If you own a HP Envy 17 then you probably know the issue of the computer overheating, if you send it in to HP it is maybe running smoothly again for a month or so before it starts getting way to hot again.
I bought a HP 17 1090EO 1 ½ year ago. But allready after using it for a couple of months it began behaving strange, the fan would run at full speed just after the computer booted up... after 5 months it gave me critical errors and the fan stopped working. I send it to HP and i got it back after a couple of days working again and they added an instruction of how to blow out dust of the computer, so i thought this was related to dust. But allready after a couple of months again it began getting hotter and hotter around 80 degrees celcius while idling... I browsed the forums for a solution and ALOT of people are having the same issue. I read a post that suggested to change the cooling paste. I wanted to try it but i had never disassembled a laptop before...
I found this instruction video of how to showing a guy taking apart his Envy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyxWqUP9UWI
After an hour or so i had the computer totally disassembled. I checked the fan, next to no dust at all. Then i removed the cooler and this is what i found:
CPU and GPU with cooling paste:
CPU with WAY to much cooling paste that had a consistency of clay:
Less cooling paste on the GPU but same consistency and still sloppy work:
The cooling paste was isolating both the processors, i cleaned both processors and replaced the old cooling paste with Arctic Silver 5, now my Envy is idilng at 50 degrees celcius, when gaming the laptop does not exceed 80 degrees celcius (It is usually stable at 70) and the fan is never running at full speed anymore and the system is finally stable.
For all struggling with their Envy try to change the cooling paste or get someone to do it for you, HP is probably reluctant to use other cooling paste because they save like 5 cent pr processor they use that cheap stanard cooling paste on...
