Lowered my temps with 25°C Alienware M17X R5 (GTX 880M)

Hello all, i just made a brand new account after reading all over the internet for weeks and figuring everything out on my new laptop i bought second hand. After i've had allot of help in old tutorials and people on the forums and reading there posts i tried my best to get my temprature's down.

First of all, Sorry for my english since it isn't my native language.
Second, i have a degree in IT and a microsoft silver certificate plus a Aries PC Technican degree.

I will make an overview at the end of the post with all my findings for the people who aren't intressted in the How i did this.

Just to let you all know, i just started with a simple idea to get the temperatures down so i didn't document it all since it started out small and i just kept going. But now seeing the results i've got i decided to post about it here so i can help other people out and as a thank you for all the information i've found on this forums.

I've used HWinfo64 for the results i will post.

So after i've bought this laptop second hand and it is my first Alienware laptop, i had to look around allot to see what model etc etc i had since i just bought it for the specs. Since i'm still not sure it's an R5 (i believe so since it had the newer case and its from april 2014) i'll just post my specs here.

The laptop i worked on is a M17X With 16GB ddr3 or ddr4 (cant quiet remember and not in the mood to open up my case again)

Intel I7 4700MQ 2.4GHZ
Nvidia GTX 880M (8GB) single card
2X Hard drive (1 SSD and 1 HDD)

All the stuff is default since otherwise said further down in this post.


Items i've used so far: (replaced means i used it but threw it out again)

2X Shark 120MM Red led Fans
1X Molex Adapter 12 watt (hdd adapter)
1X Notepal 3U Notebook cooler by cooler master
1X Artic Silver 5 (replaced)
1X Cooler master essential IC E1 (replaced)
1X Gelid GC Extreme
1X Phobya XT Thermal pad 7W/mk (1.0)
1X Can of compressed air
1X rubbing alcohol and a whole load of tissues and clean rags to help clean it all out.
1X Zalman fan controller.


First i've did was cleaned the laptop out and the fans. The GPU fan is still old an crappy by the looks of it and i'm looking at a replacement but it does the job. This part doesn't really need an explanation except if people are asking for it, then i will happily oblige to give it.

After the laptop was clean i removed the CPU and the GPU heatsink and removed the old thermal paste with rubbing alcohol. The way it was on there from the factory was a disgrace to say the least. I still couldn't even get it all of the chips since it was everywhere. Luckily i cleaned it out really good and the DIE and the Heatsink where all clean and shiny.

Cooler master Thermal paste
I first started out with the Cooler Master thermal paste. Since the CPU has and akward rectangle shape the pea size drop didn't seem like a good way to cover it all. So i did the spread it out method with a nice laminated poker card.

DISCLAIMER: Since i've done ALLOT (100+) Repaste's in the last 6 years this is something i have experience with but isn't something i recommend to first starters on repasting something like this. I've you're really eager to learn, try it out a few times and make sure you have rubbing alcohol and just test it by pasting it, screw down the heatsink and then open it up after a few minutes and just see how it hold up. After that just clean it and do the same approach again if it worked out, if it didn't change methods and rinse and repeat.

The GPU i did with a pea size drop like we've seen as the best method on desktop computers.
After booting it up my temperatures dropped some lower but say about 1-3 degrees maximum which still was 95 degrees at maximum load. (celcius, i'm an european and i can't get around the fahrenheit system) So after cleaning and repasting with the same stuff for 3 more times and then booting up and loading a game i gave up on this thermal paste. It didn't cut it



DISCLAIMER: ARTIC SILVER 5 is Conductive, which means it can screw your system up if you don't know what you're doing or just mess a little bit!!

Artic Silver 5
The next day i started out with Artic Silver 5, after cleaning it all i used the same method of spreading it since i wanted to make sure i have the same test results. My GPU idled at around 50 degrees and average of 80 degrees in a game according to HWINFO 64 with a maximum of 91 degrees. Still i wanted to get it below de 85 degrees at maximum. The CPU though went to a maximum of 58 degrees with the artic silver 5 so it did a really good job at this part, Just not at the GPU.


