If Your Laptop Feels Like it is Overheating Then Your Video Chip May Fail

by Graham Kelly
http://www.trilogicuk.co.uk

A laptop's video chip is situated within the laptop soldered directly to the motherboard along with other components. Without a video chip a laptop could not produce a display on its screen and is vulnerable to failure particularly if the laptop is abused.

If you disassemble an average laptop you will usually notice a heat sink with fan covering two large chips. One will always be the CPU chip the other the graphics chip. The CPU and graphics chip produce a lot of heat when the laptop is operating. The CPU will not generate nearly as much heat as the graphics chip. The CPU is almost always contained in a socket which allows it to be quickly extracted and replaced should it fail or require upgrading. Unfortunately, upgrading or changing a faulty graphics chip is impossible or very difficult since it is directly soldered on the motherboard.

Graphic chips may fail or have a reduced life when they continually operate at a high temperature. So any measures that could be taken to keep this chip cool will lengthen the life-span of the laptop.

With a little thought you ought to be able to keep your laptop operating cool instead of hot and damaging the graphics chip. Always use the laptop on a tray or table, and not on a carpet, bed or on your knees since this will obstruct the cooling vents. If you notice that the air leaving the exhaust outlet is slow or hot then you will probably have to have the fan and vents cleaned by a laptop repair agent. Different types of software programs result in different amounts of heat being generated by the graphics chip. Games tend to make use of plenty of advanced graphics features so will produce far more heat than say a word processing program. Surprisingly, playing films from DVD or from the web will result in the graphics chip producing maximum heat. Should this be done excessively, and the in-take is slightly blocked, then the chip is extremely likely to fail. So bear this in mind if you intend to play many films through the laptop.

You could find that the graphics software driver is damaged, out of date or just missing. This will usually result in the graphics chip overheating along with the laptop locking up or crashing. Most laptop manufacturers offer a free service where the correct driver or drivers can be downloaded to maintain it operating exactly they intended when designed.

Upgrading the graphics chip on a laptop is normally nearly impossible since it is very difficult to remove the old chip from the motherboard. You will discover though, a few high specification laptops that have the graphics chip attached to a separate sub assembly circuit board that connects to the main motherboard. This makes it easy, thought quiet expensive, to upgrade or replace the graphics chip as required.

If you notice that your laptop is pumping out hot air or maybe the case is getting far too hot to touch then it is very likely that the graphics chip will be about to fail. Look after your laptop's graphic chip since it is either extremely expensive or impossible to replace.

Graham Kelly is skilled at repairing broken and damaged laptops and USB RAM drives. He has spent over 30 years in the electronics industry concentrating on electronic design and repair. He has circulated lots of articles concerning laptop and notebook faults to help users diagnose and possibly undertake simple laptop repairs by themselves where appropriate. He is always willing to give technical advice and may be contacted at Trilogic's internet site for laptop repair or USB data recovery.

Article submitted Saturday, October 01, 2011 & read 19 times.

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