m15x i7 940xm + gtx 460m temperature question!

Hey guys,

my CPU and GPU temperature at idle is:

CPU ranging between 57-60
GPU is between 52-57

Is that bad? or is that normal?

Thanks

 

Thats not bad per se, but it's not a normal idle temp. I would say to open up the laptop and use compressed air to clean out the vents and you could look into repasting your cpu/gpu

 

Perfectly normal. Those were the temperatures I have when I still had my GTX460M and with my current 940XM. My ambient temperature was 28-32 degrees Celsius though.

 

Is it hard to repaste the cpu and gpu? I haven't done any pasting to laptop before. Have build a desktop few times, just not experienced enough with laptop at all.

And Onego, whats your temp with your current setup now?
And also, is the 240W really needed for those combo? I'm thinking going that way soon, just looking at my option first..

 

Repasting the CPU and GPU is fairly easy. All you have to do is to take out the heatsinks, remove the existing paste on the CPU and GPU respectively, and apply a new paste on it. Make sure to clean the air vents as well before you repaste. Always refer to the service manual if you are unsure on how to open up the laptop.

On a side note, I am rather impressed by the temperatures produced by the 7970M. Not only does it run 10 degrees celsius cooler then the GTX460M while on idle (around 42 degrees) , but 10 degrees cooler as well while it is on full load. I only get around 72 degrees while playing Guild Wars 2 maxed out.

As for the 240W PSU, I only bought it only because I did not want to stress out the power supply unit while overclocking the XM chip. The 150W PSU is perfectly fine if you do not plan on overclocking anything.

 

Im planning to overclock the 940xm when I got the 7970M since I dont see any need to overclock the GPU if I got the 7970M.
Should I change my PSU as well? If you don't mind me asking, how much was the PSU?

Thanks!

 

Well is seems you should change your psu as well then. I bought a m17x 240w psu for 50 dollars on eBay. Just disable the psu warnings on the bios and you are good to go.

 

Is it just plug and play or anything need to be modified to put the 240w psu?
Cheers

 

Just plug and play

 

Just in case I got the wrong one.. Would you mind linking me to one of those PSU on ebay so I have an idea of what I should look for.
Appreciate your help

Can't wait to install my PSU and VGA once they arrived. :X

 

Here you go :

Original 240W AC Power Adapter Battery Charger Fr Dell Alienware M17x Laptop | eBay

There are still many sellers with the same product and obviously different prices, and so choose the one which has the best price for you

 

Hey mate,

I just reinstalled the whole system. Weird things that happen is: now while idling, my cpu temp is sitting around 55-65, running hotter than before I reinstall the whole system.
Any rough idea why?

And also where to get the latest Alienware M15X drivers??
If I check my device manager, it seems that I have 5 uninstalled drivers.. 3 Base system Device and 2 Unknown Device. Its PCI bus 9 device 7 function 2, PCI bus 9 device 7 function 3 PCI bus 9, device 7 function 4, on Intel(R) PM55 Express Chipset LPC Interface Controller - 3B03.

It's 4 am here and I cant sleep because of this temp

Really hope anyone can help.. Thanks!

 

Have you tried the repasting suggestion yet? Artic Silver 5 is relatively abundant in retail; there are others too that work well. Just make sure its non-conductive.

Its very easy to do; once your heatsinks are removed, use an isopropyl alcohol base (91% or higher), and a paper coffee filter to clean the old stuff off, and then just apply a rice grain worth of the paste on it, use a old credit card or your finger wrapped in plastic to smear it across the processor, and then just push the heat sink back on, bolt it down, and you are good to go.

Be sure to make sure your vents are clear of debris, by using a compressed can of air on them. Blow across the motherboard, be sure to clean the inside of the fan blades too. Dust bunnies are evil; they can hide in the strangest places!

 

Try repasting the GPU. And yeah, change the thermal pads if necessary. Fujipoly 0.5mm thermal pads are recommended.

