NOT AGAIN! My Latitude is overheating and the CPU is maxing out:

Here's my E6410 with one CPU-intensive process (probably single threaded) and lots of other background activity. The CPU temperature peaked at 91C and I can just hear the fan running in a moderately noisy office. The computer is docked with the display closed. I suspect that the absence of convection off the keyboard is why the CPU has got hotter than when I have done benchmarking with the display open. The right hand pane is the Windows resource monitor to show the individual core activity.



John

 

I am using dual monitors.
What do you mean "use the second screen w/o the dock"? Where would I plug the second screen into?

BTW-I have a idfferent dock than you.
Mine has a ramp that the laptop lays on and my monitor is attached to the entire dock assembly.
I have had the dock replaced there times...

Same here.
Mine NEVER throttles when undocked.

Overall, hands-down-the worst experience I have ever had with any product I have ever purchased.
Dell's customer service is useless as well. They have been wel aware of these throttling problems for over a year now yet they act like they have no idea what im talking about when I call. They initially added that 3rd fan speed to try and combat the overheating problme that plagued many Latitutde owners when it first came out.

John-

You were the first person to help me with this nearly two years ago.
Can you believe I am still dealing with this?

Are there any other docking options other than the E-Series?

 

Theres a displayport and VGA connection both directly on the laptop you could attach a monitor to.

 

That sounds like the monitor stand. It won't block the vents either, as there is a small gap between the base and the docking station. It's no worse than using your laptop on a desk. I have a slightly different type of monitor stand, one that has a shelf, and I have no problems with heat at all. The docking station can come out of the monitor stand and be used individually.

Are you using the right AC adapter? The dock requires a 110W PA-2E, not the regular 90W PA-3E.

No, although there are several different type of docking stations with different set of ports.

 

Mine is the PA-4E. Its for the docking station (i hope )
The throttling ONLY occurs when I am watching a video or using some sort of graphic intensive program/application.

Its always been about the video which is why is switched from my original nVidia GPU to the intel one I have now. The former was causing the unit to overheat.

 

The PA-4E is even larger than the PA-2E, so you should be fine. I'm using a PA-2E on mine, and I have no problems with video playback or gaming (Need For Speed Undercover and Flight Simulator X).

 

So ive checked my task manager for activity when Im throttling and its the qeirdest thing: everything is jumping all over the place.
For example-the task manager itself is using 40-50% of the CPU!
Then that will suddenly drop and Microsoft Word will use 60-70% of the CPU!
Or Windows medai,
or IE.

Its ridiculous.

I have to shut this thing down now 3 times a day just to get the cpu to normalize. After a couple of hours, it will begin to skyrocket again.

As an aside, ill put up the task manager on one screen to watch the activity while working on another screen. SIMPLY MOVING THE MOUSE AROUND CAUSES THE CPU TO SPIKE.

Dreading having to call Dell tomorrow.

 

I might have mentioned this before, but have you reinstalled Windows yet?

 

I agree. If light load CPU usage is fluctuating over a wide range then there is most likely a software problem. On Task Manager's Processes page select Show processes from all users and also use View > Select columns to add a CPU time column. This shows the cumulative CPU time for each process and should quickly reveal what is loading the CPU (unless it is one of the system processes with multiple instances).

John

 

Indeed! Exactly what software has been installed on all of these notebooks that is causing them to hot rod? Re-image the system... if the base system still has a problem... give it back to Dell. Otherwise, install additional apps at your own risk.

GK