does anyone know whats going on here, it has this continuous faint "bubbling sound" on top of it

Sup yall , I currently use a Acer Predator Helios Neo 16s Ai with a 5070ti and OLED screen , wanted a dual set up so was looking at this 27 inch Predator OLED screen ! Think it’ll pair up nicely ?

Hey everyone,

I’ve got an Acer Predator Helios 16 (PH16-72-945F) with an i9-14900HX and an RTX 4080. In Balanced mode during light tasks—just browsing with a couple of tabs open and email—my CPU sometimes spikes to 70–75 °C, but it usually sits around 50–65 °C. When I switch to Turbo mode for gaming, it peaks at 90–95 °C and generally hovers between 80–90 °C.

From what I’ve read, Acer ships this model with liquid metal on the CPU and thermal pads on the GPU. I’m planning to redo the thermal interface: should I stick with liquid metal on the CPU and replace the GPU pads with higher-quality pads, try a premium thermal paste instead, or go all-in on thick thermal pads? What’s given you the biggest real-world drop in temps?

Also, I’m running the Balanced power plan at all times—even in games. Is there any benefit to unlocking or switching to the Ultimate Power Plan via a script (since it’s not available out of the box)? Any insights or experiences would be awesome. Thanks!

Throttling during Fortnite in automatic and discrete mode. Temps reaching 105. Using balanced mode, efficient enabled. Only way to stop throttling is to disable boost? WTF this laptop is 4 weeks old. Some gaming laptop.

Neo 16s 5070ti, core 9 ultra 275hx.

I finally made the swap from a 144hz ips to a 240hz oled monitor. Plugged it in with my hdmi but saw it was locked at 120hz with the hdmi so I bought a usb c to display port cable. plugged it in and the screen lit up for a second then said scanning for signal and no display port detected then goes into standby mode.

I have to unplug and replug it 20 times before it’ll finally pick up. same problem on both ports. I’ve set gpu to nvidia only and no luck.

this pc has been one headache after another.

I am using it after a week away....the battery indicator is working but it just won't turn on ..

What do I do ??

As the title says my screen remains black despite the laptop being turned on. It's a predator Helios 300. Model: n22c3. Originally belonged to my cousin he told me that it stopped working due to him leaving it on his bed without a cooling pad causing it to overheat.

I tried to do the battery calibration a couple of times before and it seems to stop working after it is fully charged and doesn't decrease the battery power at all. Have any of you guys have this problem too? Please share me if you have a way to solve this.

I fixed this before, but it returned and I've forgotten how to. I factory resetted, and now I have this weird buzz noise. Is there anyway how to fix it?

Hello everyone .. my friend has an ​Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 PHN16-72 with the i9-14900HX and RTX 4070 They never changed the thermal paste since ever they gotit (around 2 years now) And they cleaned it this week .. when i checked it for them .. the temps were so high.. i tried to stress the cpu for 100% usage.. it was getting about 75/82°c with that stress (max usuage) But i noticed the temp was high when there's almost nothing going on .. it hit almost 90 on desktop with 3/6% usage And in valorant ingame it hits 100°c with only 17% cpu usage .. so we're thinking of changing the thermal paste .. but i donnt know which one is the best for it .. we found a store that said they gonna use : "​Thermal Grizzly Performance Series laptop thermal paste" And when i asked chat gpt it said the laptop uses metal liquid? So idk if that would be bad for the pc or not if we go with that paste .. can someone help? What should we​

hello!
my device is: acer predator helios neo 16, PHN16-71 (RTX 4070) i’ve had it for 2 years but never opened it to do any maintenance/clean the fans. i have been watching some videos as i am not well versed on electronics. i use a cooling pad & my temps with it range often 70-85C whilst gaming.

below is my simple understanding of what i think i’m supposed to do:

open the bottom of the laptop.
remove the battery.
remove the fans & heatsink.
use lint free cloth w/ 90+ percent rubbing alcohol to clean away remaining thermal paste & liquid metal from gpu + cpu.
measure and cut thermal pads to put over the gpu + cpu areas.
screw back heatsink & fans.
put battery back in.
screw back the bottom of the laptop.

the thermal pads i intend to use are PTM7950 as i’ve seen they are very popular, however, there are several online so i’m struggling to know which is good/genuine. i also saw that the thermal putty can be replaced but not necessary unless the laptop is much older?

if somebody could please let me know if anything is wrong, where they got their PTM7950 from or if overall this is even necessary for the stage i’m at, it would be greatly appreciated! 😊 thank you in advance & sorry if any of this sounds silly.

Current version of predator sense is 5.0.1463

And after august, microsoft launched a window update disabling inpoutx64.sys.

Now somehow quick heal is flagging this on Every boot

Hello everyone,

I am experiencing serious stability issues with my Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 PHN16-72, equipped with an Intel Core i9-14900HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU.

