M14x and heat?

Hello good people,

For the past month or so I haven't been able to get myself to pull the trigger and buy one of these fantastic looking machines simply because of how hot these system I have heard seem to reach. I have been thinking, since when was it normal for laptops to run at 90+ degrees Celsius? Even some reviews on this laptop have said that this laptop runs a bit warm, but acceptable?

I had thought about buying a cooler, but ultimately decided that I was against the idea. I remember reading a post from someone else that a laptop should be able to run perfectly fine on its own, and I wholeheartedly agree. A big selling point of the M14x is its portability and its ability to game anywhere, but then how truly portable would this laptop be if I had to haul around a cooler around basically as life support. I know that 90 degrees Celsius is technically within spec. (max being 100 degrees Celsius), but it's a little too high for comfort in my honest opinion. So I have some questions, if you guys don't mind, to try to convince myself that this laptop is an investment worth getting.

My main goal is trying to find a laptop with good gaming performance, portability, and low heat output for a reasonable price (I know that is asking a lot, but that is why I have been waiting). I hope with these questions answered, that this will also help some people in a situation similar to mine.

Some questions:
How often do temperatures actually reach 90+ Celsius when gaming for long periods of time (without a cooler)? What about with a cooler?

Has anyone tried to reapply the thermal paste? Any significant change in temperature?

Do you think an M14x configuration with an i5 rather than an i7 will show much lower temperatures?

And finally, since heat is my biggest concern, do you think that I should skip Sandy Bridge and wait for the reported low heat/more efficient Ivy Bridge processors?

Thank you all so much.

 

At least for me, the cpu doesn't run too hot. It's the combination of both, mainly the gpu, that makes this computer scaldingly hot, (no that's not a hyperbole) I think the core i5 would be hotter in theory since it's a weaker processor, but that's just my thoughts. Computer runs cool when you aren't gaming though. The bottom becomes so hot when gaming that you can't really touch the bottom for more than a second. I don't think a cooler would lower the temps at all, it's more of a better way for your computer to breathe, and in this case, protection from your legs being charred.

My gpu (not overclocked) when gaming moderately, doesn't normally go over 65c at all. Once you're in the 90-100c area, things start to go bad...

Alienware just added sandy bridge to their lineups, i doubt they'll add ivy bridge before they milk sandy bridge.

 

Thanks for the reply, niko!

Maybe the i5 would run hotter then the i7 when doing moderate tasks, but I think (hope) that when both the i5 and i7 are under full load, the i5 might have lower temperatures because it consumes less energy.

Ivy Bridge is supposed to come out sometime next year between Q1 and Q2; just in time for a possible M14x refresh.

 

Might as well get the M14x now and then use it up until Broadwell or Skylake comes out. I mean, if you wait for Ivy Bridge, you might as well wait for Haswell, then you might as well wait for Broadwell etc. The question is whether you need a laptop right now.

 

Well, it's not that I am trying wait for the best possible processor, it's just that I am dissatisfied with the amount of heat that Sandy Bridge seems to produce on the M14x. The decision for me is one of two:

1. Somehow make the laptop run cooler with the Sandy Bridge processors or

2. Wait for the next line of processors. I will not be waiting for more than one generation. Broadwell, Skylake, Ivy Bridge, whichever one is next, as long as it has relatively good performance and outputs less heat than Sandy Bridge, then I think it is worth waiting for.

On whether I need a laptop right now or not: I was actually planning on getting a new laptop by the end of this Summer. However, if I still cannot find a solution for the M14x's heat, then I guess I will just stick with my old laptop for a bit longer. A cool running laptop is a very important matter for me.

 

The sandy bridge at idle, web browsing, viewing video's, doesnt produce much heat. That's of course when using the sandy bridge's intel 3000hd graphics. Once the gt555m kicks in, all bets are off But the gt555m kicks on when you view youtube hd content, and it still doesn't heat up. It's only when gaming. I strongly believe it's the gpu that's causing the meat more than the cpu. Not to say that the cpu isn't contributing. But it's manageable heat. I don't use a cooler or a fancy air flow set up. Most of the time I game on a hard pillow (i know). It get's me by, and i dont block the vents. works okay for me, and its quite comfy. You wouldn't have to go to extreme lenghts to keep it from overheating. It never overheated on me. But under load, a lot of laptop's get quite warm. I think it's because of the m14x's integrated gt555m chip(it's actually integrated into the motherboard). It looks like the fan cools both the gpu and cpu.

 

Has anyone tried using Arctic MX-4 thermal paste on the M14x?

niko: It's possible, but I think while the GPU runs relatively warm, it's temps are nowhere near the temps of the CPU; usually around the 70 degrees compared to the 90 of the CPU. Although I might be wrong.