[evilmessiah]

Great thread. I own something similar to yours- an Acer Predator Helios 300 albeit one from 2018. It's got an i5 8th gen, GTX1050Ti, 8 GB RAM and a 1TB HDD. While I didn't face any issues like you did, my laptop had high temperatures under load (eg: north of 80 degrees while playing GTA5 or NFS Heat). It also idled at 45-50 degrees and the fans used to come on under heavy browsing.

Did the following to counter this:
- Undervolted it using Intel XTU
- Went to power management, advanced power settings and made sure that the maximum power state is at 99%. I think this makes sure that Turbo boost doesn't kick in.

I barely feel any difference in performance when I did this, but the temperatures came down quite a bit. Now it idles at 35-40 degrees and the fans don't come on. Under extended load while playing intensive titles like GTA5 and NFS Heat (this one is badly optimized, I think), temperatures are in high 60-s and low 70-s. It did cross my mind to apply thermal paste, but since these measures have brought down the temperatures, I decided to let things be.

Btw, I've also done similar upgrades to my machine like yours:
- Added in another 8 GB of RAM. That dual channel configuration helps in some games. GTA5 had rare microstutters, but it became smooth after I put in the extra RAM.
- Took out the included m.2 bootdrive and put in a 500 GB Kingston NVME like you did.
- Took out the included 1 TB HDD (luckily mine is a WD Blue) and put in a Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD.

Battery life also seems to have improved post all these changes. Loving the quietness, lack of vibration, nice sustained performance and thermal headroom I am having for games. I was skeptical of Acer when I went for this one (my last laptop was a Sony Vaio that served me for 8 years), but I am glad that I did. The icing on the cake was that this laptop didn't cost me a bomb and is relatively easy to open up and repair.

[ManneAtWheelz]

That was quite a stuff what you did vishy76. Good to know you are out of the issues now and enjoying your laptop experience.

Even I have a HP Pavilion touch screen laptop. I too experienced the fan sound louder when I place the laptop on bed but will be functioning normal if laptop is placed on a table with out any sound.

The other problem I'm facing is that when I shutdown and start the laptop it wierdly says unable to find hard disk to boot with a error code which I don't remember now. Upon doing repeated starting of laptop it suddenly picks up at one point of time and I'll be ufff it started. No idea on what might be the issue but planning to take the laptop to a service center to rectify the problem.

My laptop configurations FYI:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.71GHz
RAM: 8GB
System Type: 64-bit OS, x64-based processor
HDD: 1TB

Do pass your comments if anything strikes out from your experience.

[ankitsharma]

Good learning for you. I am happy !!

BUT, 60-70 Degrees is quite normal with AI. That is also the normal operating range for GPU. You should take stock of things when the temperatures start getting north of 85.

P.S. I have Acer Nitro 5 with i5 quad core. I swapped my SSD from older Vaio. Manufacturers have to cut costs somewhere and HDD makes a very good prospect for it.