Alienware 17 - 4700MQ Cooling and Temps

Hey All,

Lately I noticed my 17 feels a bit high on CPU temps. Even when the laptop is sitting idle the temps on the CPU hover around 42-45. Which is a bit of an annoying range because sometimes the fan spools and stops repeatedly. Sometimes I just fire up the browser to keep the fan spinning.

What sort of idle temps are you getting with your 4700MQ ?

Think a re-paste will do the trick?

Thanks.

 

Anything around 40C idle, up to the low 60's during normal every day use is normal. These CPU's have been known to reach up to the 90's during gaming or other intensive application use. A re-paste will help a lot, though. Mine barely hits 80C during BF4, and that's pretty good for such a demanding game. I see an average of 10-15 degrees Celsius less during gaming.

Here's a picture of my temperatures so far today: Average/Light Use

Spoiler

"Value" = Current

As I am posting this, my temperatures are around 35C. I re-pasted my 4930MX with IC Diamond. :thumbsup:

 

I noticed my CPU fan doing the same in windows, often just opening a folder view. First I just removed the fan and cleaned out the dust. That gave me a couple of weeks, so then I repasted (nice and easy), and no more annoying fan spin cycle

 

Speaking of which, Windows does some weird stuff when the computer screen turns off, sometimes... Earlier I noticed the fans kicking on after the time limit reached where the screen turns off automatically. I'm not sure what causes this, but I think it's some bug/issue with Windows.

 

I need help guys heres my problem ( if this is the right thread ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZnosTDLyWM

 

Here are my temps from just browsing this forum. No dust on the fans and the laptop is raised. What paste would you recommend? I think I've read elsewhere that Diamond paste is good?

 

The new 17s hold a better lower temp then the R4, i around 51C on avg while just web browsing, idle will be 48C

 

What temps are you hitting in-game / under workload? I don't think you have anything to worry about, though.

If you want to re-paste, I would recommend IC-Diamond. MX-4 is another that is often recommended on the forum.

 

Both my last R4 and my current 17 sit at around 45-49 idle and around 60-65 while gaming. I did try a repaste on my R4 and honestly saw no difference what so ever so I have not bothered with the 17.

 

Those are very nice temps. Much lower than mine. What's your ambient temp? Could you please run the wPrime 1.55 1024M stability test once? Remember to set the thread count to 8 in Advanced settings in wPrime. At the end of the test you will see the best score, measured in seconds.

I'd like to see your score and a screenshot of HWiNFO64, which includes the power.

 

My ambient temperature is around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperatures above are idle temperatures with nothing intensive running, not even a web browser. You can't even hear my system running, it's completely silent with IC Diamond. I think a re-paste is necessary for all Alienware owner's, especially if you have an extreme edition CPU.

Here's what I see with Firefox and some other programs running:

Spoiler

P.S. I prefer not to run anymore tests or benchmarks because I'm planning to sell this system. I did all of the testing I needed to when I first received the system and it has worked flawlessly since. These temperatures are at stock clocks - nothing overclocked.

 

My ambient is 80F (27C). 75F (24C) is about as low as it gets in the night.

4930MX runs very hot. AW lowers the processor current limit to that of a 4700MQ, capped at 55A. According to Intel specs 4930MX can take up to 95A. To run the CPU at 4GHz under full load it will take 120A or more. So apart from the lower ambient temp, the reason your temperatures are so low is because the CPU only runs at 3GHz under full load. You won't see it running at turbo speed in stress test.

One thing that people have to know, at stock settings, the 4930MX performs no better than a 4900MQ. In fact because of the higher leakage it performs slightly worse.

 

It runs at 3.9Ghz under full load. The screen shot above shows it at 3.79GHz (at one point). When I had it overclocked to 4.3GHz, it was reaching mid to high 80's during Prime95 (after a re-paste). Before the re-paste, it would reach into the mid 90's, easy. I wouldn't have bought the 4930MX if I had known that it came with a locked BIOS. The main reason I went with it was because I was intending on using the AW 18's 330W PSU and do some serious benching, but that is pretty much impossible now. Haswell...

