I have read through a number of posts on here about high temps on gaming laptos and i know there are a number of steps i can take to lower temperature such as reapplying thermal paste and set an undervolt for the CPU. However, as mine is brand new out of the box i wanted to ask a couple questions here first as I don't want to take any steps that will invalidate the warranty.
I am also ruling our dirty fans on the basis that, as its new, its unlikely the fans are going to be clogged with dirt.
So the laptop switched on, on a table and at the main windows screen and just out of the box, i was getting idle temps of aorund 60c. The ambient temperature wouldn't be much above 21c if at all. So after my first foray into searching these forums i took a couple of steps to try and remedy this, so i removed any background processes that were using CPU cycles that weren't needed at idle. I also set the RGB lights to Static as i had also read that can add load on the CPU and i also set the power plan to balanced as suggested. With all of this including proping the rear of the laptop up a little to increase air flow I managed to get the idle temps down to about 45c.
However, one thing i have noticed is that when on mains power and at dile the CPU is always in boost mode. If i then switch the fan profile to silent, the demand on the CPU drops to about 1GHz but it also results in switching the fans off. so my idle temps still sit at aorund 45-50c. If i switch the fan profile to Turbo, i can get the idle temps to around 39c but the nosie from the fans is quite high. I should also note that when switching the fan profiles, it also changes the power plan settings as well. If i take the laptop off mains and have it sat in the performance profile, the CPU no longer sits in boost mode constantly but the fans keep going and i get idle temps of around low to mid 30s.
I haven't run any of the benchmarking tools to check for performance at high load, but I have run a couple of games such as Destiny 2 at max settings and under that level of load the temps are hitting 90c+ and therefore almost certainly hitting the thermal throttling barrier.
I am not surprised at the temps at load, as thats par for the course, but i still feel its a little high to remain at for an extended period.
So what can i do, beyond warranty voiding exploits such as reapplying thermal paste?
is it worth investing in a cooling pad? everything i had read about them suggest they arent always worth the spend and in some testing i have seen, a stand that raisies the laptop up is as effective without the noise of additional fans.
As i plan to, for the most part, use the laptp on mains power, is there anything i can do in order to stop the laptop from sitting in boost mode constantly whilst at idle(ish) but have the fans remains on, even at low speed? I did look in the power plan settings for windows and i couldn't see anything that would alter this behaviour.
and finally, when at full load, is there anything i can do to bring the tmeperatures down a little (without hobbling the settings too much) so i am more comfortable remaining at higher temps and perhaps not being thermal throttled?