My Acer Ferrari Laptop - Too Hot To Handle

Posted by Marcus D. Hanwell on

In the last few months the CPU temperature of my Acer Ferrari 4005 laptop has been getting higher and higher when idle or under load. I suspected it was just some dust reducing cooling efficiency but hadn't had chance to check it out. I was also putting it off as laptops generally aren't that easy to get into. Last week I was compiling a few applications as I was testing them for keywording bugs and the laptop shut itself down.

I rebooted and then resumed the emerge. I spotted the CPU temperature was up at 95 C and shortly after the laptop shut itself down again. Since then I had just left it turned off until I got a chance to look at it today. I found a very helpful article on Gentoo and the Acer Ferrari laptop which linked to a very helpful service manual as well as documenting how to get most of the hardware to work.

Twenty four screws later and I unclipped the keyboard to realise I didn't even need to undo any of the screws in order to clean the CPU heat sink and fan! I used the trusty blower that was intended for cleaning my SLR lenses to blow all the dust out of the fan and put the keyboard back. Booting back up and emerging something taxing showed a 25 C drop in temperature both idle and under load - and no sign of any more shutdowns.

I also spotted there is now a project to get the integrated memory card reader working under Linux. Apparently SD cards are already working (don't use them yet, but might if I manage to get hold of a Nikon D80) and xD support is planned which I would love to see as that it what my Fuji F10 uses. Looks like people have had success getting suspend to ram working too - I will have to see about getting that working when I get chance too.

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blokkie on :

blokkieI have a a acer aspire 1500 (amd64) 3000+ which is almost thesame specs as the acer ferrari. I had thesame problems like you discribed. I got it fixed by just loading the k8-power module in kernel 2.19.X (in arch somewhere in make menuconfig)
No problems since then once the module is loaded.

This heating up of the CPU also prevents me from installing dragonfly bsd or obsd on the laptop (no descent cpu freq controlling there)

Just to let you know .. that's all , you're not alone :-)

Marcus D. Hanwell on :

Marcus D. HanwellThanks for the tip - I have been using frequency scaling since I got the laptop. It certainly helps but using Gentoo I expect to be able to run it at full load for hours on end too when compiling stuff. I also do simulations on it as part of my PhD work.

Take the keyboard out and give them a good dust with an air blower - it has worked wonders with my system :-)

blokkie on :

blokkieI'll do the blowing and dusting this evenening ! Thx for the tip .

PS: good luck with your PhD

SpookyET on :

SpookyETHave you, by any chance, took notes on the location of the short screws versus the long screws? I haven't, and I can't remember their location. It's been 9 months since I disassembled mine. There is a warning saying that the motherboard can be damaged if the wrong screw is used. Please email me.

Thank you.

Marcus D. Hanwell on :

Marcus D. HanwellSorry - I didn't take note of the screw locations. I think there may be a service manual on the net if you search for it though and that might tell you where they go.

Alex on :

Alexyou say that you didn't need to undo any of the screws. Then how did you proceed to clean up? I am facing the exact same problem with my ferrari and I ended up working in 800Mhz clock speed so it wont die. An email or anything to make it clearer on how you cleaned up would be most welcome

Marcus D. Hanwell on :

Marcus D. HanwellThere are two catches at the top of the keyboard, you can undo them with a small pair of tweezers and take the keyboard off. Then use a blower such as the ones photographic shops sell to blow out the dust. Reduced my CPU temperature a lot.

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