Fans way too loud

Hi

I just bought a m17x:
Gtx 280m sli, 4gb ram and q9000 quad @ 2ghz.

I Played Far cry 2 for like 5 mins while watching the GPU temperatures, after 5 minutes the 2 GPU's reached 140f and 150f. Then the fans go absolutely crazy and the temps go down to 130-140f. Then it stays at those temperatures while the fans go insanely high. I need to control the fans somehow, because I cant use this laptop at school or any places really when the fans are that high. I am going to sell it if not, but I want to check here first. Is there are any way at all to control the fans, or any other trick to avoid getting the fans to that last notch of loudness? This problem really makes this a terrible laptop, I was so shocked, I have a laptop with GTX 260m which is 400x more silent. Thanks guys.

 

There are no fan controls currently in place for the M17x Your temperatures are fine 60-65.5 degrees Celsius is cool. (Also @that temp they cannot be blowing like you describe)

You are upset because your laptop is working to cool the system,(doing what it is supposed to do)and then you compare a quad core sli set up with 3 fans to a single GTX 260M laptop which I am assuming is not a quad core setup either and at max has 2 fans, and on top of it all that is what makes this a bad laptop?

Sorry if I come off rude I don't mean to be, but posts like these are ridiculous. You wouldn't say a Lamborghini is a horrible car because when you push it gets loud?

I hope you don't decide to sell this laptop as it is a great system, but it is your decision. You just have to be a little more reasonable.

Alienwares have some of the best cooling in a laptop. Just an FYI.

 

It' okay. I mean what I mean, because I cannot game at any of those places I used to game with my old laptop because of the noise, so I cannot use it AT ALL, that's what upsets me I was thinking more of some kind of action to make this computer perform less to make it less hot so I can game in those public places. I will try lowering the graphics and resolution. Maybe I can find a program that uses less fps or something like that, all I ask for. And I don't think it's a bad laptop but I do think the G73 is much better. But aren't you upset by the noise? It's like I a yet engine. And the temperatures were stable at 66 and 61 C when that super fan kicked in and lowered it to 59 and 53C, I just wish that super fan hadn't kicked in and mayb the temperature would have gotten to 73C but not much more. ( I have also had a lot of trouble with this computer first the AC adapter wasn't supported, then I couldn' get the drivers to work, said my system couldn't read them, and I had problems switching between the 9400 and the gtx 280m, all sorted now but you heaards the cries from a frutrated man

 

Yeh there are ways for you to lower the max fan noise however these super powered machines fans while gaming will always be loud. No 2 ways about it unfortunately. I do get annoyed if it gets around 4k rpm loud so i decided to do the cooling mod. Which is awesome. If you want you can do it too. You just have to change the thermal paste and pads on your GPUs and CPU. Doing that correctly will lower your temps even more and the max temp hence also lowering your fan noise. However I wouldn't suggest gaming in a public place like a library or something lol. Outdoors or other public places with more ambiant noise or other sounds should be fine though.
This particular notebook does have awesome cooling though.

There are great cooling mod and fixes on this forum. Have a search around.
Ash and Mfractal have made some great guides along with other.

Cheers.

 

Will try that, thanks

 

That cooling mod was for the 5870's not the 280's. I don't recommend you do it.

Also you could underclock your cards if you want IDK if that will help with the fans, but it might.

 

I also noticed that when I enable physx to either of the cards the one with physx enabled is 8 C hotter than the other. I can't really find a way to turn it off either so I can't check for sure, but if this is the case; Would buying a third gtx 280m (or I have a gtx 260m laying around) and enabeling physX on that only and running games on gtx 280m sli? Or is it possible to turn off PhysX?

Edit: I actually think one of the cards are 5-10 C hotter than the other didn't matter for the physX, how strange.

