Predator 17x Overheating and shutting down

skip to bottom for summery, to skip my long and boring story: and sorry I'm not good at writing.

disclaimer: worked for me, might not work for you. or might not be your issue.

I hope this helps anyone who comes across this issue, I just fixed it on my Acer Predator 17x model gx-792. it has the i7 7700hq. had it for 6 years, and just last year I had opened it up for routine maintenance, removing dust and reapplying the thermal paste, so after removing the chassis and heatsink, cleaning it up well, removing old paste and adding new thermal grizzly cryonaut. I did this because when I start averaging in the 80s I know dust has accumulated and the thermal past is still good but not in peak performance, and I need it to be cause the form factor of a laptop is so small, the cool it is the better I feel. this is the 3rd time I have done this and the other 2 times it would return the average temperature to the mid 60s in the winter, and the mid 70s in the summer. so to wrap up the story I put it all back together like usual, and when I was expecting the mid 60s to 70s, I got the mid 90s (Celsius of course) I was pretty disappointed, so that very night I took it apart 4 more times and re applied thermal paste. the problem did not go away. defeated I gave up and just used it like that for nearly a whole year. (it was usable for gaming still, it was just loud, and I lost a few frames) until today, I came across this website and a few other forums, seeking information, which I should have done at the time of the issue starting. so after reading multiple forums, and many peoples helpful word, this is what worked for me, and what I believe was my issue, I hope it works for you, but it may not be the right solution for everyone. many solution did not make sense for my situation, except one, someone said the screws that hold the cpu heat sink down onto the cpu lid may have been striped, and the coper pad was not making contact with the cpu lid. so just for fun, I removed the bottom cover, removed the heat sink again reapplied thermal paste and oops turned out I had also ripped off a piece of thermal padding on three little chips next to the cpu chip, they where not fully covered and the pad had melted on both side of 2 of them possibly form getting to hot, unfolded and salvaged what i could of the small area of padding there and filled in the rest with thermal paste, not much just enough to reach the chips where the pads where to far gone. slap it back together except I kept the bottom cover off and connected an external monitor held the safety switch that the bottom cover hits to allow it to start without the cover and, held the cpu heatsink down and there we are finally after such a long story, the cpu temp was back to what it used to be. mid 70s, sometimes low 80s but no thermal throttling, it is meant to get hot, but not to TJMAX!! I would feel silly if a laptop was designed to not stay cool with power appropriate and power limited components built for small form factors. so I let go of the heatsink, and apparently gravity held it down enough to stay cool, really not sure of those small chips I was referring to was the issue really or at all, but I can guarantee that the heat sink was not making contact as well as it could, (most likely because I had over tightened the screws and striped them, and broke the plastic or whatever it is that prevents overtightening) because when I flipped the laptop back to its normal orientation, the thermal throttling retuned and the temps hit in the 90s again. so i pout a metal ring and a bottle cap to apply pressure onto the heatsink over the cpu when the bottom cover is put back on, so I'm using the bottom cover to push the heatsink down, it makes good contact and with new thermal past its averaging in the mid 70s and no thermal throttling. cheap fix and i cant tighten the bottom cover all the way down as to not apply to much pressure and squeez the thermal past out. I'm not sure if the screws for the cpu come faulty or fragile from the factory, why new laptops are having this issue, mine did not till I had opened it for the third time. so yeah thats it, thanks for reading. good luck.

disclaimer: worked for me, might not work for you. or might not be your issue.

Summary: I striped my CPU heatsink screws, heatsink made poor contact, cpu over heated and thermal throttled. cheap fix, put metal ring and bottle cap, with the bottom cover pushing on it to apply enough pressure to make good contact with the heatsink, temps when down to mid 70s, low 80s, no thermal throttling.

final note, not sure what a legit fix would be. I don't know how to replace the screws or threads where the screws go. that's my solution, worked so I'm sticking with it, good luck.