Running Hot?

My m15x is running pretty hot these days (idle right now at ~75C) and it started after trying to play the Witcher 2 (and crashing many times due to overheating) and not sure what gives and hopefully someone can give me some pointers.

Specs:

i7 740QM stock
Radeon 5850M stock
6GB DDR3

Other info:

During my attempts at playing Witcher 2, it defaulted to High settings at 1600 x 900, played for roughly 30 minutes at decent frame rates (no exact number dont have anything to record FPS but noticed no stutter or anything of the sort) the Laptop would shut down due to heat i assumed (felt extremely hot yadda yadda) Happened to me before when i first played Brink so i checked the settings and turned off AA (Fixed it with Brink [Plus the CC update to 11.5]) and still no dice, 30 minutes in i would over heat.

Googled around and found a few places of intrest ( Here notably) and decided to try their suggestions except 7 (not sure which software to use for my card) and number 8 really didnt work for me (as assumed, its for an asus laptop but figured it was for the processor anyways) as it did not update anything in the device manager.

I found 2 versions of throttle stop, one was an older version i did not realize (2.99) and crashed again in game, then tried the newer version (3.00.1) and again crashed.

The 2nd time i recorded logs and saw nothing heat related to my processor as 83 was the highest heat i seen.

After this i tried again but i downloaded GPU-Z and ran its logging, and found it disturbing. At this point i really just wanted to play the game and set its settings basically to low (keeping mostly just lighting effects on and a normal Texture Mem size and a low resolution) I played for what i think was an hour before i got off (frankly i wasnt liking how the game looked at this point and have hopes maybe the next version CC is working on fixes my issues Seen here). But at any rate, i pulled up my logs and saw my GPU hit temps at around 104C.

Log:

Code:

Date: 2011-05-21 01:06:26 ,              
GPU Core Clock [MHz]: 625.0   ,               
GPU Memory Clock [MHz]: 1000.0   ,              
GPU Temperature [°C]: 104.0   ,         
Fan Speed [%]: 100   ,        
GPU Load [%]: 85   ,            
Fan Speed [RPM]: 11   ,            
GPU Temp. #1 [°C]: 90.0   ,           
GPU Temp. #2 [°C]: 104.0   ,           
GPU Temp. #3 [°C]: 97.5   ,  
VDDC [V]: 1.000   ,

Not sure on the fan speed, if it really was 11 RPM then yea that would be the issue, but the fans were loud at the time. The Logs are funny though, it goes from 11 for most of the time to 400 for a while, down to 300, and then it finally stalls at 327. For reference at my idle temp at this time (~77C) HWiNFO32 has my fan speeds at 4203RM CPU and 4692 GPU1.

Idle: by Idle all i have running atm is Chrome (16 tabs relating to my research on this lol), Ie (2 tabs, Dell stuff wasnt working for my in chrome), CPU-Z, HWMonitor, Notepad, HWiNFO, Speedfan, Steam, GPU-Z, Xpadder, Pidgin, MagicISO, AlienRespawn, AlienFX, Logitech Profiler, F.lux, Microsoft Security Essentials, DropBox, Adobe Reader Updater (lol), PdaNet (android connection, not active), Razer Orochi Config, Intel RST (Service not running), Synapyics). 134 total processes (not ganna list those lol, just listed items running in view and in taskbar)


Hopefully this should be enough information to get some help. if anything else is needed i will definitely get that information to you guys if it seems needed

 

Seems to be repaste and system cleaning time. First of all make sure your vents are free of dust. Then get some paste and stuff to clean the heatsink and repaste.
Are GPU and CPU temps that high?

Btw: The fan readings of GPU-Z are inaccurate, don't worry.

 

Im hoping its not a repaste time, the one thing i have no experience at what so ever haha, I tried and failed once on my desktop and prolly wont do much better at a laptop.

As for temps at idle my gpu stays in the 50s it seem

Heres a pic of most my monitoring stuff up at the time of posting i forgot to include

 

If your system is still under warranty you can call Dell and let them do it. Best would be to buy some good paste in advance so you can give it to the technician (they usually use more or less crappy paste which dries out too fast).

But it's really not that hard to do it yourself. There are a lot great guides and videos around. Also if you take for example to glass panel you can easily practice to get the correct amount of paste, you'll instantly see whether you use too much or too less paste when you press the panels together.

 

Hmm im probably still under warranty, only had the laptop since august.

But i have another question now, Decided to play the game in windowed mode under medium settings and i noticed my GPU fan was only only at 30% speed in HWiNFO. is that reliable or no?

http://i51.tinypic.com/20gny8.png
Temps were hitting 90 before i went to the pause menu

 

No, you have to look at the EC sensors, there's the correct reading. GPU1 reads about 4700rpm, so your fan was at max speed.

The fan numbers you see at the ATI GPU section is not correct since it doesn't work the same as on a desktop, the fans are not controlled by the GPU, they're controlled by the EC.

First of all open the system, remove the GPU fan and see whether there's a lot of dust at the vent.

 

Will do in a few days (tuesday prolly next day i have time to do this) ill comment then

 

Taking out the GPU fan takes 2 minutes.... you must be a busy guy

 

Plus, stop playing games or any other intensive use with your M15x until you get the temps under control; otherwise, you're running a serious risk of frying that 5850m. These may help cleaning the laptop and repasting the GPU.

