Alienware M5500 Issues

My brother gave me an Alienware M5500 (first gen) which I have resurrected. Specs are as follows:

Alienware M5500
2.0 Ghz Pentium M 760 (standard clock)
1024 MB RAM (not sure what brand nor do I care)
Nvidia GeForce Go 6600 128MB
Intel GMA 915
1680x1050 Res

So here is the problem,

The laptop will randomly shut down and I have concluded that it is an overheating issue. The laptop will run fine and not shut down when using the GMA 915 graphics, however when I switch to the Go6600 it will run for about 15 minutes playing a game and eventually the laptop will completely shut off.

I have a GPU-Z log file showing the Go 6600 would get to about 75 to 85C and stay there with the fan running fine. What I have noticed is that the Pentium M is what is overheating as I saw it downclock to reduce heat one time (it started running at 800mhz before it finally shut off). I tried blowing any dust out of the heat-sink but it was very clean (corporate laptop before given to me and it was hardly used).

The laptop didn't come with the Go6600 so my brother put one in and used Arctic Silver 5 as the thermal compound. He and I know how to properly use thermal paste (i.e. not to use too much or about the equivalent of a half a grain of rice, to spread evenly etc etc etc). It was overheating with AS5 so then I tried Shin-Etsu X23 and got about -5C better... but it will still shut down like before. Is this laptop overheating because the heat-sink needs thermal PADS instead of thermal paste? (It comes with thermal Pads from the manufacturer). You would think thermal compound would be better quality than the Pads they use. Is the compound not bridging the gap between the heat-sink and the processors? I can't tell because I don't know what the CPU temp is and the GPU temp being high wouldn't shut the PC down... it would just fry the GPU as the BIOS is only concerned about CPU temps... the BIOS does not have an option for me to check temps.

The biggest problem I have is with using a CPU thermal monitor. I've used SpeedFan, Cpu Thermometer, RealTemp, CoreTemp, etc etc etc. The only temp gauge compatible with the Pentium M that I've found is SpeedFan and Cpu Thermometer... but it only shows ACPI temperature readings WHICH DO NOT CHANGE. This means I can't see the ACTUAL real-time temp of the CPU!!!! I'll start up speed fan and it will say something like "Temp1 51C" and then that reading will not go up or down... even when the CPU is clearly overheating because I can see it downclocking in CPU-Z!

Any suggestions for this problem? Does anyone have a good Temp monitor for the Pentium M?


Edit:

I also tried pointing a fan at the laptop and the GPU temps were about 10C lower (60C idle and 75C at full load) but the Pentium M overheated as the PC shut down. From what I can tell, the Pentium M is the culprit... but I still need a good Pentium Temp monitor that reads in real-time.

 

Have you tried HWMonitor? You should try replacing the thermal paste on the CPU. Just to clarify, the GPU and CPU need thermal paste, while the chipset and GPU memory need thermal pads.

 

Dude that looks like it works in Real-Time like I need. Awesome. Looks like it has an option to save reading as well. Looks like this i my ticket to finding out if the M is the culprit. Many thanks.

 

+Rep


Rivet