Reply To:

[Olivier]

I did a bit of further testing regarding the temps of the lapbook 14.1. I realised after a while the CPU/GPU started throttling like crazy from 75°C on. Even when just watching a movie and charging at the same time, I would hit that limit easily. The load while playing a movie is not intense, but the processor consumed just a tad under 4 watts in that scenario and the GPU would occasionally spike to 450 Mhz. When hitting 75°C, the CPU consumption would drop at 2 watts and the reading for the gpu would drop at 0. Under those conditions the computer is completely unusable and even the mouse pointer lags. The worst part is that even when the temps fall, the throttling will not stop, you need to restart the laptop.

Since then I have created a thermal pad + copper shim bridge between the heatsink and the backpanel where the metal sheet is taped. Since this rudimentary mod, I can watch a movie while the temps stay around 50 °C on battery but close to 70°C when charging. At least it is not throttling anymore, but I already ordered other parts to strengthen the cooling. Now, my point is, why oh why did they put the upper limit to 75°C and not a more palatable 90°C ? This is completely exaggerated and just screams laziness (and cost cutting obv). What this shows is that even with the added heat sink, the cooling solution on the lapbook 14.1 is insufficient even for common tasks like watching a movie.

Also, I tried to type a text on my lapbook, and it is indeed unusable for me. Often there would be a character missing and it is just too annoying. If there are good Lapbook 14.1 with good keyboards out there, lucky for you. But given I bought it for the screen to watch movies in bed, I can live with inaccurate typing.