Hot Laptop When Watching EEV Blog - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 07:53:27 am
content: My main computer is a Thinkpad W500 laptop. When idle the CPU temperature is about 35C and when playing a video or a DVD this rises to 45C. However, when viewing a YouTube video the temperature climbs to 75C (seventy five Centigrade) and stays there until the video ends. CPU load during this time is about 40% for each of the two cores and I get the same result if GPU acceleration is disabled or enabled.A quick Google search shows that I am not the only one having this issue. Can anybody suggest a cure?Browser is Firefox 37 and I get the same problem using MS Windows or Linux Mint.Edit: This is not a YouTube problem, it is a problem with Adobe Flash.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 08:14:11 am
content: You should switch youtube to HTML5. That will probably solve your issue. Or watch it on a smart TV, PCB closeups are awesome on those.

author: electr_peter
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 08:17:54 am
content: How do you measure CPU temperature? If it is only internal statistics, I would not be worried as much as when exhaust fan temp reaches 70C.Check CPU usage times exposure time. What quality do you watch? 1080 or 720 is much harder for PC than DVD.I use Firefox and from time to time Firefox loses it and tries to use 50-100% for no reason. Newer Firefox has separate instances for browser and flash player, both can go crazy if very flashy web pages are opened.

author: smjcuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 08:23:18 am
content: W500s get hot whatever you do with them. Big scary CPUs in them.However, if it's youtube, as someone said: try the HTML 5 player. That uses hardware H264 decoding rather than "random adobe buggy codec selection".Also upgrade your graphics drivers as sometimes incidious vendors cock something up and it ends up using software rendering. use ThinkVantage Update from Lenovo's web site to do this as they have stepped graphics drivers rather than whatever Microsoft deems as aprpopriate but buggy as hell.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 10:04:16 am
content: Firefox also doesn't deal with YouTube too well for some reason, no matter if you're using Flash or HTML5. Using Chrome/Chromium for just YouTube (if like many you actually prefer Firefox for most stuff) might be an idea.

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 10:50:04 am
content: Is the Heatsink/Fan clean or dusty?

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 05:57:00 pm
content: Try downloading the youvideo and then watch it offline using vlc or something and see if you get the same problem. I use firefox with a youtube downloader. This one works for me.https://github.com/gantt/downloadyoutube

author: eas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 06:09:29 pm
content: Quote from: smjcuk on April 22, 2015, 08:23:18 amIs hardware h264 decode even available on that laptop?People assume that decoding high-def video should be computationally trivial on a general purpose CPU. It isn't.

author: smjcuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 07:02:26 pm
content: Good point. They're a bit early for that actually even with non Intel GPUs.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 08:43:29 pm
content: Thank you for all the tips. The heatsink and fans are clean as evidenced by the 35C idle and 45C under load temperatures (both reported using lmsensors). If I download a video and watch it in mp4 format then the system runs at 45C so this is definitely a YouTube/Flash problem. I have downloaded a plugin that forces HTML 5 playback so I will see how this improves things and report back.Chrome? No thank you, slower than Opera and even more buggy.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 08:53:25 pm
content: It's the power that the EEVBlog imposes on your laptops tiny brain! O0

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 09:09:47 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on April 22, 2015, 08:43:29 pmWhat is your 45oC load? It is definitely almost idle, not load condition if youtube manages to heat it up to 75oC. Guess it will start to melt if trying to run some stress tests. Temperature under idle is not indicator of the heatsink being clean. Many laptops completely stop the fan(s) under light load, therefore dust won't make any difference under such conditions. In my experience, most of the laptops older than 2 years have completely clogged heatsinks. They can be cleaned only by blowing compressed air from the outside (though dirt flies all over the insides of the laptop), or by disassembling the laptop and then cleaning it. Trying to vacuum from the outside is completely useless.QuoteAFAIK after version 15 opera is just the Chrome in different wrapper. In what place Chrome is slow?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2015, 09:23:04 pm
content: Use Chromium, not chrome. It is at least smaller and runs faster, even if it is a good number of revisions behind and needs manual updating. No cruft in it, though you will need to install it in Mint using the package manager and a PPA.

author: Dave
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 12:25:40 am
content: Quote from: wraper on April 22, 2015, 09:09:47 pmYup, they completely screwed up everything that was good about Opera. Instead of being able to customize every single detail, you now have a dumbed down version of settings, which are practically useless. Way to sell out, Opera.

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 12:41:59 am
content: Quote from: Dave on April 23, 2015, 12:25:40 amI don't want to take this too far off the OP's original question/topic, but I used to use Opera 9.x on Windows until Opera made drastic changes and removed bookmarks. Then I re-evaluated the entire browser options and selected Chrome mainly because it had Flash built in so I didn't have to worry about compatibility and Chrome had bookmark support.Now with youtube moving towards html5, I have completely disabled flash in Chrome and may change browsers again.For those who left Opera, check outhttps://vivaldi.com/The team that originally did Opera want to go back to its roots with vivaldi.

author: sean0118
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 01:54:20 am
content: With laptops the heatsink is shared over the CPU and GPU (graphics chip). I bet your GPU is getting so hot its cooking the CPU. Get something like MSI Afterburner that should allow you to see the GPU load and temp.

author: smjcuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 08:16:37 am
content: Use tpfancontrol for thinkpads:http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 06:12:53 pm
content: I switched to using TP Fan Control a few months ago and it is a great help. However, I can report positive resultsI downloaded a Firefox plugin that forces all YouTube videos to use HTML5 rather than Flash and I now have the following temperatures:35C-40C Idle system with nothing running45C-48C Browsing the Internet using Firefox, playing a DVD at 720p or watching an AVI or MP4 video51C-55C Watching a YouTube video at 720pSo, a drop of at least 20C in CPU temperature just by changing to HTML5, much betterIf anybody else wants to try the plugin it's called 'Youtube ALL HTML5 2.1.3'

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 06:39:36 pm
content: My laptop also runs very hot with any flash video (stream).E.g. a twitch live stream that always runs in FLASH will drive the CPU (a C2D P8400) to 65C - 70C (80% load). Same deal for Youtube FLASH.Even stranger: if I watch a Twitch stream at mobile quality makes absolute no difference when a Twitch stream is watched at Source quality (in this case a 50fps 720p stream to 720p full screen)Chromium with pepper flash, Firefox 37, etc. doesn't matter. It's all the same crap with FLASH for some reason.

author: smjcuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2015, 06:50:55 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on April 23, 2015, 06:12:53 pmNice resultsYou can also do this and save a lot of pain by disabling the flash add in or uninstalling it entirely