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Hi
I have one of these laptops from new and really like it. Now I'm trying to eek out a bit more life before having to replace it.
I'm hoping someone will be able to help me with a couple of questions please.
The first is that the fans seem to run most of the time and I'm pretty sure they didn't used to (it was running hot before the battery change, see below). I've had the back off and there was a little bit of dust but not loads. Cleaning that up hasn't made any difference, are there any settings that I need to adjust to help the machine run cooler? Or are there actions I should take to reduce the load the machine is under while it is running?
Secondly, I have bought what is promised to be a genuine HP replacement battery. This came from a UK Ebay seller who is responsive and helpful. However, I can only get the battery to charge to about 25-30% of what it should be - I'm getting 2hr 15mins to 2hr 30mins of battery life. The charging seems to otherwise go fine (i.e. the charge indicator comes on, switches off and the laptop doesn't get hot while charging), the machine works as well as usual, etc. I have been through a number of 'run battery flat and recharge' cycles but no improvement either with the first battery or with a second that the seller sent me FoC.
Is there any maintenance that I need to do to the machine to help get the battery life extended?
Thanks in advance for any help. While I can fix a bike and a car, I haven't the first idea about computers and I'd be grateful for any tips that will keep my little HP friend on the straight and narrow.
Laptop's normally have a metal radiator that the fan blows the air through, this is what gets blocked and requires a blast of compressed air (buy a can of, rather than use your garage compressor and blow the fan to pieces) to clear it. Though it may also be a sign that your computer is simply working hard. If you check task manager, is anything hogging the CPU's resources or the disk constantly at a high level? (jumping up then down is fine but constant high use is an issue)
Random YT video about task manager:
I'd be suspect of an ebay seller suggesting his battery is OEM, though that not to suggest the battery are bound to be rubbish. What I would be check is the actual capacity of the battery compared to your old one, is the new one just smaller?
I'd also be going to HP drivers webpage, and looking to see if there are any updates for the BIOS or battery utils for that model, and install any critical updates.
https://support.hp.com/gb-en/drivers/laptops
Finally does the laptop have a hard disc drive of an SSD fitted? A SSD will increase the useful life of your unit, and if you task manager is showing your a lot of HDD usage, this 'may' be a sign of it degrading.
Yeah, most of that. ☝
My aging laptop started running at full chat when idle and would go into thermal shutdown if I pushed it too hard. I had the back off it several times, blew the dust out of the fans with an air duster, made no difference. Then one time I noticed a bit of fluff hanging out the back of the exhaust vent, had at it with a pair of fine tweezers (out of a Swiss Army Knife, details fans) and with a bit of care and patience I extracted a hitherto unnoticed dust bunny the size of a baby mouse. As z1ppy said, this would be my first port of call for your problem here; look really carefully, it took me months to spot mine.
Throwing an SSD at it has no downsides other than cost, and even that's gone through the floor in recent years. Aside from anything else, straight out of the gate it'll run cold rather than the heat a spinnydisk™ will generate. It'll be way faster because SSD. And a clean reinstall of W10 will wipe out at a stroke any software issues you might have.
Problems with a "genuine" battery from eBay? ROFLcopters. I rather suspect that you've been had, there's no fixing that. See if your genuine and helpful seller will replace it for one that isn't either counterfeit or ****ed.
If you feel so inclined to spend a bit of time and do fiddly work then you could take off all the fans/heat sinks and spreaders, clean everything with isopropanol and then put it all back together with top quality thermal paste.
For thermal paste there tends to be a compromise between thermal conductivity and how easy it is to spread - I tend to go for something a bit easier to spread especially for notebook use where the clamp forces are not so high.
clean everything with isopropanol
TIM Clean is the absolute bomb. It annihilates crusty old thermal nastiness in seconds, and it's lemon fresh.
Hi guys, many thanks for the feedback. I'll have another look at the fan situation.
I tried to using the HP site to upgrade any drivers/BIOS settings but, typically, it didn't recognise my model number and their clever exe. couldn't identify my laptop either.....which is ironic as I bought it direct from HP.....!
As the unit is now just over five years old, HP don't seem to support parts either.....
Running an old Envy 17" with an i7 here. Other than bodges needed for the hinges, it's been fine. Swapped in a 1TB ssd and moved the old 1TB HDD as second (space for 2 drives in the 17"). Certainly look at the exhaust. Also there isn't any virus checker running at the time - mine takes off about once a week when the AV kicks in.
Idles at no noise, but as soon as a 'game' is on it takes off (Nvidia graphics).
my Fancy Sony laptop went from brilliant to "piece of sh*t" with the win10 upgrade.
No support/drivers from Sony for the variable fan speed, switchable discrete gpu, battery charge limits, extended battery management, fan speed control etc.
I wouldn't lose too much sleep over drivers from HP, 99% of a five-year old PC should be baked into Windows Update these days.
mine takes off about once a week when the AV kicks in.
Disable the full scans, or if it's third-party (which it sounds like it is) then uninstall it.
Think about this. You do a full scan with your AV, so you've got a known good clean system. From then on it performs real-time monitoring. So what is the point in doing any further full scans?
No support/drivers from Sony
Sounds about right.
When clearing fluff from the fan, there should be an intake and an outlet. Sometimes can be well hidden, alongside the speaker grills, on the rear edge and hidden when the screen is open etc. I remember clearing mine two or three times, and it was only when I pulled it apart properly to araldite a broken hinge that I noticed the other outlet that was clogged solid.
Yes, I'll open it up again tomorrow.
In the meantime I finally managed to connect to the HP site where they identified my machine and offered a whole raft of driver and other updates.
A few related to Thermal Framework so I had those and it seems that these have made a difference to how the machine in running with a marked improvement in operating temperature - the area above the keyboard used to get almost too hot to touch but right now is fine.
Progress perhaps.
The battery life indicator also seems to be ticking up - 50% battery is now 2hrs 10 mins when that was what I was getting from 100% before the updates. I'll be interested to see what it is when I recharge over night.
Thanks for the hints and tips as there is improvement.
BTW, for those who asked, my machine has an SSD.