I upgraded my HP Victus 15-fa0000sa from 8 GB to 16 GB of RAM. The NVMe drive worked normally for about a day, but after I cleaned the laptop's fans, it began running extremely hot and has continued crashing. I recently installed Debian, although the laptop had worked fine with Linux Mint for the past year, so I'm unsure whether this could be a driver or software issue. The drive reaches roughly 80–90°C shortly before a crash, and it is the only component that failed during my hardware tests. I have considered using PTM-7950 or new thermal pads, but I would like to diagnose the problem first. Is there a way to check the drive's health or install any required NVMe drivers using an external device? My files are backed up, so I can reinstall or wipe the drive if necessary. I mainly want the laptop working reliably for light gaming, programming, desktop customization, and general school or work tasks.
1 Answer
How are you confirming that the NVMe drive is the part overheating and causing the crashes? Check its actual health and error data with a tool such as smartctl, and compare the drive temperature with the rest of the system. NVMe drives generally use standard Linux support, so a missing driver is less likely than a cooling, mounting, connection, or failing-drive problem.
I ran tests on the components and the NVMe was the only one that failed. I can also feel significant heat through the laptop's case because I know where the components are after opening the machine several times. I have not used smartctl yet, but the temperature was around 80–90°C immediately before the last crash.