Laptop turns itself off (overheating?) while gaming

[_iCQ_]

(note the dust was quite far inside the heating vents and i also used a small brush to clean the fan itself which u can reach when u click off the bottom part. I use this maschine in also very dusty envirioments so logically it has problems with it at some point.

So carefully clean ur vents with air (and use wooden toothpick or something to block the fan from spinning when u suck or blow air (better suck in this case else u might blow dust further into the maschine where u cannot reach anymore without opening the case more.

Good luck everybody (my faith has been restored fully, thank u HP for this very robust design).

[Domunus]

I know this is old, but many people are still looking for solutions.

There are two things that you can do to fix your overheating issues if blowing out the vents didn't do the trick:

1. Remove dust

If you haven't been blowing the dust from your vent frequently, then a curtain of dust builds up on the inside creating a wall of dust against the heatsink fins.  When this happens, you can no longer rely on using compressed air to clean the vents.  The reason for this is that dust wall has pretty much woven itself in to fabric.  So all you are doing when you blow air in to your vent is temporarily dislodging it, hence why some of you only have temporarily solved the problem and it returns quickly.  Or you may have broken it up a little thus giving you maybe a min longer than usually before it overheats and shuts down.  Dust also starts to cake up inside the fan housing and blades reducing smooth airflow.  So the best way to clean the dust out of an overheating laptop is to take the laptop apart, per many great guides povided, and pulling that blanket of dust out along with using something like a qtip and cleaning the inside of the fan house and its blades off.  It's also a good idea to clean the heatsink fins off so the blades are smooth again and not still caked with dust.  This will help dissipate the heat a lot better as the air passes by them.

2. Put on new better thermal paste

Now, dust is only part of the problem for the 8540w overheating issue.  I also found that the thermal paste they use is not that great.  Almost every 8540w I've taken apart to repair, due to overheating issues, the thermal paste used on the graphics chip was hard as a rock (literally) and the thermal paste used on the cpu looked slightly burned.  So I cleaned them up and put on new thermal paste.  

Between the two solutions above, the difference was significant.  So much so that even during highloads, the fan never had to go 100%.  It just continued to blow out warm air and the laptop never got hot like it used to.

[Jaseman]

I found the problem was solved by changing the advanced power options in control panel.   I had set the Maximum processor state (In processor power management) to 100% and the ATI Powerplay setting to Maximum Performance.  Using a free third party program called OpenHardwareMonitor I was able to monitor the CPU and GPU temperatures. The GPU was reading 51.5 degrees on the GPU and the cut off point was 52.5 degrees.  So it was running very close to the shut off threshhold.  I lowered the Maximum processor state to 75% and set the ATI Powerplay to 'Maximize Battery Life'.  This effectively throttled back the performance, but meant that the processors didnt run as hot.  Now the the GPU is ticking over at 44.5 degrees and the CPU is pretty much the same temp (50 degrees with a maximum shutoff at 53%).  I'm not certain yet, but I think giving it that little extra margin might stop the temperature from topping out.  I can't say I've noticed any change in the performance of the machine.

[StOcKerQc]

I Got the similar problem but mine dont turn off it just get slow like a 2-86 and i need to reboot to bring it back again then after 2 minuts brain dead again i suspecter grafic card but now i am not sure anymore i took my laptop appart and built it back its so disapointing. I wish to find the real solution not the thermal past or dust problem IT IS NOT THAT its something else. I hear the driver problem so i converted it to a linux pc its still broken but now i get a good 10 min before a crash.

[savvy2]

Heat 101:
I have 2 8540s (p/w)
the lint sure... use canned air and clean fan and side radiator. best is keyboard of blow out.
Both MINE:
the CPU and GPU both had the HP thermal grease fail, turned to paint, hard as nails... (bad quilty!)  5 years old...
so I  upgraded to good old,  Dow 340 thermal compound it is mil spec and will never get hard. nor leak. (i used it for 40 years)
If flush with cash? DOW (TC-5026) is 10x better, (hard to find but worth the efforts)

I had 72-75C temps before and more stressed., now its 50C all the time.
Phase2?:
now the sad news or your pc was hacked, the GPU card has thermal pads  , (not covered in the manual, nor spec. )
Some hacker like to delete parts, they think its just filler fluff or  ??? It's not.
GPU pads:
x4 on the bottom  (all 15mm x 15mm x 1.5mm) pads
x5 on the top.  9 total , so if missing, the memories will overheat! (etc)
the heat sink on top is spring loaded, so its always compressed, (best way of all, well not using NASA thermal epoxy, sure)

There I'm using 1.5mm thick pads from 3M.  4W/m/k thermal rating... it's not foam rubber as some think .
if you need photos of them, can post them , do we have gallery here.?
the pads can not be skipped or use DOW  grease in the stead.
the gaps are set in the heat sink casting with large  , gaps! (i will document this later using feeler gauges)

if you do all that, it will NOT overheat,
I stressed tested my CPU and GPU and it don't over heat.

The BIOS runs the fan all the times, an stages up 8 levels.

run APP>  HWInfo32 (or 64 as needed) and see that. and change it if you dont like it. (if you look , you see its on by default)  2000 slow, 3000 rpm fast. 
the CPU both AMD and intel, both ROLL off clock rates at 90F to cut heat.  that is one way to slow down. (saves it's own bacon "cpu has built in themal protection in silicon")

Then level 2 protection is BIOS, keep in mind you dont want it to overheat with (OS) not loaded or even with NO HDD.
so only BIOS does this, at this level.
The CPU and GPU can both  put  out about 100 watts in total (full load), all that heat must  exit or things break.
g'day