I’m running a Framework 12th Gen i5, Windows 11 Pro 22H2. I have got a overheating problem that I’m trying to fix, and hoping this community would be able to help please.
If I lock my laptop (Windows + L), then leave the device screen open until the display is timed out (screen goes black, but not entering sleep / hibernate mode), the device starts becoming very hot, and fans run at high speed. This has led to unexpected shutdowns on two occasions now.
This overheating behaviour stops (laptop cools down and fans slow down) once the display is no longer ‘off’ - I do not need to log in for the device to cool down again, i just need to have the screen on and log-in page visible.
Does anybody know what could be the cause, or any other steps that I could take to troubleshoot this please?
EDIT: This heating behaviour (alongside with fans going fast) also happens if I leave the device idle for long enough that it locks itself. Again, as soon as the display turns off, the device starts to get hotter and fans turn up, but then everything cools down again once the screen is on and the log-in screen is viewable.
Update for anybody searching this topic - I managed to find a troubleshooting method and fix this issue.
I found a small block of PowerShell code from another website where somebody was troubleshooting their Gaming Laptop that also had CPU temp and fans spike when their monitor display is off (but device is not sleeping). I am not sure if allowed to link it here, so will leave this out, but essentially it was a ‘Get-Counter’ set to run at intervals of 10 seconds in a while loop…
Extract of code: $Counter = "\Process()% Processor Time"*
Then this was set to run, and lock the laptop - leave until display switched off and device got hot, then unlock and view the PowerShell window to see which processes used the most CPU.
The culprit was fxsound.exe - something I had downloaded and run as part of my ‘customization’ to make the default Framework 12th Gen speaker output a bit better! An update to that which had a bug fix for the CPU usage when idle, so the overheating when display off but not sleeping is no longer an issue.