Why is my predator helios 300 suddenly overheating?

I recently bought a predator helios 300 mainly for computational fluid dynamics and other engineering related work and I mainly use solidworks and autodesk inventor. I have ran many simulations on my computer(some of these were 2 hours long) and the processor has never crossed 85 degrees Celsius. I have also bought a cooling pad to keep the computer cool for longer calculation times for simulations. But I decided to play fortnite for 15 minutes and my cpu hit 97 degrees celsius with v sync enabled. And fortnite is nowhere near as intensive as other things I do on my laptop. Should I send it in for repair from acer?

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Sushant_

Hi. Try updating your nvidia drivers, and other system software from acer's support page. It most likely is a driver problem. Also, make sure your laptop is virus free. Use predator sense to set coolboost ON and turn fan speeds to max when necessary.

Sharfan

Vishwas said:

I recently bought a predator helios 300 mainly for computational fluid dynamics and other engineering related work and I mainly use solidworks and autodesk inventor. I have ran many simulations on my computer(some of these were 2 hours long) and the processor has never crossed 85 degrees Celsius. I have also bought a cooling pad to keep the computer cool for longer calculation times for simulations. But I decided to play fortnite for 15 minutes and my cpu hit 97 degrees celsius with v sync enabled. And fortnite is nowhere near as intensive as other things I do on my laptop. Should I send it in for repair from acer?

I noticed this recently on my helios 300 too... I have undervolted it and the temps would hardly reach low 80s.... Now even with the undervolt and fans on max games are reaching 90s.... I noticed that a windows update was recently installed and I suspect that it could be the cause of this...

Sharfan

Sharfan said:

Vishwas said:

I recently bought a predator helios 300 mainly for computational fluid dynamics and other engineering related work and I mainly use solidworks and autodesk inventor. I have ran many simulations on my computer(some of these were 2 hours long) and the processor has never crossed 85 degrees Celsius. I have also bought a cooling pad to keep the computer cool for longer calculation times for simulations. But I decided to play fortnite for 15 minutes and my cpu hit 97 degrees celsius with v sync enabled. And fortnite is nowhere near as intensive as other things I do on my laptop. Should I send it in for repair from acer?

I noticed this recently on my helios 300 too... I have undervolted it and the temps would hardly reach low 80s.... Now even with the undervolt and fans on max games are reaching 90s.... I noticed that a windows update was recently installed and I suspect that it could be the cause of this...

I tried a restore my helios to a point before this problem started which removed the windows update, however still no change on the cpu temps

Red-Sand

I know some users have an issue with their Helios shutting off on battery and then fix was to reinstall Acers intel VGA driver.. Which shouldn't have to happen since its a custom driver it shouldn't be auto updated.

If the case is windows is updating the custom drivers then a fix might be to install the Intel chipset/ACHI drivers from Acers driver download page and see if that fixes the issue.

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers

Sharfan

I've never had any issue with the helios shutting down on battery and i tried installng the intel chipset driver but it made no difference

Sharfan

Sharfan said:

I've never had any issue with the helios shutting down on battery and i tried installng the intel chipset driver but it made no difference

Ive even tried reinstalling the VGA driver for the Intel GPU and the thermal issues are still present

Sushant_

Sharfan said:

Vishwas said:

I recently bought a predator helios 300 mainly for computational fluid dynamics and other engineering related work and I mainly use solidworks and autodesk inventor. I have ran many simulations on my computer(some of these were 2 hours long) and the processor has never crossed 85 degrees Celsius. I have also bought a cooling pad to keep the computer cool for longer calculation times for simulations. But I decided to play fortnite for 15 minutes and my cpu hit 97 degrees celsius with v sync enabled. And fortnite is nowhere near as intensive as other things I do on my laptop. Should I send it in for repair from acer?

I noticed this recently on my helios 300 too... I have undervolted it and the temps would hardly reach low 80s.... Now even with the undervolt and fans on max games are reaching 90s.... I noticed that a windows update was recently installed and I suspect that it could be the cause of this...

You might be right here, because I too once faced issues with bad Windows updates. The only thing that worked for me was a drastic step: resetting PC to factory conditions. Be advised, the data will be deleted. So, backup your important data beforehand, just in case you wanna do what I did.

Red-Sand

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNJwGUHxSJ8FKqAhnOqQuAw

Sharfan

I'm stumped on why it suddenly started heating and its suspicious that both @Vishwas and I experienced the same problem at the same time which could rule out the possibility of hardware issues... I don't think I'm in a position to reset my laptop to factory settings as I use it regularly for work... I bought the Cooler Master Mastergel Pro thermal paste in case I have to repaste the CPU and GPU...

Queen6

Task Manager is your friend here, and will expose what process is running the CPU.