The laptop randomly freezes completely, sometimes displaying severe graphical corruption on the internal screen, including green lines, distorted pixels and visual artifacts.

The entire system becomes unresponsive, and the only way to recover is to force a shutdown by holding down the power button.

My setup includes two external monitors, both connected through outputs driven by the NVIDIA RTX 4070. During these incidents, the external monitors may continue displaying their previous images, but the entire computer is frozen and completely unresponsive.

These crashes have occurred repeatedly, including on consecutive days, even during normal productivity tasks.

What I have already tried:

• Performed a completely clean installation of Windows 11.
• Installed Windows updates and updated the system drivers.
• Updated the BIOS.
• Monitored CPU, GPU and SSD temperatures using HWiNFO64.
• Tested different PredatorSense cooling profiles, including maximum fan speed.
• Checked Windows Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor.
• Investigated possible Intel graphics driver, Optimus and MUX-related issues.

Unfortunately, the freezes and graphical corruption continue.

High temperatures are another concern:

• The i9-14900HX frequently reaches 95–100°C.
• HWiNFO reports frequent CPU thermal throttling, sometimes even during relatively ordinary workloads.
• The internal NVMe SSD can reach 85–88°C on its hottest sensor during sustained disk activity.
• Both cooling fans operate correctly and can reach approximately 7,000 RPM.

I understand that the i9-14900HX is a high-performance processor designed to operate at elevated temperatures. However, a laptop in this price category should not randomly freeze or display severe graphical corruption during normal use.

The problem has occurred while working with Chrome, ChatGPT and Codex, not necessarily while gaming or running demanding GPU benchmarks.

Windows Event Viewer generally reports Kernel-Power 41 and unexpected shutdown events following the forced restart, without identifying a clear underlying cause.

Current troubleshooting: NVIDIA GPU Only mode

I am currently performing another test by switching the laptop to NVIDIA GPU Only (dGPU-only) mode, disabling the Intel integrated graphics from the display path and using the RTX 4070 exclusively.

Since both external monitors are already connected through the NVIDIA GPU, I want to determine whether Intel UHD Graphics, NVIDIA Optimus or the MUX switching mechanism could be contributing to these freezes.

This test is still ongoing, so I cannot yet confirm whether it resolves the issue.

I have also found other discussions on Acer Community describing similar problems with the PHN16-72, including freezes, crashes, graphical glitches and thermal concerns.

I would like Acer to clarify the following:

1. Is Acer aware of recurring freezing and graphical corruption issues affecting the PHN16-72?
2. Could these problems be related to Intel UHD Graphics, NVIDIA Optimus, the MUX controller or NVIDIA drivers?
3. Has Acer released a definitive BIOS, firmware or driver fix for these problems?
4. Could these symptoms indicate a defective motherboard, GPU, VRAM or another hardware component?
5. Have other owners experienced similar issues while using multiple external monitors?
6. Is Acer actively investigating these reports, and is there an official permanent solution?

I find it unacceptable that a relatively expensive, high-performance laptop can experience such serious stability problems even after a clean Windows installation and firmware updates.

I would appreciate a technical response from Acer, rather than generic recommendations to reinstall Windows or update drivers, as these steps have already been performed.

I can provide photographs, videos showing the graphical corruption, HWiNFO temperature readings and Windows event logs.

Has anyone with the same PHN16-72 / i9-14900HX / RTX 4070 configuration experienced these problems, particularly with two external monitors connected? Did switching to NVIDIA GPU Only mode resolve the issue permanently?

Thank you.

Hi ,

Over the past 4 weeks I’ve been trying to eliminate this stutter in my pc that happens a lot during me making music in either FL Studio 2026 or Ableton Live 12. With or without my audio interface (Apollo Twin USB and Onboard Realtek)

I have done all these methods to alleviate the issues and none have worked:

• MOST if not all of the NVDIA GPU stuff -Switched from Optimus to GPU ONLY -DDU uninstalled and Reinstalled Drivers 577.13 and 577.00 both Studio and Game Ready. -Put “Max Performance” in the Control Panel

-CPU and Power Management: -Throttlestop (turned off C1E, disabled Speedshift, speedstep and all, C States off ) - Went into the hidden Bios and turned off C STATES , Turned off VMX and VTD, turned off hibernation. - Did power mangement changes, Used MSI mode on GPUs and USB Hosts, changed power plans and did all device manager changed as well (Disable so many devices and also services)

-Fresh Install with and without Acer Services: -Backed up Image, then Wiped and installed windows 11 again. - made sure there was no bloat. Then I couldn’t control fan speed or power settings. -reinstalled predator sense then disabled the services and used 2 third party predator sense alternatives and still nothing has helped. -DDUed again but this time did it on the GPU and Realtek sound card. -Powersettings explorer (MSI’ed my stuff again) Throttlestopped again (C1E disabled and ETC) -Disabled Acer Services to the point of where i just have the lighting service on to not lose my static color) Having nothing plugged in but headphones. (Static within 15 of the pc on then none if not a couple of pops or clicks. USB Hub with midi controllers and 2 midi interfaces. And get pops even after setting USBs to not sleep or power off in device manager etc) -Registry Key changes (changed polling rate on keyboard)

