[m17x R3] Needing some help! A few questions.

Hi there, my laptop has recently been overheating and I believe that I am in need of replacing the thermal paste. I plan to buy it off of Amazon or something.
1. What is the best thermal paste that would be good for replacement?

2.Also, my FPS for games have been dropping overtime. Is the heating the only issue responsible for this or is there something else I should be looking out for? My GFX card seems to be fine.

Sorry for nooby questions.

 

Hi, just my opinion (and not popular) but i've been using thermal paste for over 10 years and firmly believe that most are good or better than the stock, but you pay a serious premium for the latest metalic paste. I'm sure it works great but at the end of the day you save like 2-3c. For an overclocker or enthusiast wanting every ounce of power then this may be the difference between a good paste job and an excellent one.

Personally I use whatever I have laying around

This old article sums it up for me...: Thermal Compound Roundup - October 2011 | Hardware Secrets

Of course there are a lot of new products on the market and people seem to get very vocal about the best paste so your call .

What GPU do you have and is it a 3D model? I should be able to help you check it out

 

Thanks for your response!
Still looking for more resposnes from others, because I'm stil la bit lost as to what paste to pick, haha.


My GFX Card is not a 3D model, its an Radeon HD 6970M I believe, thanks!

 

I agree with Mikey1234 , a lot of thermal paste are the same in term of performance, some are awesome but it cost what , 20 buck !? I have use noctua Nh T1, Coolermaster noname, Arctic Silver 5, some ebay grey paste they have all done the same job. Just don't use ceramic one, they dry pretty quick.

 

Ooo, okay. Thanks.

Looking for answers to the second quesiton now!

 

1. I would use gelid GC extreme or IC Diamond.7
2. You probably need to install new drivers which will be a pain in the ... Actually, on 2nd though not so.. Just install the new drivers over your old ones...

 

I am on this page:
Download Drivers

Do I select notebook graphics? It seems like it *may* be the other choices as well and I don't want to download-install the wrong thing.

 

Mobile

QED .. I went to your link and clicked on mobility raedon drivers for 64 bit Windows 7

 

Gotcha, thanks a lot.

Also, I have a nother question that was not mentioned in the OP.
My laptop 's fan is quite loud and very active now even though I am not running games. What is the the reason for this and can it be due to the necessity of thermal paste replacement?

 

Could be but clogged heat exchangers is more likely (unless you have already cleaned them out. Lift the fans to see the nest that is in there!

 

I went and downloaded the lastest AMD Catalyst Package, and it is telling me now that the driver isn't working because it probably isn't the right one or something, Any sugestions?

 

Yeah the 6900 series cards in the R3 are a pain in the rear to update drivers.. The 7 series is better but still a pain... You need to uninstall all the AMD drivers, run driver sweeper in safe mode, install dell drivers from website and try installing the new AMD drivers on top of that...

Should work this way

 

Thanks a lot! Sure is a lot of work for that price tag. Seriously man.

Anyway, more specifically, when I play games, the graphics occasionally runs at high FPS then drops low for a while then the cycle repeats. Because there is a cycle to it, do you know if it is just a heating problem other than potentially being the drivers (which I doubt)?

 

Sounds like a heating problem.. what arte your temps? monitor them with HWinfo 64...

 

These screenshots are on laptop idle, with browser running -- no games.

farenheit:
http://i.gyazo.com/3aef0128c378a684a507a0012d7c8533.png


Celsius:
http://i.gyazo.com/25c1f9be41705c1fb6c47ff8ce743f99.png

It's pretty bad isn't it, :u

 

Yeah problem is with your GPU which is weird.. 75C shouldn't be a problem and your GPU shouldn't be throttling then... Have you cleaned out the vents? Also, elevate the R3 with some books and play some games.. Do you temps reduce and you get better performance? This should confirm if the GPU is the problem.. Also what are your CPU temps? It seems more likely to me that CPU throttling is causing the GPU to throttle too..

 

At idle that's fiercely hot. Did you check the heatsink under the fan like I suggested earlier? Those temps are more like under load - what does it hit if you run something like heaven 4?

 

Yeah seems a bit weird that idle temps are so high.. I think it might be time to repaste the GPU and get some new thermal pads for it..

