Can a PSU power or bad battery affect netbook's heating?

My old netbook (AOA110) is getting extremely hot when connected to charger, (thus it has battery dead above 50%), actual charger is about 20-30% more powerful (current/watts) than original - which died half a usage time ago and have not caused any overheating.

Win7's power management is configured to 10% min 100% max cpu usage at both battery and DC power. Fan is, well, almost OK - at least it well cools down the system, when charger is not connected.

I just can't understand, how voltage/current (sent from DC/battery circuit) may get the chips to heat more than expected - they indeed should not draw more power, quick motherboard exam shown no burn marks of possibly dead components. But, the heat is definitely generated outside of battery unit and under heavy load

Maybe, it's the chipset/BIOS power management feature that keeps processor (Atom N270) under full power even without load, when power source is connected. Is there any other explanations rather than this firmware problem?

kagali-san

Posted 2011-05-26T12:21:01.567

Reputation: 1 404

Answers

A defective or under powered AC adapter can cause system overheating. I had a HP notebook and had no AC adapter, so I used an AC adapter with a lower amp rating than the original, the notebook ran hot and the fan ran constantly, I eventually found the correct amperage rated AC adapter and things returned to normal.

Never experienced a bad battery causing overheating of the system, I have seen the defective battery itself overheat, and can explode under certain circumstances.

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Moab

Posted 2011-05-26T12:21:01.567

Reputation: 54 203

That's what I call a reasonable good answer to keep for further referencing to others. Informative, no tech details and has nice photos. – kagali-san – 2011-05-26T23:13:44.340

One reason might, be that on A/C power the CPU throttles up, which generates more heat.

This is default on most laptop CPUs.

But then you should also have noticed this before you switched the charger, unless the fan(s) and other cooling deviced have gotten clogged with dust, as happens over time.

Holger

Posted 2011-05-26T12:21:01.567

Reputation: 113

-1

If the replacement charger is higher amperage or current that the original, that is not very good for the netbook. Try finding a bios update for the device if it refuses to switch to a lower power state.

xciter

Posted 2011-05-26T12:21:01.567

Reputation: 524

1Not true, over amperage will not affect anything, the PC will only draw what it needs, under amp'ed however, will cause problems. – Moab – 2011-05-26T14:03:57.087

Would you like to bet money on that? – xciter – 2011-05-26T20:09:09.220

@Moab, "the X will only draw what it needs" is a good argument for additional 5% overload, but well, imagine yourself somehow connected to a magistral waterpipe instead of getting a glass of water; it will also serve as a ballast for a whole stream, basically splitting the load (more on components closer to input, lesser on other, but having the same load). – kagali-san – 2011-05-26T23:11:19.037

However, there's still no clear signature of weird additional current that transforms my netbook into some sci-fi microwave oven. – kagali-san – 2011-05-26T23:12:08.833

@ xciter, sure. – Moab – 2011-05-27T02:28:47.773