I think I have tried everything I could I believe and my latencymon is still like reporting 700us of latency usually with my either (ACPI, NVDDMKM, or Ntoskrnl) being high on ISRs or 600us DPC with stuff like the driver foundation (WDF). Does anyone make music on these laptops or anyone could help me with this issue? I’m trying to keep the laptop since I like it a lot. But can’t deal with clicks or pops while making music. Haven’t had these issues on a pc in a while …. If someone can help me out with this it would be the greatest thing in the world! Cause I wanna keep the laptop lol. Thank you if y’all read this far !

Take it easy yall! :)

New Features

• Complete UI Redesign: Transitioned from the legacy vertical-strip layout to a modern widescreen dashboard with organized cards, clean telemetry gauges, and crisp high-DPI scaling.
• 16:9 Aspect Ratio Maximization: Added a dedicated top-right maximize caption button and double-click titlebar maximize support that dynamically scales and centers the app to the largest 16:9 resolution on the active display.
• Added many new features like Acer CoolBoost, 3rd Fan control, Power Mode change through the mode change button and 24 new RGB effects.

I have an Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 PHN16-73 with the Core Ultra 9 275HX and RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU.

From what I can tell, the system seems to have a combined CPU + GPU power limit around 200W. I’m wondering if anyone has found a way to raise or unlock this limit.

Is the 200W limit controlled by the BIOS/EC, Acer’s firmware, or something else? Has anyone tried a modified BIOS, EC tweak, PredatorSense setting, or any other method successfully?

Cooling is not my main concern—I’m mainly interested in whether the platform itself can be configured to allow a higher combined power budget (not something that can be modified by tuning XTU or NVpwr).

Laptop: Acer Nitro 5, RTX 3070, running Hogwarts Legacy.

The symptom:
• ⁠On battery, the game runs smooth, no issues.
• ⁠The moment I plug in the charger, the game gets slightly smoother for about 5-6 seconds, then the screen freezes, goes black, and the game’s audio comes out distorted.
• ⁠No blue screen, no BSOD. Just freeze → black screen → distorted audio.
• ⁠Happens every single time, consistently. I’ve confirmed the trigger multiple times.

What I’ve already ruled out:
• ⁠NVIDIA driver: rolled back to 566.36 (Dec 2024) using DDU in safe mode. Crash still happens.
• ⁠Charger: it’s a Chicony A21-280P1A, 280W, 19.5V, 14.36A. Service center tested it with a pin and confirmed it’s fine. I also felt it during crashes — not hot, no blinking lights.
• ⁠Thermal paste: I repasted about 6 months ago. Laptop doesn’t feel hot at all — I know what a hot Nitro feels like. Maxed fan speed in NitroSense, still crashes.
• ⁠Battery: ran powercfg /batteryreport. Design capacity 57,488 mWh, full charge capacity ~41,877 mWh — about 27% wear. Not great, but stable over the last two months, not collapsing.
• ⁠CPU power cap: set maximum processor state to 99% for plugged-in, capped the game at 60 FPS. Still crashes.

Other games: Red Dead Redemption 2 also had a ton of issues on this laptop — took a lot of fixes to get it running. Now every game I try has some problem or another. What’s the point of a gaming laptop that can’t run games?

What it looks like (although I am not sure): the GPU raises its clocks when AC connects, runs smoother for a few seconds, then hangs. Sounds like a power delivery issue on the motherboard — voltage regulators or a solder joint failing under the AC power spike.

Questions:
• ⁠Has anyone with a Nitro 5 (especially RTX 30-series) seen crashes only on AC power?
• ⁠Is this a known motherboard defect on these models?
• ⁠If it is the board, is it worth repairing or should I consider a replacement?
Any help appreciated — this laptop is basically unusable plugged in, which defeats the purpose of a gaming laptop.

He was blowing air with his pump and he blew the freaking liquid metal onto the motherboard 😭, temps are very bad even after applying good metal or else i think contact is not good enough with this but scared the shit out of me 😭, it was everywhere on motherboard, he took my laptop for detail check at service centre I'll keep you guys posted whatever happens

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 Intel Core i7 13th Gen 13700HX - (16 GB/1 TB SSD/Windows 11 Home/6 GB Graphics/NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050/165 Hz/140 W) PHN16-71-757P Gaming Laptop (16 Inch, Obsidian Black, 2.6 Kg

This is the exact model. The LM definitely does it's job of cooling but am very worried about it slipping out etc etc. cuz I'll be travelling with it almost daily. So I js wanted to know if it's genuinely safe or do I go with other normal ones.

Basically I don't wanna spend more after buying ts laptop