 

You can turn physx off, but you can't fit another gpu in the laptop. you can use the 260 instead of both 280's if you want or you can take out 1 280 but then you are crippling the system. You should be able to turn off physx through the Nvida Control panel

 

I've done the cooling mod for both R1 and R2 machines. They work great.
If your new I would still recommend at least doing; changing the thermal paste and pads. Those 2 bits are really easy and exactly the same on 5870, 4870, 280 and 260 cards. Other than that chiefs your fans are fine. Just gonna have to get used to them during gaming I guess.

Your temps are fine atm as well. So I guess just avoid those public places for gaming or get a headset for when your gaming at home or something. If you start hearing some ratting or other weird sounds then you will need new fans but right now it should be normal fan noise, just blowing out the hot air.

Have a look at the threads for a guide at least. They will help.

Yeh the differing temps are normal. One GPU will always be slightly warmer than the other as both GPUs won't be utilised all the time unless it is supported.

Cheers.

 

Was there an improvement for you on the R1 as I know the 4870's didn't benefit as much from Ash's cooling mod.

 

Yeh the R1 in my sig is soo silent now. Its really quite amazing. They were already silent to begin with I guess if I used the 9400m only. Temps did drop heaps though and max out at 60 degs now. So the fans never hit that high gear anymore.

The R1 is much more silent than my R2 now. Although the R2 after the mod is also much better. It used to hit 4k rpm fan speeds which was SOO SOOO loud just WOW lol After the mod I only hit a max 3k rpm fan speed and 70 odd degs for the 5870s. CPU temps are also down which is good. I noticed changing the pads made the most difference though. I had PMed Mfractal and he gave me a new updated link to some new better thermal pads that had just become available. So I ordered them and put them in.

I only notice fan loudness only when gaming now really. Running everything else is fine. really low temps and fan speed is bare minimum which is a pleasure to work with. I would have luved the R2 to have integrated Intel GPU that we could switch to as well like in the R1 with the 9400m. Then it would be totally silent lol.

Also it took me a few goes to get it all working well and the way I liked it. Sometimes I screwed up the paste or something a rather so the temps weren't really seeing much difference. Also the fan noise was super weird like it would climb up and down periodically even though it used to be silent last time during those times. Finally after more practice and insight I got it working great and to the way I wanted. I used up quite a bit of thermal paste LOL. I had to buy 3 tubes and used like 2 tubes.

Cheers.

 

Can i have the link to these pads? I have been wanting to change them.

Well there you go Kidio Try doing the cooling mod as reborn is a trustworthy person on these forums.

 

Wow I wonder if the 260m sli is better after the mod, then maybe the 280m sli will too. After 5 mins of gameplay my temps are 61 and 67 C and then the 4k fans kicks in. Do you think if I do this mod that the temps will stay under 61 and 67 (The magic numbers in my case) after like an hour of gameplay?

 

I guess there is no way to tell unless someone else has done the mod on the 280's, but you can give it a go yourself and see. Hopefully it will help you.

 

Hey theres,

ehehehe Thanks for the vote of confidence. Your a great and trustworthy guy on these forums as well. Always posting great posts and helping others

K there are 2 links here. These were the newer pads which had better thermal conductivity numbers than the previous pads that were being sold.

Fujipoly Premium System Builder Thermal Pad - 1/4 Sheet - 150 x 100 x 0.5 - Thermal Conductivity 6.0 W/mK - FrozenCPU.com

Fujipoly Premium System Builder Thermal Pad - 1/4 Sheet - 150 x 100 x 1.0 - Thermal Conductivity 6.0 W/mK - FrozenCPU.com

Now normally for the GPUs the 0.5mm thickness is recommended however other sections like the CPU pads they needed something thicker. Some have tried doubling up and just having a look side ways to see if indeed it does make proper contact.

For my GPUs I used the 0.5mm pads and for the CPU i used the 1.0mm pads however I had to double up on them as the gap was quite large and wasn't making proper contact when I used only 1 pad. You can also try 1.0mm with 0.5mm pad.

Cheers.

 

Yay! I will buy AS5 and a MX3 tubes on ebay. Should I use pads or the thermal paste btw? Getting confused here, thanks for all the help guys!

