Acer, You Need To Make This Right! Get Some Quality Control! Nitro 5

Dabullfrog91
Dabullfrog91 Member Posts: 2 New User
edited November 2023 in 2019 Archives
So, I bought an Acer Nitro 5 with the Intel core i5 8300H and Nvidia Geforce 1050 GTX ti on Black Friday. I have not even used it everyday and I immediately bought a cooling pad with a giant fan under it, so that it stays off of the table surface and has plenty of room to breathe. Additionally, I turned cool boost on, so the internal fans would work efficiently to cool my laptop. I have been gaming on it for a few hours a night recently and its not been anything real intense. I was running Fortnite on medium settings and noticed the fans had been running loud and running a lot. And when I thought about it my internal fans were always running that loud since I bought the machine. I chocked it up to being cool-boost doing its job and the fact it was the first "gaming" laptop I have ever owned.

Well, I decided I had enough of the fan noise the other day and when I felt the air coming out of the exhaust port I became concerned because it was rather hot. I decided to check my thermals using 3 programs: Nitrosense, Speccy, and CoreTemp. All 3 programs told me that my processor was constantly hitting 200 degrees Fahrenheit with a max temp of 206 degrees (92 to 97 degrees Celsius). The processor MAX that intel sets before your computer shuts down to save itself from catastrophe is 100 Celcsus or 212 Fahrenheit. These thermal readings are through the roof and any prolonged use of a laptop running this hot will irreparably harm the processors and motherboards. My GPU was running similarly with thermals reading in the 185 degrees Fahrenheit range. This is unacceptable for a gaming machine that's not even a full 3 months old. Well I did some posting/reading on Reddit and was told to check the thermal paste. I am very handy with computers and so I took it apart carefully and removed the heat-sink/fan assembly.

I was revolted by the thermal paste job done on this laptop from the factory. It looked like a 2 year old had taken a literal mountain of old dry cracked thermal paste and poured it all over the mirror face and the silicon parts of the chip. It was everywhere and if you know anything about thermal paste, too much of it is worse than none at all. It insulates the silicon and prevents the heat from escaping to the heat-sink. That was Sunday night when I discovered this. I cleaned it all off and yesterday I went and bought Arctic Silver 5 for my laptop. I put the new thermal paste on the laptop PROPERLY and put it all back together. I am now running at 155 degrees Fahrenheit (68 Celsius) under load and thankfully I think my laptop is okay. I say that because there is no really telling how much thermal damage might have been done without a full system evaluation which I am not equipped to do.

I am thoroughly disgusted that my brand new $800 laptop had such poor quality control and I am questioning whether or not Acer does this on purpose. At that rate of thermal throttling the whole laptop would have been fried/dead within about another year (if even that long) and probably right after it was out of factory warranty. Judging from the number of people who told me their Acer had the same exact problem and that's why they would never buy one again, I would venture to say this is not an isolated incident. So ACER, what are you going to do to make this right? Was this merely some worker who was slacking off, or was this done by design so you can keep people buying your machines every year? I am so mad I had to fix my brand new laptop its not even funny. ACER are you listening? You need to do something about this problem because other machines you produce are coming out of the factory with the same problem mine had. This wrong needs to be righted! I will see what kind of response I get on this post and that will determine the nature of the "reviews" I give your product on other prominent websites.

Comments

  • ven98
    ven98 ACE Posts: 4,073 Pathfinder
    It is not Acer that has problems with thermal paste application. Running constantly on 97C will reduce the CPU's life faster, but not to a point where it will last only for an year(probably much much longer). Same goes for the GPU.

    Even if you apply too much thermal paste that won't reduce the heat dissipation (increase temperature), because all the extra paste will just leak to the sides when you press the heatsink. The distance between the CPU and the heatsink will still be the same with the thermal paste between them. This doesn't mean that applying too much thermal paste isn't a bad practise, because it is just waste of paste and if it is way too much(on desktop CPUs only) will go on the motherboard and is bad for aesthetics or can damage the MB if electrically conductive. In other words applying way too much is much much better than applying too little or no paste at all. Too much thermal paste affecting temperature in a bad way is a complete myth and isn't true at all. 

    Now, the issue with Acer and other laptops as well(not gonna mention brands, but you can check out their forums and you will find similar issues) is that thermal paste they use is garbage. It has bad thermal conductivity and degrades pretty quickly(dries out) over time.
    Always post the following characterisitcs of the device:
    -Model number
    -Part number(not required, but helpful)
    -CPU
    -GPU
    -Operating system

    Helios 300 and Nitro 5 users DO NOT update the BIOS to version 1.22 if you don't want the keyboard's backlight to turn off after 30 seconds even when the device is plugged in.


    Hit 'Like' if you find the answer helpful!   
    Click on 'Yes' if the comment answers your question!

  • Dabullfrog91
    Dabullfrog91 Member Posts: 2 New User
    Are you sure you don't work for Acer in some capacity? :bleep_bloop:
    The point remains the same whether it was too much or just the fact that the thermal paste is garbage... No processor should be hitting that point under moderate loads. If Intel says the max is 212F and my laptop is hitting 206F(max I recorded) with cooling pad under it.... that's absolutely unacceptable especially considering it took me about 15 easy minutes to fix this problem by properly applying good thermal paste. The idea that it doesn't damage the processor and GPU when you are constantly running 195F and above under moderate loads is ridiculous. It most definitely will wear out the processor and gpu much much quicker. Heat is the killer of computers. You're right, perhaps it will last longer than a year, but again that's really not the issue here. The issue is that a premium product has garbage quality control. This is either laziness or by design that Acer does this. This is something that should be corrected in the manufacturing process. I don't appreciate the lack of quality in something I bought brand new. And you are right, I agree with you this is a problem across the board; but it seems especially common with Acer gaming products. 

  • SosaKitty700
    SosaKitty700 Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer
    I have to agree with you on not wanting to have bad quality or any issues with a brand new laptop that i or any family member purchased but also i gotta say that this seems common with Acer gaming products! False, almost every band out there has same issues or claims for customers on this and many other issues like image flickering, no power out of box, slowness and many many others ... If you don't mind me asking Dabullfrog91, why you selected Acer band? 

    and i can keep going!

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