Temperatures

Hi guys.

I have the m17xr3 with sandybridge 2820 and 6970m gpu. I'm kind of obsessing about temperatures at the moment. A few months ago I had to have the gpu replaced under warranty and ever since I have never been too comfortable. Pre replacement I would run 3d mark 06 a lot and in GPUZ I never observed my gpu going above 83c. But for months now I see higher, sensor 1 maxes in mid 70s, sensor 2 in low 80s and sensor 3 tends to hit 90 before the fan cranks in quite loud but even then sensor 3 still can but about 87 ish. Under idle the temps all seem to be mid 50s. Do I have much to worry about? The performance of the machine is great and I never see any throttling. I just worry a tad about this.

I also worry about the CPU. The fan comes on a fair bit for this if CPU usage gets to more than 20%. It runs great but this is a concern. I downloaded realtemp to monitor the four cores. Idle they are late 40s / early 50s if memory serves correct. I then tried and struggled to run anything that pushes usage sustained beyond 20%. Eventually I ran a DVD ripper / decoder and got a sustained 35% usage which pushed the clock speed to something 3.1 ghz or thereabouts. I noticed all four core temps moving up and down a fair bit. I guess averaging out in early to mid 70s. Although occasionally saw a core go past 80 for a short while. I think the highest I saw for a split second was 83c. Are these acceptable? I think I read the CPU was rated upto 105c.

I worry about longevity. Although I don't run the machine 24/7 and rarely stress the CPU and gpu. Most of my usage is now browsing and office - I used to play games but my toddler has turned this into a much forgotten pastime!

I was thinking of emailing dell and pushing for them to do sonething like change the heat sinks or re paste citing that failure could be inevitable. I don't know if I am wasting my time / barking up wrong tree / or just worrying unnecessarily. All I know is I do not want to attempt a re paste or opening up the machine myself so will try my hardest to avoid this. If those temps can confidently see my by then I will put the concerns to the back of my mind and try to start enjoying the machine that cost a fortune again instead of constantly testing it / looking for faults!

Cheers
Wayne

 

Have you tried cleaning out your heatsinks? Sounds like you could have some dust up in there blocking airflow and causing the higher temps. If you take off the back cover and pull out the fans, you should be able to easy blow out the heatsinks and the fans themselves without removing the heatsinks. Hope this helps!!!

 

Try this troubleshooting.