GPU fan rattling noise and heating issues due to dust accumulation. Helios 300 PH315-52
So i bought my 2019 Predator Helios 300 a from the states and brought it to my home in India and I was amazed at how well it performed despite the very low cost (I got it for USD 927 in the black Friday sale) I was gaming on it everyday and every few months I would open it up and clean the dust off the surface. around the 7-8 month mark i started noticing CPU temps were getting way higher than before. I didn't pay much attention to it and kept on gaming. after a few months passed, i noticed the GPU fan on the right side of the laptop, the metal one, was making a weird and annoying rattling noise at very low roms and it got louder with higher rpms too. i contacted acer about this and they asked me to bring it to a service center. i didn't want to do that though because this laptop did not have international warranty. so i started looking in this community and youtube for help on how to do it on my own and to my surprise there were many people with the same noise issue but there were absolutely no solutions or if there were, they were just asking the users to give the laptop to acer service center. youtube didn't have any detailed teardown videos on how to open up the fans, which i wanted to know in order to lubricate the metal fan stem to solve the rattling noise problem. so i kinda gave up for a while but then it kept getting worse. so one day i decided to just do it and it was surprisingly very simple and very straightforward. i opened up the fan housing and i was shocked at how much dust had accumulated in less than one years time. the dust had fully blocked the cooling fins on the exhaust. no wonder i was getting 92 degrees while playing GTA IV. i removed all the dust from both fans, lubricated them with some vegetable oil and a q-tip and when i turned the laptop on again the noise problem was fully solved. and my thermal performance had improved a lot. i used to always keep my fans maxed out (which definitely aggravated the dust problem now that i think about it) and i would still get really high temps and i'm sure it caused my laptop to throttle. after cleaning all the dust i saw temps lower by 23-28 degrees with the fans on max and when i put it on auto, temps would reach a max of 75 degrees (all this while playing GTA V on default settings). as a result, my performance was better and my fans were much quieter. what i'm trying to tell whoever is reading this huge paragraph is that clean your fans by yourself every five months or so, people. its really simple and you can do it on your own and you can prolong your laptops life by a lot.
let me know if you want a detailed tutorial on how to open up the fans and how to lubricate the fan stems. my laptop model is PH315-52 but the fans are exactly the same for all 2019 model Predator Helios 300 laptops i guess. 2020 and 2021 model laptops also should not vary too much in terms of fan design.
PS: if you want to do the fan lube thing i would suggest you to use dielectric grease. also, if you want to prevent dust from entering your laptop and improve thermals further, get a cooling pad with a mesh on it.
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