dthorburn,
I've recently seen another example of this which was resolved by replacing the fan / heatsink assembly. It was a core overheat condition, and the system suspended (standby / sleep) to protect itself.
I would suggest that you download rightmark CPU, run it and share the results. What temp is being reported for CPU temps?
As you run your application, or a stress test that maxes out both CPU cores, does the CPU stay at maximum clock rate or does it start to throttle? What is the fan behavior? Is it running fast? How hot is the air coming out of the vents on the left of the system?
Does this occur on AC or on battery operation, or both?
I'll look for your replies, but will jump ahead with some suggestions...
Most likely, the fan and heat sinks are partially clogged with dust. If you are comfortable working on your system, remove the palmrest and keyboard being careful not to damage the ribbon cables that connect to the system board as you remove them. You can refer to thetraining videos for palmrest and keyboard here.
With the keyboard and palmrest removed, use a can of compressed air to blow air through the heat sinks back into the fan. Be sure to clean the heat sink sections on the left and rear of the system. Also blow air in from the top of the fan to ensure the blades are all clean, and then again from the outside to ensure no dust lodged back in the heatsink after cleaning the blades.
Re-assemble and re-run the tests. If performance is still not restored, then next steps depend on warranty status.
If you are in warranty, I would contact service.
If you are out of warranty, then let's see what your findings were from the above steps and see what else the community can advise as next steps, including removing, cleaning and re-applying some thermal grease like arctic silver to the CPU and GPU, and failing that, moving on to replacing the fan/heatsink assembly. Others might have further suggestions.
Best regards,
Mark