 

So you use XTU? Mine showing a screenshot of your XTU? What's the Processor Current Limit that you are/were using? And what voltage you used, for the 4.3GHz overclocked? Were you running P95 version 27 or the earlier version? I am trying to get a sense of the variability of the CPU here.

I guess a lot of people bought into the idea that it could be like the M18x R2, with unlocked BIOS.

 

Nope, I didn't use XTU for overclocking. Just changed the clocks in the BIOS. It wouldn't let me go any higher than 4.3Ghz.

Can't recall what version of Prime95 I used. I ran this test at the end of October, so probably the latest version.

 

Do you have ThrottleStop? What's the stock package current limit? If you don't have it, can you do me a favor and install XTU, just to see the stock Processor Current Limit? There's no overclocking involve, no testing, just observation. I am curious to know if AW has fixed the issue in the 17. It's not fixed yet in the 18. In fact the 18 only has A03 BIOS, but I think I have seen people mentioning A06 on the 17.

Hmm, just an idea. I think the 17 with the 240W adapter definitely has a lot more power reserve for the CPU. The TDP for the 780M is 120W. So 240W will mean at most 120W for the CPU. Ac adapter usually can supply more than the rated wattage. It's been said that the 330W can supply 400W++ safely.

Meanwhile the 18 with the 330W adapter, leaves only 90W of power (330-2*120). Not only that the slightly bigger screen will consume more power.

You reply to the package current limit/processor current limit will answer my doubts.

 

Does this answer your question? I ran the test you asked for, I think... Temperature got a little hotter than I expected this time. Once the fans caught up, it stayed around 85C during the remainder of the test.

Spoiler

I'm seeing 8.215 seconds on the 32M test.

 

Can you show me the TPL (turbo power limit) menu of your TS? It's the 2nd menu there. I'd like to see the stock package current limit and package power limit on the 17, to confirm my hypothesis.

So I see that you're running at stock 1.2V for the CPU. I am running at 1.11V at 4GHz. 1.2V is a bit too much. 1.11V is about as much I could undervolt.

Oh how do you do the spoiler thingy?

EDIT: This is my run.

 

Sure. Here it is: Everything is stock, or should be.

Spoiler

You just use

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tags before and after the image. Helps with page loading times, or at least seems to. :thumbsup:

 

Yep that confirmed my hypothesis. Stock power settings is much more aggressive on the 17 than the 18 for the CPU.

It means Alienware/Dell knows the problem. It also means that they are hiding it from the 18 users. CPU performance of the 4900MQ and the 4930MX will be subpar in the 18 compared to the 17, and without unlocked BIOS we can only rely on using ThrottleStop and XTU. If the same values were in the A00 BIOS for the 17, that means Alienware/Dell really has done a good job at false advertising. Then again I guess they were shocked at the power consumption and heat of Haswell CPU. The CPU heatsink right now is inadequate to properly cool the CPU, and the 330W AC adapter is also inadequate for the 18.

In short, it started with Intel botching, then Dellienware botching.

This is my TPL screen shot, tweaked. The default power values are lower than that of yours (forgot the values but it was perhaps like 57W for long power, and 67W for short power), and the default package current limit is 55A, compared to 95A of yours.

Spoiler

Thanks for your help for confirming my hypothesis. I came onto Alienware bandwagon expecting awesome 4.4GHz CPU and awesome P15k performance in 3Dmark11, but to be left sorely disappointed.

 

Happy to help. I am on the A05 BIOS, by the way. I've heard of people having the A06 on new machines, but I don't see it on Dell downloads, yet.

Still hoping for an unlocked BIOS...

@Venat: We totally hijacked your thread. SORRY!

 

4700MQ users need not worry about temps. The most extreme temp one might probably see is 80C, and that's with high ambient temp. The 4700MQ can be overclocked by 2 bins, making it running at 3.4GHz with 4 cores load, as compared to 3.2GHz.

With Microsoft pressuring Dellienware, chances of having an unlocked BIOS are slim. With unlocked BIOS the problems with Haswell aren't going to go away, but it might make overclocking it a bit easier. One can change the thermal trip point to prevent the firmware initiated thermal crash at 100C.

 

No worries. Good discussion. I will re-paste this week and show the new numbers. At least we can see the effect a re-paste will do.

Thanks folks