I don't know why.

I tried to update my drivers to last version and use opengl vulkan dx9 dx11, but non make any difference except for vulkan which caused the game to auto close right after launching while AMD enabled, and game misfunctioning on Intel HD.

This problem only appears in Dota2 but something like this happened in Sim3 and Assassin's Creed Renaissance in which the laptop overheats and fan(s) speed up but no shutdown accurs.

I was thinking of buying a cool pad, like Deep Cool N17, or opening my notebook and clearing air vents and other staff there - which I don't know even their names, but finally decided to come here and ask professionals first.

Sorry againg for my poor english and thak you very much for come along with it so far!

[PeterNikko · Accepted solution]

Hi! I've checked the cooling of your NB, how it works. Overheating is a common problem of all notebooks with shared cooling. One pipe is cooling down all the heat generating hardware (CPU+GPU). So i quess the difference between battery and wall plug usage are the power setting rules. Games are rising the frequency in CPU and GPU, generating more heat. Some of the notebooks have wrongly designed back plate, holding all the heat underneath and the cooler cannot spin fast enough to cool down all that hardware. Hardrive gets warmer too. Overheating protection is a perfect solution but won't hold for a long time...in most cases the GPU is generating artifacts and dying and finally needs to be resoldered (reballed). Quite expensive solution. So check the power settings on your notebook, how it changes the plans (unplugged may be balanced, plugged may be full power). Set the plans same as unplugged. Should be fine. If not there is not much to do, except to try to change the cooling paste for much better one. And pay attention to air intake, don't cover it. This is the most common problem when the people are using NB in the bed or holding notebooks on their legs, putting their NB on soft things (i call it: vacuum cleaner NB).

P.S. sometimes upgrading to SSD cools down a little bit. Cpu utilisation gets lower due better file transfer and loading times.... SSD is not heating so much like the classical harddrive.

[Mindcracker]

Hi there! and thank you for reply.

Everything you said is right and, as I mentioned I think, I've tried them already! Changing power settings to be the same when plugged or unplugged. The problem is, when dedicated graphic card (AMD R5 M430) is enabled and be used by games it makes so much heat that the machine needs to shutdown. But, when it is disabled, and Intel HD Graphics 620 (the graphic comes with Kabylake 7200 proccecor) is being used, tempreture won't rise much.

I'm cool with this. I can keep ADM disabled, thats no prob cause Intel HD 620 is already good enough/if not better!

In fact, the tricky part of my problem is that when AMD is disabled, something in the cooling procces or fan control goes wrong which makes fan(s) to work at medium speed all time! The NB is cool, there is no heat, no CPU or GPU or HDD usage, but fan(s) is working at medium speed continusly! So I have to re-enable/re-disable AMD graphic each time I tent to play games like Dota 2.

I think I should post the later problem in a seperate topic so I've already checked your kindly answer as solution. Thank you for the time you've spend.

Ps: I'll get the NB opened and cleaned as soon as I can contact with manufacterer guarantee.

[PeterNikko]

Hi!

Interesting... so we can say the OS is not controlling the NB system fan behavior and the problem is more harware/design related - may be BIOS bug, temperature probe malfunctioning or may be that is a normal and programmed behavior.... Hard to say. To contact manufacturer is the only solution in your case, we don't know what is going on behind the scene after AMD GPU states change (ON/OFF). Seems to be a problem with some values. When we separate the CPU and GPU, the values for the Intel are set correctly (i think because of different HW configs). The values for AMD GPU may be wrong (or not). FAN voltage minimum for the CPU + GPU minimum + temperature probe (your NB shows to act like this). You expect: FAN voltage minimum for the CPU + GPU off (value disabled=no GPU cooling needed) + temperature probe. The question is what is correct. May be after disabling the AMD GPU (software off) the system still runs this part in the background in minimum state (because of automatic GPU switching, power control). Then the minimum values for CPU are always counting with minimum values for this GPU and together = medium fan speed. Theory.

[Mindcracker]

Hey man! You are actually a great theorist! Finall lines was really like a scientist! Are you any? Personaly intrested.

I have posted the problem in a seperate topic and will contact manufactere as soon as I return to my home. I'm not in town due to a research for my masters degree in psychology!

Thank you very much again for the time you've spent!