 

Some like to use the paste on the memory chips but I would suggest to use the pads. As it is much easier and less messier.

Normally you would use PADs for the MEM chips and paste for the GPU CPU dies.

Also don't mix the AS5 and MX3, use one or the other. You can buy them both and try them out. See which one works better for you. I'm using AS5 atm however thats mainly because their easier for me to buy just at the local shops over here.

Cheers.

 

Ok, but you just said you used pads, and now you use paste or do you use both at the same time? I was originally planning on following Ash's guide and putting a drop of AS5 on gpu and a drop of MX3 on cpu. I see above you use 1.0mm and 0.5mm pads.

 

No no Lol Kidio Pads on the Mem chips and Paste on the GPU Core.

Ash suggests to put paste on the chips reborn says not to, I say not to as well. Use the pads and you may need a 1.0MM gap thickness as well I know for the 4870's .5 is to thin.

Also reborn PM sent

 

I feel like such a noob, thanks! I went and bought AS5, gonna try and see if the paste give lower temperatures Hope I can use it on ram as well. Thanks again for helping a bearded man from Norway!

(Edit: I also saw in the bios that I had A04, worth flashing to version A09?)

 

Yeh cheifs, upgrading the system bios to A09 from A04 should be good. Recommended chiefs. You will also get a better working touchpad.

Cheers.

 

Ummm, I thought Kidio had an R1? The A09 with touchpad fix is for the R2.

For thermal paste I have been using some ShinEtsu G751 that I bought online. But I found out that Fry's carries this stuff too, and they also carry a few other options. I picked up a few syringes of ShinEtsu X23-7783D for when I take this thing apart again (hopefully to install a pair of 5870's).

The ShinEtsu compounds are a little more daunting to work with because they have the consistency of thick peanut butter (compared to the toothpaste consistency of most thermal pastes). However the ShinEtsu products (at least the G751 and 7783D) should perform slightly better... by maybe one to three degrees Centigrade.

 

Aww, I wish I knew that, already bought 2 tubes of AS5 and one tube of MX3 Oh well what really worries me is taking apart my m17x anyways, as I don't really understand 100% of the guides available. Hopefully someone here will help me if I'm stuck somehow though.

 

Ah WOOPs Sorry about that I totally forgot you had an R1 machine.
My bad.

Yeh it can be quite daunting the 1st time taking the machine apart as you don't want to break anything. All I can say is to make sure you are gentle lol and don't try to rip the covers off too hard as their are small ribbon cables below that are connected to the mainboard. Especially under the top strip power cover and 2 under the keyboard. Once you have those 2 bits of its much easier to see where your going.

Yeh if you need help just watch some of the videos on the forum here or theres plenty on youtube as well. They go through the entire process with which screws and covers to take off in which order. It really is very helpful.


Good Luck and have fun. Its quite a liberating experience once you have taken it apart and are putting it back together.

Cheers.

 

Here is an official Alienware youtube channel YouTube - Alienwareservices's Channel

 

I will point out one thing that isnt very obvious when watching those tear-down videos...

The ribbon cables are plugged in to special receiver sockets. These sockets come in two types, and the way you plug/unplug the cable differs between them.

For the first type of socket there will be a little lever bar that goes across the socket. It reminds me of those safety bars that come down over your torso on most roller coaster rides. To release the plug on these, just use a fingernail or small tool to "flip" that bar over and out of the way. To plug it back in, just insert the ribbon cable and then flip the bar back down. Among other things, the LCD panel cables are connected using this type.

For the other socket type, there is a fitting that snaps in to hold the cable down tightly. To release it, you need to use fingernails or tiny tools on each side of the clip... squeeze and pull outwards (towards the cable). The insert will unsnap and the cable will come free. To plug back in, just reinsert the cable and then push the fitting back into place. The trackpad and a few other ribbon cables are attached in this manner.

The other connectors in the machine should be much more obvious, the above two aren't terribly clear though until you have done it before.