Laptop FPS Problem

[chrisk123999]

A few days ago my laptop got dropped from about 3 feet up in the air. Since then I now have about 5 fps in any game I start up (Halo, TF2, Hl2, etc...). My warranty is long past expired. Anyone have any bright ideas about what the problem is?

Computer Information according to Xfire:

Manufacturer: Acer
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-58 (2 CPUs), ~1.9GHz
Memory: 2048 MB RAM
Hard Drive: 160 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7000M
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Sound Card: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Speakers/Headphones:
Keyboard: USB Root Hub
Mouse: USB Root Hub
Mouse Surface:
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.100218-0019)
Motherboard:
Computer Case:

Edit: SpeeFan is telling me my GPU is around 103 C and the Core is at 49 C.

[Inferno]

If dropping it makes your framerate drop then maybe throwing it up in the air will make your framerate rise?

//

Run memory tests from your BIOs see if that turns up any errors.

[chrisk123999]

My Bios can't. I'm thinking it has to do with really hot GPU.

[Cagerrin]

Are your fans still working properly? Dropping it might've borked them.

[chrisk123999]

Fan still spins.

[Cortexian]

I suppose it's possible that something got unseated or thermal paste/pads unsealed.

[chrisk123999]

I think that may be it, because the CPU has normal tempature, but not the Video Card. How would I go about fixing that? Since my warranty is over, I can safely open it myself without voiding anything.

Edit: I was looking inside it, it seems the CPU has thermal paste, but the Video card has pads of some sort.

[Cortexian]

You should be able to buy some replacement thermal pads, I never have so I'm not sure which ones are the best.

[Syuusuke]

Under heavy loads, your GPU can go into the 100C temperatures which is borderline critical (once it gets to a certain temperature, your gpu may automatically downclock, dropping the fps).

Did you open up your laptop to see if anything was broken? freelancer may be right about unseated thermal pads and stuff.

[chrisk123999]

Yea, I opened it up. I'm not positive, but the thermal pads look unseated. So I should buy new thermal pads and replace the one it has? Or should I ditch the thermal pad and use thermal paste for it?

[SnaFuBAR]

why would you replace a thermal pad with thermal paste? they don't do the same thing.

[chrisk123999]

What's the difference? They just transfer heat from the GPU / CPU to the heatsink?

[SnaFuBAR]

well is it a thermal pad with no heatsink on top of it?? that's what my old laptop had, but that was a piece of garbage >>

not to mention, my heatsink was superglued to the cpu.

[Syuusuke]

Thermal pad is a bit thicker than paste (so far I've seen, may be could be different for you???), they fill the gap between the heatsink and the gpu die that thermal paste wouldn't be able to (because you apply paste in a thin layer usually), while conducting heat from the die to the heatsink

[chrisk123999]

I have a small blue thermal pad on top of the GPU. Right above it is the heatsink. It looks like it's connecting the two, but Speedfan still says it's running really hot. I just turned my computer on and it's at 94 C. I've had it get up to 110 C while idling at the desktop. Maybe the sensor is broke?

[Syuusuke]

Is your fan really working? I mean, when you spin it with your finger (when it's off) does it look like it should be spinning smoothly?

Push down the heatsink gently, do you feel a gap between the heatsink, pad, and gpu?

[chrisk123999]

I've checked, the fan runs smoothly. I can't really tell if there is a gap, it's hard to tell. I'm thinking that's the problem.