Is your fan constantly on?

This is my 2nd year of ownership and I just did a fresh install of Windows on my m17x R4.

During my first year of ownership, the fans hardly came on at all but now, they are whirring all the time?

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Any idea what the issue could be?

I'm guessing maybe the thermal paste has gone bad and needs to be replaced? Can thermal compound go bad?

I haven't done anything to my machine mod-wise except upgrade the RAM to 32gb and put in 2 x MSATA SSD + 2 x HDD in the chassis.

What's really strikingly odd is that it's still winter and I keep my house pretty cold and the fan still comes on within minutes of turning on my laptop.

 

My guess is that the paste is old and crusty.

I would redo the paste, its super easy on the 17 to do.

 

Thanks!

Any recommendations on which thermal compound to use?

 

It might need to be repasted. Liquid Ultra is extraordinarily effective. See this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ra-any-tips-before-i-start-5.html#post9520969

Before you go to the trouble, how long has it been since you pulled the bottom cover and cleaned out the dust bunnies and lint from the fans and heat sink radiators? If it has been a while, that may be all that is needed.

 

I find if you pulling the cover to clean the fans, its an extra 8 or so screws to do the paste also.

EDIT: m11x and m14x take alot of work to do paste.
m17x is right there and easy to do.

 

The last time I gave it a good clean with this:

Metro Vacuum ED500 DataVac 500-Watt 0.75-HP Electric Duster 120 volt - Amazon.com

was around fall of last year. I'll give that a go and see if it helps.

 

Whoa, that compound sounds risky! Is the benefit worth the risk?

 

Fans are pretty quiet, mine spin but are idle mode essentially. Check if anythign is using the CPU, since you have a new install of windows, it might be running maintenance tasks in teh background, when its idling. What temps are you up to and try to track the loads on the CPU?

 

I've already updated everything. The thing is, I redid my laptop because the fan was running all the time. I thought that by redoing it, that it would fix it if it was a software issue.

Code:

Version: 0.6.0.0

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Common Language Runtime: 4.0.30319.18449
Operating System: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
Process Type: 64-Bit

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensors

|
+- Alienware M17xR4 (/mainboard)
|
+- Intel Core i7-3740QM (/intelcpu/0)
|  +- Bus Speed      :  99.7734  99.7733  99.7739 (/intelcpu/0/clock/0)
|  +- CPU Core #1    :  3492.07  1197.28  3492.09 (/intelcpu/0/clock/1)
|  +- CPU Core #2    :  3492.07  1197.28  3591.84 (/intelcpu/0/clock/2)
|  +- CPU Core #3    :  3591.84  1197.28  3691.61 (/intelcpu/0/clock/3)
|  +- CPU Core #4    :  3492.07  1197.28  3691.61 (/intelcpu/0/clock/4)
|  +- CPU Core #1    :       81       80       99 (/intelcpu/0/temperature/0)
|  +- CPU Core #2    :       74       74       96 (/intelcpu/0/temperature/1)
|  +- CPU Core #3    :       78       78       96 (/intelcpu/0/temperature/2)
|  +- CPU Core #4    :       78       78       94 (/intelcpu/0/temperature/3)
|  +- CPU Package    :       81       80       99 (/intelcpu/0/temperature/4)
|  +- CPU Total      : 0.589037 0.387621  14.2578 (/intelcpu/0/load/0)
|  +- CPU Core #1    :        0        0       50 (/intelcpu/0/load/1)
|  +- CPU Core #2    :  0.78125        0  50.7813 (/intelcpu/0/load/2)
|  +- CPU Core #3    :        0        0       50 (/intelcpu/0/load/3)
|  +- CPU Core #4    :   1.5749        0   15.625 (/intelcpu/0/load/4)
|  +- CPU Package    :  7.08694  5.97218  18.0776 (/intelcpu/0/power/0)
|  +- CPU Cores      :  3.89125  2.80447  14.7357 (/intelcpu/0/power/1)
|  +- CPU Graphics   : 0.0737832        0  1.19231 (/intelcpu/0/power/2)
|
+- Generic Memory (/ram)
|  +- Memory         :    17.72  17.5517  17.7637 (/ram/load/0)
|  +- Used Memory    :   5.6495  5.59584  5.66345 (/ram/data/0)
|  +- Available Memory :  26.2326  26.2187  26.2863 (/ram/data/1)
|
+- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M (/nvidiagpu/0)
|  +- GPU Core       :  620.156        0  620.156 (/nvidiagpu/0/clock/0)
|  +- GPU Memory     :  1494.82  1494.82  1494.82 (/nvidiagpu/0/clock/1)
|  +- GPU Shader     :  1240.31        0  1240.31 (/nvidiagpu/0/clock/2)
|  +- GPU Core       :        0        0       40 (/nvidiagpu/0/temperature/0)
|  +- GPU Core       :        0        0        0 (/nvidiagpu/0/load/0)
|  +- GPU Memory Controller :        0        0        0 (/nvidiagpu/0/load/1)
|  +- GPU Video Engine :        0        0        0 (/nvidiagpu/0/load/2)
|  +- GPU Memory     :  2.60944  2.60944  2.60944 (/nvidiagpu/0/load/3)
|  +- GPU Fan        :      100      100      100 (/nvidiagpu/0/control/0)
|

 

It's only risky if you are not careful in application. It's definitely worth it if you look at the temps in the screen shots. Amazing results... a number of us have switched to Liquid Ultra because nothing else works as well. There is a series of photos in the post that I linked that shows the application of the paste. You do not apply it in the same way that you would ordinary paste. You essentially paint it onto both mating surfaces in minuscule quantity.

 

Couldnt help but notice you have 2 msata drives listed in your laptop.... where did you put the second one?

 

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, I'm not that familiar with the layout but assuming this shows max/min/current then there is some weird stuff there! The zeros under GPU core temp (and others) don't look right? Along with the 100% fan at all times (as you already know!). I'm wondering if the temp sensor and/or clock are providing a zero reading. A failsafe in the system check may just run it at full blast to be safe?

Dunno, if real temp is not triggering it then it's a strange one

 

Have you tightened all of the screws that hold the heatsink to the CPU? Might be enough to help whilst you wait for your paste choice. It does look very high, as if the heat sink isn't really doing anything.

 

I put one in the MSATA slot and one in the HDD slot using an adapter. I wish Dell would have made the MSATA slot use a SATA3 controller. Then, I could raid them at SATA3 speed and get close to 1000mb/s speeds. My cousin has it set up that way in his M18x R2.

I took out my optical drive and bought a HDD optical kit so I can put in 2 x 1tb HDD drives.

If Dell cares, my wish list would be:

2 x MSATA using the SATA3 controllers
2 x HDD using SATA2
1 x micro SD reader slot, because I hate always trying to hunt for an adapter

I don't know how many SATA3 the latest gen 4 icore architecture supports, but in the gen 3, it only supports 2 SATA 3

 

The chipset supports 6 x 6gb/s channels (in pairs). It's up to the OEM where they go since Fast USB also takes these 6gb/s ports.

I'd like to know how many fast USB's (with the 'ss' logo next to them) the latest ones have. I have seen some people saying the mSATA is SATA 3 now, but if that's true then they have a 'spare' one that might be directed to the optical drive port? Mine has four 'ss' ports and along with the two drive bays means the msata is only sata2

 

Thanks for the reassurance. This gives me more confidence to try to do on my own. I'll read that thread several times and fully understand the procedure before doing it.

 

I've always wondered what that "SS" on the USB ports meant!