Gelild GC Extreme
So after reading around i decided to go with the Gelid GC extreme after seeing allot of people recommend this brand and i've never used this particular brand so its was a more shot in the dark call.

After cleaning all the Artic silver from the GPU (i stopped messing with the CPU since it was acceptable low and i didn't wanted to remove it again, maybe later on) i repasted with the Gelid GC extreme, Now after testing for more then an hour my GPU won't go any higher then 83 degrees at which point i just laid it down and let it be with the thermal paste since i'm pretty sure i can't go lower with just thermal paste.

So at this part i've only cleaned out the laptop and repasted it several times to find the best way and sticked with the GC Extreme on the GPU and Artic silver 5 still on the CPU. My Temps are at 83 degrees at the GPU and around 61-62 degrees at the CPU.

Cooling pad MOD + Thermal pads change.

After this i've decided to see "How low can it go" without drastic mods towards the laptop.
Me best idea was to go with a cooling pad and just get the airflow more going since i couldn't replace the HDD since every slot if full. I decided to go with the Cooler master Notepal U3 after reading allot of it online.
When i received it i just tried it out and temperatures didn't change that much, maybe 1-2 degrees and it cooled down faster after gaming but under full load it just stayed the same.

Then i got a light bulb, and just got the best red led fans i could get (since the alienware is red and i didn't wanted to go with server fans since dustbunnies are always on the lookout for nice laptops and fans) i went with the Aerocool Shark Fan 12cm Devil Red Edition, Case fan. Which outputs at around 82.6 cfm at around 26 DB at maximum RPM of 1500. A molex adapter of 12 watt (2amp) and 12 volt which directly goes to an electrical outlet of 230 volt (europe) since i didn't wanted to use USB and the output of usb isn't enough for the 2 fans and a controller.

So i've placed the 2 Controllers under the notebook cooler and threw out the old fans plus usb thingy, I've mounted the fan controller on the back side of the notepad with a little bending and
The fans are placed in a way so that a quarter overlaps the fan inside the laptop and the rest of the fan is used to cool the surrounding of the

While i was busy with this i also decided to replace the Thermal pads on the GPU with the Phobya 7MT thermal pads this also shaved off about 2 degrees at maximum load without the notepad cooler.

Now my temperatures don't got above 71/72 degrees and mostly stays at around 70 maximum. After i alt tab the game the temperatures directly go down in a few seconds with 10-20 degrees till an idle at around 40/50 depending on how long it's been idle after the game.

Since i didn't make photo's or screenshots since i wasn't planning on posting this i only have the end results which is pretty nice to see. i wanted to share this since there are allot of people having problems with there temps on this video card.






If there are any questions, i will try to answer them to the best i can and if there is really a need for more pictures i will definitly see what i can do.

Sorry for spelling errors and formatting, i'm not a big fan of making threads but i thought i owned this 1 to you guys.


Summary:
Replaced thermal pads, Thermal paste on GPU with Gelid GC extreme and CPU has Artic Silver 5 as thermal paste. Made a notebook cooler MOD with 2X 86 CFM fans. And now from high 90's to around 71/72 degrees on the GPU.

Also pictures of the Notepad Cooler (with the aftermarket fans) and the still old crappy GPU fan so you guys can see that the internals are still the same, just cleaned out.



And the Notepad cooler








The 1 white and extra black cabel are from the speakers btw, not the notepad cooler. The Cooler actually has just 1 wire going to the wall outlet and thats it.

 

Nice work

 

Thanks allot, its been quite a journey and i loved to do it. Especially since the results are amazing.

 

Amazing work and mods, my system is similar to yours and my GTX 880M can go up to 85 C degrees at max load, even with using a IC diamond for the paste. For Blizzard games it won't go beyond 72 C degrees.

