The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Very high CPU temps in HL2.

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by BetaFire, Mar 12, 2012.

  1. BetaFire

    BetaFire Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    So I decided to pay Gordon and Alyx a visit today with Half Life 2. Now I haven't played a lot of this on my PC due to have formerly played it on my Xbox, so I don't have a lot of experience with how my machine handles this, but I feel like it should breeze through it.

    And technically, it does. But at the expense of my CPU running anywhere from 93-96C; WAY to high. My GPU was nice and cool at 43C, which further increased my confusion. I still have turbo boost on; I left it on for when I play more CPU intensive games like Battlefield 3, and I read a few people saying that they lost almost 10 frames in BF3 per second when they turned it off. But my CPU doesn't even get to the 90's while playing Battlefield, at worst it sits in the mid-high 80's, which I've never had a problem with. But this just seems odd.

    I don't suppose anyone might have a suggestion?
     
    BetaFire, Mar 12, 2012
    #1
  2. CGSDR

    CGSDR Alien Master Race

    Reputations:
    285
    Messages:
    1,477
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    56
    That's your problem, since because of HL2 is more of a CPU-intensive game, that's why it heat up like that, that's similar to TF2 as well because whenever I play BF3 the CPU temp never reach 80C point, reason that BF3 never reach that high is obviously because of BF3 is a GPU-intensive game but even with that my GPU never go above 75C, however when I play TF2, the CPU tend stay between 80C ~ 83C and that's with Turbo Boost off.
     
    CGSDR, Mar 12, 2012
    #2
  3. FearEffect

    FearEffect Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    1
    Messages:
    54
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I think limiting the maximum frame rate will decrease the load on both CPU and GPU.
    You can do this by typing "com_maxfps 60" (or an other value) in the console.
     
    FearEffect, Mar 12, 2012
    #3
  4. BetaFire

    BetaFire Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    That particular console command doesn't work.
     
    BetaFire, Mar 12, 2012
    #4
  5. DC87

    DC87 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    30
    Messages:
    188
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    If it's a steam game may be max_fps 60 or just turn v-sync on. Although I honestly, do not think that's going to make a difference really at all.

    If you don't have a notebook cooler, may be consider one. Or at least elevate your notebook so it is able to intake air.

    The bottom line is some of the m14x run hotter then others, they are not all built exactly 100% identical so it might just be you sadly got one of the ones that run warmer. If your under warranty may be try contacting Dell and see if they will come do a re-paste for you.
     
    DC87, Mar 12, 2012
    #5