Newly Acquired Predator PH315-51 High Temperatures While Gaming

wingedcoatl · February 2019

I recently purchased a Helios 300 from the recertified store on ebay. Aside from a crash brought on by outdated SSD firmware I have not had any interruptions in use. I am, however, battling with the heat generated by the cpu, the i7 8750H. Before undervolting to -.150V core offset with XTU (experimented some with a range between -.115 and .160 before settling) and turning on Coolboost I was hitting spikes of 97 degrees C. After, I am still running highs up to 91 degrees. I idle at about 40-41 with 0-2 percent usage according to PredatorSense. I am new to gaming laptops, so I have a few questions. Are these temperatures more or less normal while running a game like Star Wars: The Old Republic? Do I need a repaste? If I sent my laptop in with a tube of Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, would the techs at Acer repaste my CPU/GPU for me? I have made efforts to contact Acer via email with no response. What's the best way to reach them?

If I'm reading my PN right from the Acer Care screen it's 830093BC3400. My laptop has the i7 8750H, GTX 1060 6gb, 16gb of Kingston 2666mhz ram, and Intel 760P M.2 256gb SSD. I have installed little in the way of software, but I am running the Steam and Epic Games clients as well as the premium trial of Malwarebytes. I've had the laptop for about 4 days, but I would like to get these questions and any potential issues sorted out before my 90 day warranty period is up. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

xapim · February 2019

@wingedcoatl if you join the H300 fb group you have full ready TS confs fro you cpu its just copy/paste and then it's a case of just adjusting the voltage if needed u said u bought the laptop from ebay was it from a verified acer shop/seller or just someone random if it was not a verified acer seller u might going have issues with your warranty just call acer support and ask them about your warranty status they will ask you for your S/N SNID or even registed an acer id account first if you don't have one already and after register the laptop in your account and check warranty status there i know in fact the warranty status on acer website only works for US devices i tried mine and it doesn't work and it was confirmed to me by a member of ACER sfaff that this online feature is only available for US devices hope this helps

xapim · February 2019

U can use hwmonitor and if you feel like u can also use msi afterburner for the gpu you also have the option of undervolting your gpu using AB or overclock it also afterburner has rivatuner statistics you can have it on osd when u run games u can have almost all gpu/cpu settings but the more u have on screen more cpu uses i just recommend the minimum jus gpu1 gpu2 and cpu usage and then the temps for GPU1 and cpu and fps if u feel like to

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ven98 · February 2019

What you should look for is the average temperature, because temperature spikes of 97C last for miliseconds and don't impact performance. If the average temperature exceeds 85C, then you need to repaste.

Acer will do the repasting with their own thermal paste, so they won't accept any paste that you give them.

xapim · February 2019

@wingedcoatl use proper software to monitor your temps not PS because it's not accurate do not look at the max on ps because the max are the spikes only and don't use XTU to undervolt use TS and depending on the country yes in some countries they will use the paste you want in other you have to be contempted with their own paste check with acer support or the shop/seller where you bought it first and don't forget to backup your data before you send it in in some countries you can repaste it yourself without voiding the warranty when you are allowed to upgrade your ssd and do not have any seal you would have to break to open it

wingedcoatl · February 2019

Thank you for your replies. I guess what I need at this point is a good monitoring software that I can reference while I'm playing my games. Do you have any recommendations? Maybe one with an overlay or one that runs in the background and gives me my average temps for a given time period? I live in the USA and I bought the laptop from ebay. Looks like there's some disagreement about whether Acer will use my paste or not? I guess I will have to call them as they are not responding to my emails in a timely manner.

Looks like there's a few pages in xapim's signature that I can reference to figure out TS. I ended up using XTU because some people recommended it and it seemed simpler.

I do not want to do the repaste myself. I'd sooner send the whole thing back. Sorry if that's lazy but working on laptops is not my idea of fun and I also don't want to risk stripping a screw or something and then having Acer refuse to do warranty support.

wingedcoatl · February 2019

Ok so I checked out the youtube channel. Does the TS guide for the 7700 apply to my CPU as well?

xapim · February 2019

@wingedcoatl if you join the H300 fb group you have full ready TS confs fro you cpu its just copy/paste and then it's a case of just adjusting the voltage if needed u said u bought the laptop from ebay was it from a verified acer shop/seller or just someone random if it was not a verified acer seller u might going have issues with your warranty just call acer support and ask them about your warranty status they will ask you for your S/N SNID or even registed an acer id account first if you don't have one already and after register the laptop in your account and check warranty status there i know in fact the warranty status on acer website only works for US devices i tried mine and it doesn't work and it was confirmed to me by a member of ACER sfaff that this online feature is only available for US devices hope this helps

wingedcoatl · February 2019

I ended up using the Bob of All Trades video here:

I have used all of his settings faithfully, though I ended up dialing the core voltage to -.150 as I had it set with XTU. Is there anything that he did in the video that I should change?

wingedcoatl · February 2019

Sorry xapim, didn't get your comment before I posted. I did get my laptop from the official Acer Recertified Store. When I get the invite for the FB group hopefuly I can find those settings and see how they match up against what I've entered. Sorry for the multiple posts.

xapim · February 2019

wingedcoatl said:

Sorry xapim, didn't get your comment before I posted. I did get my laptop from the official Acer Recertified Store. When I get the invite for the FB group hopefuly I can find those settings and see how they match up against what I've entered. Sorry for the multiple posts.