 

I don't have the screwdriver set here as i forgot to bring it to dorms here, haha. I'll be buying it all as I make the purchase with Amazon. But what am I supposed to look for as I observe the heatsink?
And this continues to happen even when fan is cleared.


Here are CPU temps:

Farenheit: http://i.gyazo.com/257af457bc0f5be24dc58c5d920eb990.png
Celsius: http://i.gyazo.com/454269ecc8b95a54b7e0571afa80df94.png

How do I fix the heating with the CPU?

And

THanks! Thats what I definitely will be doing.

 

You probably want to repaste the CPU.. idling at 70C is absurd.. Especailly with 19W power being used by it..

 

Alright, thanks a lot for the advice guys.

WHat about the thing with the heatsink? What was I supposed to look out for?

 

I can almost guarantee that if you have never cleaned out behind the fans then this will account for a lot of the overheating. You will see the fins are clogged with lint - big chunks. A Can of compressed air is best but you can remove most of it with a small brush.

 

FPS problems are most of the time GPU issue try turning down the AA from 8 to 4 etc or you can overclock your GPU with MSI Afterbruner

 

Hi sorry, I have another question for ya.

Can you explain the difference between:
-Thermal pad
-Thermal paste

and tell me if i will need both for my CPU and GPU?

 

When you open it up you will see soft pads 1mm/2mm in thickness on the GPU only. Paste is exactly that and you spread it (sparingly) on the core area (after careful cleaning). Reuse pads, clean and new paste .

The GPU is where it is probably most needed but while you are there do the CPU as well.

I take it you have not looked under the fans yet? It might be a very simple fix and not need a repaste . Mine clog up after 3 months or so...

 

Thanks! Sorry with the totally newbie questions.

And i can't yet haha, I still need to buy a new screwdriver set along with the thermal paste first.
And by deduction, it really isn't the case because I've cleaned them out before I came to college and the same issue persisted.

Thank you so much for the help.

 

If you have cleaned them out before (and saw the part with the fins?) then the repaste is definitely the next step. Don't stress to much about the type, they are all fairly good enough for an average user .

NP with the questions, we all have to start somewhere!

 

Thanks, haha.
Made my purchase of thermal paste to shortly arrive on Monday.

Is the CPU and GPU the only places where paste is necesssary?

 

Yup. I use medical wipes (injection site) for cleaning. Cheap and convenient, and leave no residue

 

Just reporting back to you and thanking for your help once again!

It has been a huge success. Dust was minor as i thought, and repasted. Now idle temps are around 50c for CPU and 56C for GPU.
I think GPU could have been lower, but due to it being my first time pasting I might have screwed up just a bit, don't know.

Edit: I idled with browser actually open and GPU is ~63C now from 70c. Should I try repasting again? :u

 

.Hmm, still seems a little warm. What does it hit under under load? Use Heaven 4 benchmark to give it some work to do .

Heaven Benchmark | Unigine: real-time 3D engine (game, simulation, visualization and VR)

I don't know the running temps of the AMD so that will need input from a user but generally once you see 80c then you are in a bad place on any mobile chip (IMO).

 

Gotcha. I have repasted, and now it is even lower when running a browser at 55c. I'm content for now!

And I tried running a game, and the laptop is running like new. THe only problem is that there are occasional times where the game just freezes for like a second. Is this RAM related?

 

That sounds just fine. I'm still intrigued to see a load temp in heaven 4?

The only thing I know to look for is a card reset caused by a TDR (google it and you'll enter a world of hurt). MS changed the way a TDR is handled. Originally with win 7 if a timeout occured either it dropped you back to the desktop, or a BSOD. Now with Win 8 (and win 7 was patched with the same code) the code can send a 'silent' partial reset to the card. No more pop-up 'driver restarted' message and the game continues. Obviously a fix they come up with by someone that never games. A second or so black screen is just as annoying!

The way to identify if the card has reset is to apply an overclock. Then run heaven 4 and see if it does it. Once you see it the card will have reverted to it's original clock setting.

With NV this is a driver issue, but I know back in the day AMD had just as much trouble with TDR's as NV??