YouTube - ‪Cleaning the Alienware M15x‬‏

YouTube - ‪Accessing the Graphics card on the M15X‬‏

YouTube - ‪Alienware M15x Teardown 1 of 3 **READ SAFETY PRECAUTIONS PRIOR TO REPLACING PARTS** (Official Video)‬‏

Download THERMAL PASTE GUIDE.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

Download M15x GPU.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

 

My fans went bad after about a year of use- I called Dell and told them the fans began making some noise and they send me 2 brand new fans with heatsinks. I recommend if you are still under warranty try and get them replace now before you heat issue worsens.

 

I strongly recommend using the links from the Revelator and cleaning and repasting your laptop its not that hard at all and even f you have failed before you were probably just unlucky,really just do it and if you have any questions about it just post here.

 

What do you guys consider "normal" idle temps? what about "normal" gaming temps? What is considered "too hot" while gaming?

 

I cant seem to get my temps lower than 90 degrees under load. I have repasted a number of times, with 2 different compounds and bought new pads for the vram. I have done it all according to inaps guide. The spread on the die is perfect and the pads are making contact with the vram. My fans are clean and vents are clear. What could be the problem or what am I doing wrong?

 

I suggest you use MSI Afterburner or anything similar. It has OSD which can show FPS and GPU temp as well. If you notice temp is high, should quit gaming for a while

 

Well i know the temp is going to be high. I did some quick gaming with HWinfo32 on and the temps top off at around 92. when i run a furmark test, the temps hit 90 within 2 minutes.

 

a) What are your current clock settings for your 5850M? Obviously, higher clocks, particularly higher memory clocks, will result in increased temps.

b) What is the maximum GPU fan speed reported by HWiNFO32 (under the Alienware M15x EC section)?

 

My clocks are stock. 625/1000. HWinfo32 tells me that my highest fan speeds are around 4500 when using auto settings. I know it can go up at least another 500 so I set it to 5000. The temps are still high though.

 

You're right; the temps are too high. Sorry to say, but it sounds like the paste job didn't take very well. Try these: a) be sure both the GPU core die and the heat sink pad are meticulously clean, free of any former paste residue, using isopropy alcohol or a commercial cleaning solution like ArcticClean, b) don't "spread" the thermal paste, apply a pea/rice size blob in the center and let the heat sink spread it to avoid uneven application and air pockets/bare spots, and c) when attaching the heat sink apply and maintain a firm, gentle pressure directly above the core/processor die while tightening down the mounting screws to avoid the tendency of the heat sink to rock up, particularly under the #2 corner as the #1 screw is tightened down. Good luck. It is of course possible that your heat sink is warped, preventing an even fit across the card, in which case there's not much you can do until the heat sink is replaced.

 

I have done all those things. Used alcohol to clean heatsink and die until they are like mirrors. I use the dot method and let the heatsink spread the paste. I hold pressure until all the screws are tight. One thing I have on the heatsink is a few small scratches. I think my heatsink might be warped like you said. I would have never of thought that. I can take a picture of the scratches if you want to show the sizes of them. I think they are to small to affect anything but who knows. Also my card is a refurbished dell part. could it possibly be the card? Thank you for the help so far. +1rep

 

what are you using to monitor temps? on ati card you have 3 temps zone, can you post the temps for all 3.

 

Macho Man to the rescue. Fine new avatar. RIP.

@Oldakowski, it's possible, if probably unlikely, that a refurbished card is defective in some way that causes it to run hot. But regardless, if still within the warranty period, why not throw the problem back to Dell, given that multiple re-pasting attempts by someone who sounds like he knows what he's doing are making little or no headway? With the heat-sink, just lay a straight-edge across each axis at both ends and the midpoint to see if it is warped.

 

the rev is right as always, let dell replace the card and heatsink.

 

the temps i got from 10 minutes of gaming maxed out at....

Diode= 93
DisplayO= 85.5
Mem= 92.5
shader 85.5

And that was just after 10 minutes of Crysis 2 on max settings.

I might end up calling dell and having them replace it. I just got the card 2 1/2 weeks ago and should be under manu warranty. If not I'll just raise hell over the phone. Im good at that haha.

 

That's a plan. Good luck.

 

I found out what was wrong. I saw a post from about a month ago and found out someone else had a similar problem. When I used Autotune through ATI overdrive, it set my voltages to 1.175. What a useless program. I set my voltage back to 1.0 and fixed my problem. I hope no damage was done to the card. That was a pretty high voltage. It was actually The Rev who posted the answer on that thread, so I thank you.


Auto-Tune = Useless Garbage

 

Almost as bad as Stealth Mode. Very perceptive of you to figure that out. Should make a big difference.

 

Wow, you should do some hardcore benching with this voltage and dry ice for cooling, maybe you can get more than 1GHz core

 

Overclocked my voltage to 1.175v by flashing. The limit in TriXX is 1.15v. so if you use it to increase clocks it downclocks voltage back to 1.15v (automatically set as both active and max when TriXX launches). OD won't even load into CCC with voltage that high in vbios. I'll need to load up old AMD Clock Tool and try again. As I recall, an earlier effort resulted in instability and crashes at lower clock levels.