HP EliteBook 8470p running extremely hot

Question

(tl;dr; see my bold text)

I've been using this HP EliteBook 8470p for well over a year - it has an I7 proc with 8gb of RAM and before ever turning it on, I swapped out the HD with a 512gb SSD.

I was amazed at how cool it ran when I first got it and it was great for the first several months. It started getting warmer and warmer though and now it's to the point where it'll burn my leg - fortunately the heat is coming from the side of it (instead of the middle ... if you know what I mean). I'm a developer and regularly have a lot of high resource apps running, like multiple instances of VS and SQL, Photoshop, etc

There's one main fan that I've taken out and cleaned a few times. The first time it was full of dust and I thought for sure it was going to fix the problem. It may have made a small difference, but it's nowhere near as cool as when I first got it - it still burns my leg. There are some little heat sink / tube things that run from the motherboard (presumably the GPU/CPU) to the fan and then gets pumped out the vent. All of this is where the heat is coming from, so now my thought is it's these heat sinks.

This picture of the 8470p that I found on Google Images is almost identical to mine. This picture has one giant heat sink that spans 2 chips, while mine has 2 separate heat sinks (same tubing stuff going across the top that links to the fan/vent):

So I guess my questions are:

Should I pop the heat sinks off and try to blow out the tube thing that runs along the top of it (to the vent)?

If so, should/would I need to get some thermal paste before reseating them?

Are there any other suggestions on first-party or third-party solutions to this problem?

Would it make sense to replace the fan? It's not making any strange noises so I think the berrings are ok and it turns on ok.

I haven't seen any official documents from HP regarding heating issues on my model laptop. In fact, if you look at reviews on this laptop, everyone seems to be rather surprised at how well it doesn't heat up, but all those reviews were written around when it first came out so they seem to have the same first impression as I did.

Thank you!

Answer 1

So I went ahead and tried re-seating the heat sinks and it didn't make a significant difference. I don't know what else I can try to get it running as cool as it did when I first bought it, or if it's even possible. It seems like there is only a single fan in the laptop, so unless I pulled out the motherboard and found a dust build up or something, I can't think of anything else to try to make it run like it did.

I ended up getting a cooling pad and that makes a big difference and got new rubber feet that cause it to be slightly more raised up. Again, not quite ideal, I really would love to see it run like it did on day-1, but it's sufficient for now I suppose.

Thank you!

Answer 2

Yes, get some thermal paste like artic silver 5. Some of this http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm

Also some compressed air cans. As artic sliver is not an adhesive product do not remove heatsinks that are held on this way.

You want to focus on the CPU and GPU.

Once the heatsink/fan is removed from the CPU you should use cleaner to remove the old and put on the new stuff. Make sure you look for dust build up inside the fan. Dust can become so plastered on compress air from the outside won't remove it.

Answer 3

Here's one answer: When the laptop is hot, remove the back cover while its running. If the laptop begins cooling down. Look at the intake vents for the fan in the cover. You will probably see they are not positioned directly over the fan. Drill holes in the back cover directly over the fan area and your laptop will be fixed.

I personally repaired an old pavilion years ago. It was constantly overheating. I drilled holes in the back cover above the fan area. It never overheated again. It is still in use with my grandson 10 years later.

I also have a HP 8470p, which also has the intake vents away from the fan. This restricts airflow, especially if the laptop is sitting on something other than a hard flat surface.

Mitchell

Answer 4

poster said super hot,then fails to state how hot in Degrees C? run hwinfo64 or better OCCT" and read it out.. (2 examples both used) (8540w + 820qm quad core, 12gb ram, SSD) the paste used day 1, hp, is not soft after 5 years, 2010 to 2015 that means it bad or is the get hard type, ? (it did crack so... its bad) mine was like hard glue, took me one hour to clean it off with IPA. i shut this used LT down fast. (just bought , and got 2 of them. ) i tried 2 products all tests with OTTC app 4.4.1 . free. the old Dow 340 compound works ok, 50c to 80c range. so i tried, Stars-70 from masscool. its a silver base it runs 40c to 80c, (25C ambient) "expected"

the factory compound failed, it cracked, after it got very hard. the best grease IMO is Dow 5022. (they never lie on specs either) its commercial grade and tested by Military. it is not cheap. But is worth the effort if you have heat problems. The processor does make more heat that faster it runs and the load on 4 cores. there is no stopping that, only your ability to get the heat to the exit, radiator. there. lint free.

do not run the program prime 95, its dangerous. run OCCT, it limits the stress... and is time limited. it even plots the curves for you, for GPU and CPU temps.

the fans can be turned on to 4400 rpm using HwINFO64. ask how. the fans are run by BIOS, (use F50 version) the steps are clear to see in the hwmonitor, 8 steps. the fan never turns off. if yes, the you need to flash the bios now.

retired tech.

PS> some compounds (thinpads) are the kind that start soft and get hard. these are adhesive types. and do not belong on laptops. only desktops or servers. the Laptop is subject to bouncing about. and this bond will fail. this is stated in the datasheets of the makers of said compounds. the other thin pads are phase change, starts hard, gets soft. My new HP was like a brick this compound. no idea why but is ALL BAd. imo. GOOD LUCK.. 80C IS NORMAL BTW. RUNNING GAMES.
INTEL SPEC, IS "100 degrees Celsius is the maximum recommended temeprature for these processors" Then it shut itself down (rolls back clocking) Desktops cool vastly better, more air and HUGE heatsinks.