Acer V5-571 laptop - 9 months old yet becoming very noisy

Hi all, hoping somebody can offer some advice.

About 9 months ago I purchased a new laptop, an Acer V5-571 (i3 1.4Ghz, 6GB RAM, 750GB HDD and Windows 8) It's nothing special and was never intended to be. I only use it for web browsing, e-mail, IM, Word and maybe watching some videos on YouTube.

In fact in the 9 months I've had it, I've not attempted to play one even slightly intensive game on it, as I think I killed my previous laptop in its early days by attempting to do this.

Anyway the problem is it has become very noisy, fan wise. When I first had the laptop (and for the first 6-7 months) it was silent for the majority of the time, even when browsing the web.

Now the fan can always be heard when I have a browser open or whatever. The only way it silences is if I close every application and just leave it at the Windows desktop for a while (or if I turn it off!)

I know dust build up can occur but I've had a look through the vent and can't notice anything untoward. Although I appreciate it may be hard to see from the outside, I don't really want to be opening the case yet.

I was wondering if this was normal for a laptop in this age range? My previous laptop, another Acer, didn't start getting noisy constantly until the end of its days (and that was in it's 4th-5th year)

It's just frustrating that the fan can always be heard even when doing very little in Windows. I also can't see any rogue processes taking up resources.

I've changed my laptop habits a lot since this purchase compared to my previous one. As I said, I don't push the (very) limited integrated graphics with games it can't run properly anyway, and I also keep it on my desk, a flat wooden surface at all times for use.

Any ideas or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Only thing I can think of at the moment is to use a program similar to CPUZ and check the temperatures at various time.check temp when first started as that should be lowest and listen to noise then use something a bit cpu intensive like a photo edit and again check temp and noise. if temp going up with little cpu action and noisy chances are it it dust. when I first cleaned mine I used a can of air duster thru the vent holes to stir dust up a bit and a vac to suck it out. Hold with vent holes downwards.

Only other way is to get a set of headphones and play your favourite track at max volume

Keith

Thanks Keith. I was hoping it wouldn't be dust build up considering the age of the laptop, but it may well be the case.

The temps when I first start Windows with no programs yet running are as follows:



So they are hovering around the early 40s.

After I start up Chrome (with multiple tabs open) it looks like this:



So not overly different. But in both cases I can hear the fan, albeit it's at its quieter speed. Previously I barely ever used to hear the fan kick in - in fact when I got the laptop I was chuffed to bits as it was practically silent all the time apart from when doing virus scans or watching films!

If I go on to an intensive website like "www.calm.com" which uses full screen video and sound, then it starts to hit the low 50s and the fan begins to take off a bit.

Is it easy to use those compressed air cans? Are there any special methods of doing it? i.e - could anything go wrong?

Cheers,

Alex