gpu repaste or not - r4 with 7970m

with 3820qm and 7970m, the idle temp is 60~63 C (but the fan spins extremely slow at idle with very low noise so i'm not complaining...)

with furmark doing 15 min. 1080p benchmark, the temp quickly shoots up to 91 and stays at 91 till it ends. the fans spins like crazy and the noise is as loud as vacuum cleaner.

1. should i see 91c at max load as normal? or should i call dell and complain?

2. should i repaste? i have a brand-new mx-4 but at least one forum member seems to be having a trouble with repaste job. i was gonna do it today but got scared.

 

Use IC Diamond its better for high temps.

 

lift up back end of laptop with 2 dices and look how mucht the temp drops.
6990 + 15% overclock lifted up on r3 here gives 72 max. without 78/80 degrees.
7970 might run hotter

 

Don't use Furmark. It stresses the GPU too much, and it creates loads well beyond what any games or more meaningful benchmarks tools would. There's not much point in using it unless your primary goal is to place your system under an inordinate amount of stress. It is possible the higher temps you are seeing are a reflection of Furmark and not an accurate representation of what you will experience in any other scenario.

See what your GPU temps look like during a series of 3DMark11 and 3DMark Vantage and Unigine Heaven runs. If the temps stay in the vicinity of 80°C-82°C or lower, there's really no need to take apart your brand new machine to repaste. If you are still hitting 90°C or more there is most definitely a problem that needs to be corrected.

 

if you plan on running folding at home furmark temps are nothing....just saying. I would repaste if it doesn't ruin warranty...er use ICD. Also if you can see if you cna modify case or something...haven't looked at an R4 yet but soon i hope If you can modify it get the spare parts so you can modify those for warranty purposes.

 

On idle with my 7970M I'm anywhere from 47-54 C, but that's with my notebook cooler (HD3 Gaming Chill Mat - Targus). I'm using only one of the two USB port connections, and the fan slider up to halfway on that. Haven't gamed yet or done any benchmarks, will update load temps when I do that.

Speaking of the Chill Mat, anyone have one? It hums like a b*tch, kind of annoying when I take my headphones off and I hear it. I'm wondering if all of them hum, and if they don't, how the hell do I stop the hum! They're just fans right? I've never heard fans on a desktop hum. Sounds like a conveyor belt.

 

91 load? that's too high. you should complain to dell and have them come and do a repaste. Your laptop is brandnew. They will come and repaste for you, maybe give you a new heatsink too. When the tech gets there, ask him to use the MX-4...they most likely will.

My 7970m overclocked to 1ghz core / 1.5ghz vram loads on furmark at 78c so ya, you are way too high. I've repasted with PK-1, but MX-4 is nearly as good. At stock, 850/1200, it has a hard time even getting into the 70's during furmark...usually 68c

This is very good advice...lifting up the back of your laptop will drop your temps 5-7c. Some use a laptop cooler, XennoX uses dice, but I use flat bottle caps:

 

I'm using the HD3 Gaming Chill Mat, works so far, though haven't stressed much of anything yet. The caps 'mod' looks kind of cool haha.

 

^^ LOL...ya bro. I should come up with a guide for the best cooling mod in the world! And it's free!

I looked at your Chill mat, does it offer unrestricted access to the fan intakes underneath your laptop? you could actually be getting better temps with the bottlecap mod lol...you should test it under load and see.

 

i uses rubber pr0n dices

 

I don't even want to know what that is lol

 

Without the mat I'm hitting 55 solid on idle for the 7970, but with the mat It drops at least another 6-7 degrees with the fan barely on. I'll give the bottle caps a shot though for testing purposes, can't hurt.

 

thanks for all the advice. will do the temp with 3dmark run, followed by "bottle cap" mod

 

I also recently bought r4 with 7970m. How to i measure the temperature?
I have tried i8kfangui, speedfan, hwmonitor, riva tuner.

Cant get any temps on the 7970m gpu.

Thankful for any advice.

 

press FN and F7 at the same time then click on YES. Your system will automatic reboot, after that try to use hwmonitor again. You should be able to see the temp of your GPU correctly afterward. The current switchable graphic card works really buggy so probably we need to wait for a new graphic driver

 

i use msi afterburner's hw monitor. As you can see from the attached screenshot, my card is idling at 45c

ya, enduro is very buggy right now. optimus was the same way when it first came out. I would fn+f7 to dedicated graphics and just leave it there for now until they release drivers that actually work