It's also worth considering that purely CPU computation workloads will not push the GPU, while gaming will push both the CPU and GPU sharing the same cooling system, the therefore higher overall temperatures should be expected.

Personally owning a Predator 17, as thin & light rarely result in moderate operating temperatures under heavy workloads

Q-6

Sharfan

Queen6 said:

Task Manager is your friend here, and will expose what process is running the CPU.

It's also worth considering that purely CPU computation workloads will not push the GPU, while gaming will push both the CPU and GPU sharing the same cooling system, the therefore higher overall temperatures should be expected.

Personally owning a Predator 17, as thin & light rarely result in moderate operating temperatures under heavy workloads

Q-6

I've checked task manager while playing games and there doesn't seem to be any new or strange processes running that are using the CPU apart from the game itself. I know when running games the cooling system is shared which should give overall higher temperatures, but in this case the GPU is running at its usual temps. while CPU has been having abnormally high temps. Don't really want to open up my laptop to re paste but right now it seems like the only solid solution.

Sharfan

Just a small update on the situation... I downloaded the newer version of throttle stop which is version 8.60 which is said to be be compatible with Windows 10 10 April Update, Version 1803 Build 17134.1( I was previously still using v8.50). I noticed that the temperatures are slightly lower after undervolting with the new version but there are still instances where the CPU usage in Witcher 3 reaches about 90% and the CPU spike to 93°C... The CPU usage never reached such high levels before these heating issues...

sri369

Culprit could be the April 2018 feature update.

Personally I wouldn't recommend using utilities like throttle stop unless you very well know what you are doing, since processors are designed to get throttled when they near their Tjunction temperatures to avoid permanent damage.
What you could alternately do is, instead of cooling pad, get a small usb fan and direct it towards the top of your keyboard to the area above your F3-F8 keys, and try using felt pads or small cushions to raise the gap between desk and laptop bottom side.
Using the mini fan and increasing the height to about 1 cm helped cool my laptop a lot. I play in ultra at full HD games like ghost recon wildlands and my CPU stays and like 70-85 degrees.

Sharfan

@sri369, don't worry I didn't tamper with the Tjunction values. Just undervolted the CPU which has worked for me in the past until recently... The problem started before the April update so I'm not exactly sure why it suddenly started acting up...

sri369

Ok... let me tell you something i did...

I moved from Windows 10 to windows 7. My helios still was around 70-80 with an occasional spike to 90 when playing ghost recon wildlands on ultra.
Then I set it to max 90% processor on both battery as well as power. This didn't reduce much performance in game at same settings, and kept the processor at under 50-65 for about 10 mins of game (occasional spike to 70, max 74). Earlier the same used to be 70-85, with spikes to 90+.

Try this. Also, I did set up core parking (instead of disabling it), and adjust processor performance gently.

Sharfan

Thank you for the suggestions, I will try them out to see if they help. However I'm still quite curious and concerned as to what suddenly caused these spikes in temperatures which were previously perfectly fine ...

Red-Sand

Hey guys..

If you want to try a fresh install without effecting your installed games etc (cause redownloading isn't fun) this method will allow that and won't change any of your apps/files.

The method posted here will require you to install Acers Intel ACHI, Chipset and VGA drivers located here.

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/drivers

First go to

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Download the tool (second link)

Follow the tools prompts

Be sure that "Keep All Files And Apps" is selected, if it says only "Keep Files" then select it and change to both Apps and Files.

Select Install and let it complete.

Sharfan

Red-Sand said:

Hey guys..

If you want to try a fresh install without effecting your installed games etc (cause redownloading isn't fun) this method will allow that and won't change any of your apps/files.

The method posted here will require you to install Acers Intel ACHI, Chipset and VGA drivers located here.
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/drivers

First go to
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Download the tool (second link)
Follow the tools prompts
Be sure that "Keep All Files And Apps" is selected, if it says only "Keep Files" then select it and change to both Apps and Files.

Select Install and let it complete.

I gave it a shot and reinstalled Windows and re downloaded the drivers from the acer site.... still the same issue as before... really don't know what to do apart from trying to re-paste

sri369

Sharfan said:

I gave it a shot and reinstalled Windows and re downloaded the drivers from the acer site.... still the same issue as before... really don't know what to do apart from trying to re-paste

*** shaking my head ***

Install windows off MS site and let Windows update drivers. Do NOT use Acer drivers.

Sharfan

sri369 said:

Sharfan said:

I gave it a shot and reinstalled Windows and re downloaded the drivers from the acer site.... still the same issue as before... really don't know what to do apart from trying to re-paste

*** shaking my head ***

Install windows off MS site and let Windows update drivers. Do NOT use Acer drivers.

Was just following @Red-Sand's instructions from his comment

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