@wingedcoatl you just have to apply and answer the questions and someone will accept you as i said in the announcements posts there are ready made TS confs for your cpu just make sure you get xtu confs back to defaults (this is crucial) and uninstall it completely before using TS if you dont get the confs back to normal xtu will conflict as the confs are still set by it even if you uninstall it and the xtu service you will see after you uninstall it it will be from PS it uses it's own xtu service to overclock the gpu and has nothing to do with the software itself

wingedcoatl · February 2019

I reset everything to default using the default profile in XTU and saving it before installing and running Throttlestop. I did not uninstall XTU though before installing and running TS, however. Do I need to reinstall TS?

xapim · February 2019

Yes reset xtu save and uninstall it before running TS restart and then u can run TS after if you ran TS with XTU already just stop TS exit completely and start the steps from the begining no need to uninstall TS

wingedcoatl · February 2019

Thank you so much! I got access to the FB group and did the custom install of ThrottleStop. Using the Bob of All Trades settings I got a Cinebench score of 1080. With my previous XTU settings I hit 1175. With the new settings on the "benchmark" profile I hit 1189! Now I just need a CPU temp overlay that I can run while gaming to see if my temperatures are OK, keeping in mind that temp spikes are alright (I was unaware) and see what my average temps are looking like. Is there a good program for that?

xapim · February 2019

U can use hwmonitor and if you feel like u can also use msi afterburner for the gpu you also have the option of undervolting your gpu using AB or overclock it also afterburner has rivatuner statistics you can have it on osd when u run games u can have almost all gpu/cpu settings but the more u have on screen more cpu uses i just recommend the minimum jus gpu1 gpu2 and cpu usage and then the temps for GPU1 and cpu and fps if u feel like to

wingedcoatl · February 2019

Haha oops I selected the wrong answer. Anyhow, I did the Windows optimization as well from the FB page. It is eye opening and a little scary the privacy you give up by default when you install windows on your computer! Lots of checkboxes to untick! Thanks again, xapim and ven98. I think my latop will definitely be in better running shape then it was, and I feel much better educated. You guys are awesome!

xapim · February 2019

wingedcoatl said:

Haha oops I selected the wrong answer. Anyhow, I did the Windows optimization as well from the FB page. It is eye opening and a little scary the privacy you give up by default when you install windows on your computer! Lots of checkboxes to untick! Thanks again, xapim and ven98. I think my latop will definitely be in better running shape then it was, and I feel much better educated. You guys are awesome!

Always glad to help in what i can

wingedcoatl · February 2019

Having copied over the TS program and settings relevant to my laptop, and doing the Windows optimization, I am now able to play SW:TOR for an extended time and hit only 74 degrees C *maximum*. That is an incredible difference! Unfortunately, it would appear that a new problem has reared its head. Before making these changes I have not had any issues getting bogged down while playing games. Now, sometimes my fans will spool up while playing and the fps will drop to an unplayable rate for a good 15-30 seconds. This happens maybe every 10-15 minutes or so. I don't know what the issue is. I'm fairly certain that none of the changes I made to windows could be at fault, so could the changes made by ThrottleStop cause this sort of instability? I'm so frustrated. The temps are freaking great but this periodic lag is making my game basically unplayable.

xapim · February 2019

Check your temps again for spikes or even better do some benchmarks and stress tests with aida64 unigine heaven and 3dmark and keep an eye on your temps in some cases u might need a repaste also set the profile on TS to performance if not already and save it it could be too much undervolt even cpus of the same model aact different its the silicone lottery in some cases there repaste its the only solutions but watch some more videos about it and keep tweaking it until u find the sweet spot and when u say 74 its the cpu or gpu or both because the gpu is ok at 75 max the starts to throttle u might want to undervolt the gpu also as i said watch some more videos and check the pinned posts in the group youll get it sorted

wingedcoatl · February 2019

The GPU maxed out at like 68. The CPU hit 74. I'm minimally concerned about temps at this point I'm now worried about what these big lapses in performance mean. I tested my rig on Firestrike and hit like 10,400 so I think I'm good there. The problem shows up when I'm gaming. My fans will spool up and all of the sudden my game will barely respond to inputs and the graphics will slow way way down. I have the profile set to performance on TS. Which undervolt should I be tinkering with? It's set to -.140 on core and cache. When I set it to -.150 in XTU I didn't have this issue.

xapim · February 2019

Yes u have to set core and cache both have to have same voltage and on the intel gpu do not touch ever as i said u have to keep trying to find the sweet spot because too much or too less undervolt becomes unstable its trial and error here and play with fans on auto and coolboost on if you aren't already luckily mine i followed the remix video made all confs by hand got it to run on startup in the task sheduler never touched it again and everything works fine till the day almost one year ago

wingedcoatl · February 2019

I restarted my laptop and began another gaming session. No troubles this time. Must have been gremlins, lol. CPU temps are well in hand, sitting between 65-70 degrees and spiking at 80. Much, much better than before. GPU temps between 65-75. Will probably get to optimizing that next. My only complaint at this point is that somewhere in the windows optimization process I think I somehow made it to where Mail's window has to be physically open to check my emails. Maybe more gremlins, hopefully just a box I need to check or uncheck. Thanks for all your help.

xapim · February 2019

wingedcoatl said:

I restarted my laptop and began another gaming session. No troubles this time. Must have been gremlins, lol. CPU temps are well in hand, sitting between 65-70 degrees and spiking at 80. Much, much better than before. GPU temps between 65-75. Will probably get to optimizing that next. My only complaint at this point is that somewhere in the windows optimization process I think I somehow made it to where Mail's window has to be physically open to check my emails. Maybe more gremlins, hopefully just a box I need to check or uncheck. Thanks for all your help.

Glad u got it sorted