Question : Problem: DV6000 Overheating

Hello

I bought a refurbished DV6131OD (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&docname=c00782502&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN) and have been using it happily for almost 2 years now. At first, it only overheated when I was trying to burn DVDs, so I got a cooling pad and didn't have any problems since, including when I would render videos (which I've been doing a lot lately). I spray compressed air to clean the fan at least twice a week. However, for the past 2 weeks, it's been turning itself off if I did anything even slightly strenuous like watch a movie or burn a CD. I installed Hardware Sensors Monitor 4.4 and could see that I have idle temps on my CPUs of about 40C but when I try to do anything big (like edit a movie), it shoots up right away to 83C and turns off. If I tried to turn it back on after that, it would just turn off again before loading Windows XP Media Center Edition. Of course, the CPU fan sounds like it's in full force when the temps jump up but it's obviously not enough. Even though I hear it "working", has my CPU fan become too weak to handle the high temps? Has the thermal compound between the heatsink and CPU become ineffective? I have disassembled/reassembled a few laptops before but I'm not too confident about reinstalling a heatsink to a CPU. I bought Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste in case I have to. I read that this laptop has a thermal pad; Do I remove the thermal pad on the heatsink using isopropyl and apply AC5 alone, or do I keep the thermal pad and apply AC5 to that?

Thanks for your help,

Camiille

Answer : Problem: DV6000 Overheating

yes...it's very much possible for a fan to be worn out or even damaged.  yes, you should remove the thermal pad, clean, etc...and then reapply thermal paste.