M200 Hard Lock and System Fan

[aridese]

Hi guys,

I'm having problems with the M200 locking up.

+ the screen locks
+ the hard drive stops spinning
+ power/wifi lights remain ON
+ wifi switch doesnt work
+ sometimes pink/color lines appear on the screen

This happens when I'm playing a game or the laptop is not getting enough ventilation. I've opened the laptop on multiple ocassions, have applied Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound between CPU and heatsink, between GPU and heatsink.

When using a laptop stand with fans, lock ups occur less often.

There is a system fan (NOT the processor fan) which is about 30mm in size and is to the right (or left) of the RAM compartment. It never spins. I have taken it out, connected it to a +12v power source and it spun fine -- it's just that the motherboard never powers it. ACPI detects only one fan.

GPU temp idle: 61C
CPU temp idle: 45C
GPU load: 75C
CPU load: 50C

Crashes occur equally in XP, Vista, and Ubuntu.

[DaveTN]

The small fan is your video chip fan. Mine rarely comes on.

I think you may have answered part of your question though in that the problem occurs less if it is on a cooling stand. My M200 can get pretty warm just surfing the net and running office programs. If you are playing CPU intensive games that heat up not only the cpu but the RAM and possibly the HDD, then the heat will cause it to have problems.

David

[aridese]

I see.. the problem is really bad, especially if I close the lid. I can't use the laptop for longer than five minutes if I'm doing moderately intensive work -- 10 tabs open in Opera, Word, and an IM client. I've cleaned out the inside of the laptop -- is there anything I can do?

[sneezinglion]

have you cleaned out the vanes on the back? The copper vanes on the back of mine would get clogged up pretty badly on a regular basis and I would open it up and blow some compressed air through it every few months.