Unusual System Overheating

Goobla

I have used a Helios 300, which has been working almost great for me, except for maintaining heat. This is an annoying issue I've been trying to fix. I reapplied thermal paste maybe 3 times now and got about 40C to 45C on idle, and I had thought I put too much the first two times, but when I put less the last time, the temperatures are the same. I did under-volt it to -120mV, but I only got 5C lower, whereas other people on this site has gotten to a 10C on idle and even a 20C save on gaming performance, where when I use Prime95 on small FFT's, I get thermal throttling on now under-volting, and still 85C on -120mV. Is there a way I can fix this, or would I need to contact Acer and get some bad thermal repasting from them?

Flx

40-45c on idle is completely normal, your ambient room temperatures also factor into this so someone living in a colder region or who has AC on all the time might have lower temps than you. Prime is also known to make high temps in my experience for the CPU. And if you pasted three times already I don't think Acer can do any better of a job, you might get a worse result than what you are able to do yourself. Might I ask also why you are running Prime95? You shouldn't be overclocking this CPU and therefore no need to test stability IMO.

Skelomorph

As Flx said, 40-45C idle is normal. Undervolting helps with temperatures and you have already done that. One thing you cando is buy a laptop cooling pad. This will help with airflow. Another option is to change the maximum processor state to 50% or so, which will only allow 4 logical cores to be fully loaded at the same time and when gaming, turn off everything in the background unless you need it.

Heavy/gaming laptops technology is not 100% yet. It is not unexpected or surprising these laptops get into 80s and even 90s. I'll try to break down what I see in temps so you can compare.

The TDP (Max CPU Temp via Intel) is 100C. Throttling of the CPU begins at 97-100C. The laptop will shut down near/around 100-105C. I have saw people post (not on the Predator) that their laptop runs at 95+ and have no trouble (except getting throttled).

It is relatively safe when gaming as long as CPU temps stay under or near 85C. It is preferred to have it under 80C. Since I have not changed the thermal paste, I sometimes get spikes above that when the laptop is on my lap on the cooling pad (so not good airflow), but they don't last long at all. This is still around 15C under the max temperature of the CPU, but it is not the best idea to allow them to run at this temperature for a long time.

For people who have not re-pasted. If you get anything 95C+, you should consider re-pasting or sending the laptop to have them do it. Even without my cooling pad and undervolt, I have never hit 95C+.

Skelo