[Riley114]

Hi i have a HP pavilion dv4 i just recently upgraded from windows vista home premium to windows 7 ultimate. A few months ago i started getting these Cpu spikes only when playing games... i have tried every game i own and they all get the cpu spike randomly 1-3 mins and last around 8-30 seconds... this has been haunting me for quite a while and i would like nothing more than to be rid of it pls help.

 

[Wrench97]

DV4 is a laptop correct?

Is it the same on battery and A/C power?

Have you checked the CPU temps recently?
Hardware Monitor

 

[Riley114]

Yes it is a laptop

The battery is old/ruined and can only run the computer for a matter of minutes (need to get replaced but dont want to spend the money enless i can fix this problem) so i cant really test it on battery.

I don't know how to check my CPU temps can you shed some light on the matter? Also i do use a laptop cooling fan which helps but the computer does get hot from time to time.

Also it doesnt only do it when gaming (just found this out while typing reply) it also does it very rarely when i am doing stuff like internet browsing etc....

Hp Pavilion dv4 (laptop)
AMD Turion(tm) X2 Duel-Core Mobile RM-72 (2.10 Ghz)
Ram: 4GB
64-bit OS
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

 

[Wrench97]

D/L and run Hardware Monitor to check the temps, run HWM in the background while doing something intense(game, virus scan etc), expand all the trees in the HWM window and use the Win7 snipping tool to grab a screen shot, post the screen shot here using the Go Advanced button and click on the paper clip icon at the top of the advanced message box to upload it here.

 

[Riley114]

This good? Also idk if this will help or not but the day before these spikes started happening i had just downloaded avast free antivirus and was wondering if that could have anything to do with it? because i also downloaded it again till i can get a subscription to norton.

 

[Wrench97]

Those temps are way too warm, your seeing spikes because the CPU is throttling back to try and reduce the heat.

Try blowing out the heatsink with a can of compressed air(available at office supply stores among many), often dust accumulation in the heatsink causes the heating problem.

 

[Riley114]

Heatsink? pls explain xD i apreciate the help so much so when you say heat sink just blow it where? and do i have to take anything apart? i have a can here at home im just unsure of what the heat sink is.

 

[Wrench97]

There should be a vent on the laptop where you feel warm air coming out, and a intake vent usually on bottom, with the laptop turned off, unplugged and battery removed blow in the out vent to reverse the air flow and remove the debris, the into the intake vent, back again to the outtake vent. Reinstall the battery replug recheck the temps.

 

[Riley114]

Ok i will post back in a little bit thanks so much.

 

[Riley114]

Alright this is the temp on start up i cleaned out the fan and the fan on my laptop cooler.

Also i noticed the Powers section it jumps from 31.50W to 4.8 does that indicate a problem or is that normal?

 

[Riley114]

Thanks so much man i just played 25 mins of league of legends lag free! its been a very long time since i could do that xD i appreciate your help so much and im so happy sombody could figure this out for me xD im a bit sad that it was somthing so simple since i just spent 92$ on Windows 7 thinking it would fix a the problem xD but its still worth it thanks so much man this has been haunting me for around 5 months now and i can finnaly play a game with friends without constant complaining xD btw is there any thing else i can do to keep the computer cooler? after playing league it hovered around 80-85 degrees and im scared that if i play for a while it will start back up again and get to hot any tips? and Thanks again.

 

[Wrench97]

The cooling pad is about all you can do, AMD mobile chips run a lot warmer then the Intel equivalent.

 

[Riley114]

K thanks a lot man