 

I only play wow in the catergory of blizzard games, must say that the highest settings on WoW yield about the same results as Ark Survival (REALLY bad optimized) or GTA 5 on temperature wise. I've pushed ARK on the highest settings possible and it became unplayable in terms of FPS because of the REALLY bad optimization but just to stress the GPU and thats when it popped at around 76 degrees constant on maximum. Average is lower ofcourse. GTA 5 same story

And i've know about the problems with the GTX880m and its heat problems. I was deciding between IC Diamond and the Gelid GC but went with Gelid GC extreme.
I know its just an opinion and the IC Diamonds isn't a bad thermal paste but let me rant a bit on my opinion.
IC Diamonds has particles in it, thats why it scratches on the CPU/GPU or wherever you put it. Now diamonds they transfer the heat great, no problems in that. But Thermal paste doesn't have the primary function to transfer heat, Nothing beats the steel on steel transfer from heatsink to the DIE on the CPU/GPU, the more they are directly connected the more they transfer the heat. Thermal paste, no matter how good or bad, is still not beter as a perfect connecting between the 2 metal parts. Only problem is the metal parts aren't a 100% straight and flat. You have micro scratches, dents and bulbs on a micro level. Here is where thermal paste comes in. Its a good second to direct metal connection so we use it to fill the gaps. That's why thermal paste should be so thin. It should be just enough to fill the entire surface and make it a 100% flat (or as close physical possible).

So by using IC Diamonds, your actually putting particles between the DIE and Heatsink and by doing that you got more distance between them (Microscopic speaking) which needs to be filled with the fluid in that thermal paste, Which in the ends just gives you more thermal paste then you need to.

I'm not saying its a bad thermal paste, just my personal opinion when thinking about it.

 

I appreciate the opinion and btw for English not being your first language, you write it very well. I was somewhat aware of what you stated but after buying it I went along with it. It's almost a year since my last repaste so I'll for sure be buying Gelid GC extreme to try it out. I play the same games, mostly Diablo and HoTs and haven't seen my temps go beyond 72-73 C I also use the notepal U3 and it does pretty good work. I've found the thing that gives me most of my headaches comes from my CPU, the 4910MQ if not undervolted to -50 it can reach up to 88 C degrees which I find horrible.

 

Holy crap, 88 degrees does the 4900 never come. btw, when doing that, rub down the entire heatsink with just rubbing alcohol (70% or higher). Just a little grease from your hands or dust or whatever grime is on it will slow the heat transfer. Even just the outside of the pipes since filth doesn't lose heat as fast as metal so the heat stays inside the laptop. Also if you have the option to move the HDD to the side bay it can safe allot. I have both in use but still.

And i just used the Notepal U3 but i'm not a big fan of the default fans. I'm don't think they work good or do anything. I just used the frame and upgraded it with some more serious fans. I'm sure they will add more dust but since the laptop opens up so easily i dont mind. Dusting it once every month takes me 10 minutes tops and i can work it in with the nice cleaning of the entire desk haha.

Thanks btw, i'm trying to work on my writing since me and my fiancee are at the point of immigrating from The netherlands to Canada. So eventually it will be a native language. But i'm heading off-topic now, 72-73 degrees is easy to get lower on Blizzard games. That's my maximum on high spike moments (raid bosses) but overal its more around 65 in-game (WoW) or lower when just standing still. When i alt+tab out of the game with HWINFO64 open the temperatures already drop towards the low 50's before i can even screenshot it. The CPU should also be pretty do-able, if you're really curious they're people who upgraded the fans with an M14 R2 model since apperantly they output around the 11CFM which isn't that bad compared to some 1-3 CFM fans in some alienware laptops.


Plus, i don't know where you live but it's also possible to perform the same modification on the Notepal U3 and just put in some more serious fans with a seperate adapter. It shouldn't be to pricey depending on the fans and the controller you're planning on using.

 

I made something similar a few years back. I replaced the stock 5V fans on my cooler with 12V fans and used a fan controller with a 12VDC external power supply and got really good results too, but not as good as yours . How far do you push those fans to get those results? Do they get loud?

 

Howdy, the fans while i game are just on the max with the fan controller on a 12V DC power supply just like yours. I must say according to the speak they go up to 26,8DB. Around 30 DB is the whispering in a liberary according to some DB schematic i saw. I must say since it's a lower sound and not a high sound pitch, they don't mind me at all. But when i'm gaming i mostly have my speakers or headset on so..

