I noticed that when the application is running, my laptop battery often becomes very hot. This concerns me, because sometimes it is so hot that I can barely touch it. I have revised my computing settings to reduce the percentage of CPU usage during sessions. Will this help? What other methods or preferences can be employed to minimize overheating?

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Laptop cooling pad.

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Have you opened it up and checked for dust build up?

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A cooling pad does work, But if you dont have one at the moment try a trick one poster did years ago. He just took four coffee mugs and placed his laptop on the mugs. It gave the laptop more space to suck air in. And do check for dust bunnies. Even a little dust can choke a laptop.

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Old James

You might also want to consider using less CPU cores, if you're not already, and maybe using Tthrottle to set thermal limits.

Cheers.

I noticed that when the application is running, my laptop battery often becomes very hot. This concerns me, because sometimes it is so hot that I can barely touch it. I have revised my computing settings to reduce the percentage of CPU usage during sessions. Will this help? What other methods or preferences can be employed to minimize overheating?

Well, there are many things you can try:
- remove the battery when you don't need it (if possible)
- use less CPU cores, for your i7 with 4 real and 8 virtual cores I'd try 50% first (I would definitely not recommend not using 100% CPU time)
- don't use both GPUs

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I have given up crunching on my Dell laptop as even when I removed all the screws it was impossible to open the case to clean out dust. It gradually ran hotter and hotter and I gave up when it routinely reached 100 oC. The suggesting to stand the laptop on cofffee mugs is a good one, though I used two books to achieve the same effect with more stability.

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Since the overheat is in the battery, not in the CPU, maybe there is a problem with the battery. Did you try to buy a new one? Also, maybe the connection between battery and laptop is faulty, the 2 parts don't touch well, and then they overheat.

I hadn't ever visited the message boards, and interestingly, there was a topic I related to immediately. I use Speccy, a nice free utility to keep an eye on the machines. The projects were running the motherboard at 100 to 103 degrees C and the CPU's in the high nineties. From Amazon I got a five fan cooling base and it dropped the motherboard to 27 degrees C and the CPU's to 73degrees. I have two more on the way. The air blaster for the dust should be a regular practice for every laptop regardless of the use. Dust in the venting is probably the biggest weakness in the whole laptop design. If you don't have Speccy or a similar system auditing program, it's a good idea to consider.

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I found just raising the notebook a small amount off of solid surface was fairly helpful in cooling. I used Lego to make stands to place under the feet. Raising the notebook about 10-15mm. As the fan exhaust exits to the left, & slightly down, I place the notebook near the edge of a table. So it blows into the open air instead of heating the table surface.

This seemed more cost effective than buying one of those perforated stands.

I also have the battery out most of the time when it is plugged in. Prevents it slow deteriorating from micro charge cycles & less heat. When I don't plan on traveling I remove the battery with about 40% charge. As this was in a recommendation for lithium battery longevity I read a few years ago.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

In addition to the good suggestions made so far, undervolting can be a big help on many laptops. The nordichardware article is a good starting point, though old enough that the recommended software and techniques may not be applicable.

                                                                   Joe

I have given up crunching on my Dell laptop as even when I removed all the screws it was impossible to open the case to clean out dust. It gradually ran hotter and hotter and I gave up when it routinely reached 100 oC. The suggesting to stand the laptop on cofffee mugs is a good one, though I used two books to achieve the same effect with more stability.

I do not completely dismantle the laptop, I just remove the memory access and the HD access ports on the bottom of the laptop and blow it out from there with air from my compressor. This is where the dirt builds up as it is in the "flow path". You can (and should) of course also blow air in the intake vent on the bottom. Works wonders with the air flow.

And I do have the laptop mounted on a pad with a fan in it. It does overheat otherwise. (only crunch CPU as there is no GPU in the laptop.

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SETI@home classic workunits 4,019
SETI@home classic CPU time 34,348 hours

Put it in the fridge.

Put it in the fridge.

And use external monitor, keyboard, mouse, also use lan.

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No, put it in the fridge and just let it crunch away. Only mains needed.
Then when you want to use it, remove from fridge and turn off Boinc.
Simples.

Or, better still don't use a laptop for crunching. SETI ate my HP pavillion a few years back.

It just cooked the CPU.
R

SETI ate my HP pavillion a few years back.

It just cooked the CPU.
R

Did you at least get a grilled cheese sandwich out of it?

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LOL, no , just a bitter taste.

I gave up trying to run seti on my MacBook Pro. I had to keep throttling back the speed so much it wasn't worth the effort.
My Toshiba LT did a little better - though I had to build a PVC pipe stand for it and it still needed 2 of those clip on desk fans. It finally succumbed probably to dust build up. At some point I may take it to my local Toshiba guy and see if he can get it back to life without it costing more than a new one. It's seti days are over.

Not to be totally off topic, but I have wondered if we shall start to see similar problems with the new CPUs and their embedded GPU processing. Seems to me to be an awful lot packed on one piece of silicon, and wondering if they are going to start failing early when pushed hard doing Seti.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I have revised my computing settings to reduce the percentage of CPU usage during sessions. Will this help?

No. Placebo. You should probably retire it from crunching. Nobody asked what make and model it is?

Anyone with a MacBook, Ultrabook, thin & light, whatever shouldn't really use it for crunching unless you can afford to. But what a waste.

Likewise if you are running your notebook on a coolerpad. Obviously running beyond spec and asking for all kinds of trouble. Unless of course it's a notebook you've retired from daily use. Then yes, all of the above IS good advice.

However a notebook that used to run Seti OK but is now running hot is just dirty. And I've had vents block up a few times in as early as a week.

The only good advice* in this thread is pimping up the notebook's height by about 1cm (more is probably overkill). The rest is good advice for notebooks that are dedicated crunchers.

Off topic: I managed to fry my power-brick after 3 years of non-stop crunching on my netbook... poor thing started sounding like a high-pitched theremin :)

Edit: Welcome back Mark. My kitty's pregnant!:)

*Edit 2: Actually Link's advice about removing the battery is a no-brainer. Everyone should do this. Mine has been sitting on top of the fridge for months:)