Is this normal, or is this laptop running REALLY hot?

[Haole Boy]

Aloha everyone. Customer brought me a laptop saying that he thinks it needs a new cooling fan as it feels really hot. Told him I will do my own diagnosis and let him know what I think. Pulled the hard drive to run ddrescue for a backup of it, and noticed that the metal around the hard drive looks like it has turned blue from heat!

Can someone take a look at this photo (Edit: link removed...) and let me know if this is normal or not. The area to the left of where the hard drive goes is particularly blue. But, the drive seems to function normally (ddrescue did not have any problems reading all the sectors). Maybe the blue color is from something else? I think the metal here is stainless steel as it has no magnetic properties at all, and stainless does turn blue from heat.

This is an HP g7-1326dx machine from 2012.

Mahalo,

Harry Z

 

[Computer Bloke]

SMART information from the hard drive will tell you the maximum temperature it's ever reached - no need to speculate when there are facts available!

 

[Moltuae]

The blue tint is likely to be just a characteristic of the laptop manufacturing process. Had the HDD been hot enough to cause a blue tint, I think it probably would've resulted in a lot of melted plastics and possibly even fire.

 

[Alexey]

Blue tint in steel is approx 500 deg C. I'm not sure about fire, but failure of solder joints and plastics all over.

 

[HFultzjr]

I can't help with your issue, but that Win 7 HP COA just got stolen................LOL.
You really shouldn't post that info.
Might want to block it out in the photo.

 

[wavey]

That's not metal it's coated plastic, as Moltuae says the blue tinge is just from manufacturing.

 

[Haole Boy]

Mahalo for all the resonses. I was a little doubtful that that material was metal (felt "wrong", not cold) but I could just not ingore the blue tint. First time I've seen this.

And I've removed the sharing permission on the picture. Forgot about the COA stuff showing.

 

[sapphirescales]

I can't help with your issue, but that Win 7 HP COA just got stolen................LOL.
You really shouldn't post that info.
Might want to block it out in the photo.

I dunno about that. I've probably got 100 junk Windows 7 computers around here. I'm sure most tech's do too. Why steal a Windows 7 license off the bottom of some random computer? You might as well look on eBay/Craigslist if you wanted to do that crap.

 

[HFultzjr]

I dunno about that. I've probably got 100 junk Windows 7 computers around here. I'm sure most tech's do too. Why steal a Windows 7 license off the bottom of some random computer? You might as well look on eBay/Craigslist if you wanted to do that crap.

Sure "we" wouldn't do that, but a casual observer with little morals would see that as easy pickings (Pizza Tech).
Since it's not his, I would be a little more careful.
Simple "Blur" before posting.
Just my opinion....maybe I'm paranoid!

 

[cypress]

Sure "we" wouldn't do that, but a casual observer with little morals would see that as easy pickings (Pizza Tech).
Since it's not his, I would be a little more careful.
Simple "Blur" before posting.
Just my opinion....maybe I'm paranoid!

You're not alone in that thinking. I would have blurred out the license key as well.

 

[sapphirescales]

Sure "we" wouldn't do that, but a casual observer with little morals would see that as easy pickings (Pizza Tech).
Since it's not his, I would be a little more careful.
Simple "Blur" before posting.
Just my opinion....maybe I'm paranoid!

Well I would have blurred it as well. I just don't think there was any harm done was my point. The chances of some pizza tech seeing it and stealing it are slim.

 

[Porthos]

The chances of some pizza tech seeing it and stealing it are slim.

As if there are not members that are essentially pizza techs on this site. #wishfulthinking

 

[frase]

mmm pizza - margarita here thanks