Conclusion: i don't mind it all, but i didn't try teamspeak yet. Though i don't think it will be hearable on a headset so it's a good solution for me to.

About the good results, like everything i did so far. It was a whole lot of try and error like everything i did. Just test and go, Since most fans push more air towards the outerside of the fans instead of the middle i placed it so that a quarter of the fan is straight on top of the laptop CPU and GPU fan. The other 75% of the fan (roughly) is blowing towards the middle and top of the heatsinks. So instead of just helping the laptop fans solely they also push cool air ontop of the heatsinks.

I will try to get a photo of it or make a paint version of it so you guys know what i'm talking about. This is mostly why i have such good results.
Ow and for the sound of the fans, i must say i didn't use the default screws that came with the fan but i used rubber replacements. It's like a rubber plug that connects it like a screw but the fan doesn't connect to the metal frame so sound and vibrations are to a minimum as you can see in the photo's of the Notepal

 

get some filter for the external fan bro , you dont want to mess around with the dust inside your laptop .

 

and 1 more thing bro, you are using a fan controller with a AC adapter right? Could you send me the link where I could buy the adapter?

 

I can confirm those temps.

I am back on my 880m while waiting for my 980m to be fixed/replaced by Eurocom.
Notepal U3 + Gelid Extreme = idle temps of 31-33 and in-game max of 70-71...

When I got my laptop initially max temps were of high 80's...

 

Interest, thank you. Anybody test AC MX-2 ?

 

OP, get a 980M and you don't need to worry about the thermal issues of the 880M....plus the 980M is way more efficient and it overclocks nicely.

 

You say;
Since the CPU has and akward rectangle shape the pea size drop didn't seem like a good way to cover it all. So i did the spread it out method with a nice laminated poker card...

Why not the thin line method on the CPU die? This method actually works very well on laptop processors.
Test your paste job and the last real Aw17...
Can you run some tests? Wprime 1024M stress test (select 8 threads in advanced settings) + Cinebench 11.5 bench. Run Hwinfo64 for monitoring of temperature/cpu package power. Post test results with images. You can set up Hwinfo64 as the image below?(easier to see all the numbers than your Hwinfo setup mess). Of course with maximum performance in Win power plan. I have used Gelid Extreme/AS5 a long time ago but was very disappointed of temperature result on my Oc'd Hotwell Extreme. Gelid Extreme held max 4-5 days of number crunching with Oc'd Hotwell processor before paste was useless. The As5 was worse than Gelid(the only paste that work on Oc'd Hotwell is Clu). Test also 3Dmark11 with Hwinfo in the background. Looking forward to see test results. Happy testing/number crunching...

Links to bench tests found here...
http://www.putme.net/wPrime155.zip
http://downloads.guru3d.com/CineBENCH-11.5-download-2475.html
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/3dmark-11-basic-edition-download.html

 

why you no upgrade GPU man?

 

Why should I??? Because Clevo P870 is a better option for me. Just have to decide where I will buy this monster. @Prema bios/vbios is a must have so I have to find out what is beneficial for me. Buy this at home(better free 5 year warranty) or other overseas online stores + Prema bios/vbios now. Wait also to hear if Gtx980 Sli becomes a reality.

 

@Destravo FYI if you are able to keep that i7-4700MQ under control you may be able to achieve the following on those benches or better.

WPrime 155


CB R11.5


CB R15

 

Think this can be difficult with the total locked ******** bios from Dellienware Nice results by the way

 

Because the gt880m works fine for now and the games i play most. I Will upgrade eventually but not worth it at this moment especially considerd the price.

 

Actually it wasn't easy to get this. There is only 1 webshop in the Netherlands who sold these. But I've found them on ebay to. Just search for a HDD molex AC adapter and you'll find some.

 

Currently not behind the laptop but will do this in the upcoming week when I find the time.

About the paste spreading and thin linr option, it's more about what's comfortable in your skill level. Like I said I don't recommend first timers or people who didn't do allot of paste jobs to try to spread the paste since it has to be done good and you know what your doing otherwise it's actually gonna be worse.

About the thin line option. It's great for starters and even professionals but the problem is. What is thin ? What is to thin or what is to thick? Since we all have a different opinion on this matter and starters don't have a reference point on how it works or should look like it's still not fool prove.

I've been doing paste jobs back in the day when Internet started out. There is some misinformation about thermal paste to and actually allot of mis information in the whole computer branche all together. And ALLOT of brands use this in their marketing. Especially some stuff geared towards gamers.

Paste drying out within days ? It depends on the brand of course but it shouldn't matter. This also has allot of misinformation, dried up thermal paste is messy. We all agree that nice and clean looks beter then messy hard clogged stuff right ? Here is where marketing comes in so they sell more. Actually AS5 is made to cure. Hard or wet it actually cools beter when it's hard so less stuff moves and it moves heat faster (miniscule but that is the idea behind it) other brands sometimes use silicone. We never talk about silicone actually creates air bubbles over time, instead of curing it, it's moving and creates bubbles like all silicone does. Also in thermal paste.

The best bet is that the thermal paste u used when cured just showed a fail in the application and just didn't showed before when it was still "wet".

The other problem with thermal paste is that you can't actually verify how good of a job you did. You can remove the heatsink and agree you did it right. But then you have to redo it and just question if you did it right that time. It's a infinite circle. The only way you have is temperatures to check and a non blowing up cpu of gpu to verify there is some thermal paste between it.

Also about thermal paste that drips out. Non conductive or conductive. You should just keep it to a minimum at all times. That is why I like a really thin nice spread so it doesn't drip out when placing on the heat sink.

The reason for this is because thermal paste transfers heat. If it's around the sides of the DIE, the DIE will transfer heat to the sides to the thermal paste.

Since that thermal paste doesn't have a connecting to the heat sink it will transfer heat to the air around the die. Since air is a really bad transferium it will create a warm blanket around the DIE. It's beter to just have air around the die so it just transfers towards the heatsink and the heat from the die just goes directly up and not towards the thermal paste on the sides.

I know it's pears and appels and everybody has a opinion on the matter and we all have different ways to apply thermal paste. Even if we use the same method the results will be different. Just my 2 cents

 

Some say, this is how it should look like in R5:

(full gallery here)

 

wow...... wish i had your balls mate, youve had that thing apart more times than ive had hot dinners!!!

id love to repaste and re pad (not sure if there are any pads) my AW15 R2..... just too worried about bricking it.

got the same cooler myself and got 2x noctua 3000rpm 120mm beasts, but gave up because i couldn't work out the controller...... your looks really good..

 

Need no balls for this, as this is done on one of the previous upgradeable AW models. Max 15 minutes to dismantle, apply new paste and boot up Windows again

 

lol.....i must admit, they certainly haven't made it easy in this revision......

 

Perhaps one of the reasons that you and others should pay for extended warranty from Dell... Discontinued warranty can be expensive if you are not technically gifted

 

Hi destravo,

I have the same freaking laptop as you do .. Like exactly and the same notebook cooler. I am from the netherlands would you be interested to help me repaste CPU and GPU. Maybe if we are close we could do the mod together ^^

 

Hey man

I have the same laptop as well. It is really really not hard doing the repaste yourself and I actually recommend you learn how to do it.
You're lucky to have a laptop that is practically a rarity nowadays, especially for Dell/Alienware: easily upgradable.
There are countless videos online that shows how to disassemble the AW17 R1 and it is super easy.
Do you already have some good thermal paste? I recommend Gelid Extreme which did wonders for both my 880m and 980m.
Don't get too worried about thermal mods/Fan controllers. Get a good cooling pad and you'll be good to go. As other said it, the 880m is a very poor overclocker anyway so you'll be running it on stock clocks. With my cooling pad and GE Extreme, temps hardly went over 70 degrees

 

Yeah I am very happy with my 880m 4910MQ machine, My 4910 runs on 4,10Ghz and my 880M doesnt run hotter then 74'C while playing GTAV maxed out and streaming. I still have factory paste so I have to upgrade soon. I already did the fan mod on the CPU side didn't touch the GPU side yet because I can't find the fan I need. The "Good" cooling pad I have the U2 doesn't cool it well only like 2 degrees off.