Make sure NOT to to put too much thermal paste on the GPU. I cannot fail to stop emphasizing on this point. If done correctly your temperature would be idling at 40++ degrees, and remember to remove the previous thermal paste before repasting.

Moving on, try using these drivers:

AMD Catalyst 12.8 WHQL – 7900 MOD – BenchmarK3D

I'm currently using these and they work great.

You might need to undervolt your vbios to a lower voltage if necessary.

 

Should I use only the 0.5mm or can I use the 1mm?

What about drivers for the alienware itself, not the GPU?
I'm still missing 3 drivers on device manager and I have no idea how to get them..

Will get the PSU + thermal pad + thermal paste soon, and probably will order the 7970M mid September.
Is 470 Aus $ too much for the 7970M?
The only place I can find them is mxm upgrade.. :x

I ran prime95 test last night accross 8 threads, and the CPU temp goes up to 92.. Stayed for around 1 min or so then I stopped the test. GPU goes up to 57.
Is this normal at all?

And I was playing football manager 2012 last night on 24" screen, and it keep throttling me because the temp was staying around 82-87, sometime goes to 90 while I'm playing.

Is this fix-able by repasting and cleaning etc etc? Or it's just the 940xm is that hot that I better get a new laptop? :/
Quite frustrated here..

Thanks

 

Sorry for the late reply, been busy with things.

So yeah, the best thermal pads you can use would be the 0.5mm fujipoly extreme thermal pads found at frozencpu. In addition,a 1mm thick thermal pad may prevent proper contact of the vram and the heatsink and thus resulting in shutdowns, like what I had previously.

On a side note, its best you get the dell 7970m cards from ebay. The dell versions have automated fan controls as well as HDMI out via DP.

One more thing though, the temperature for your 940xm seems abnormal. Try repasting with the optimum amount of thermal paste. Usually a small amount of paste would do.

 

Hey Onego!

Been waiting for you

I just realised I only set the fan up to 4000 rpm before. I set it at 5000 rpm for the CPU fan and it's sitting on 72-82 ish. Max temp it went to was 87 but there was no throttling whatsoever.

The Aus $470 was a price delivered from mxm-upgrade for a DELL version of the card. Is that good?
And I was thinking of getting the bracket, etc etc from ebay. Or should I just get the kit from upgrade monkey on Ebay for around $570?

Thank you so much!

Is it fine if I keep my rpm at 5000 for like 3 hours of gaming? It seems to handle the heat well, just don't wanna break the fan or anything..
And what do you set your rpm at if I may ask?

 

Yeah AUD $470 for a DELL 7970M is a good price. By the way, make sure you use the 6970/6990/7970M bracket ONLY for the 7970m. The bracket of GTX460M will not fit correctly and may cause shut downs as well as severe heat issues. Subsequently, make sure you request them to send you the appropriate screws as well as the old screws will not fit with the new x-bracket.

On a side note, its ok to use hwinfo to adjust the rpm of the cpu fan but I suggest you try to repaste your CPU first. At 5000 RPM it should be way cooler unless it is overclocked. You can always refer to some youtube videos if you are unsure on how to repaste.

Below is the link for the x-bracket :
GPU Spreader / X-Bracket for MXM 3.0b AMD HD69x0M/HD79xxM VGA Modules | eBay

While this is the link for the thermal pads:
Fujipoly Extreme System Builder Thermal Pad - 1/4 Sheet - 150 x 100 x 1.0 - Thermal Conductivity 11.0 W/mK - FrozenCPU.com

Well considering the shipping costs for both of the individual items above it may be best to take the upgrade kit. Nevetherless, always calculate the prices beforehand and make sure that the card upgradeyourmonkey is providing is a DELL card. Its best you sent him a PM to check on it.

The type of card is a crucial factor on how you would have to control your fan speed in the future.

EDIT: My fan RPM set for the CPU is automated and is controlled by the bios. It maxes out at 75 degrees tops while playing Guild Wars 2 and 70 for Starcraft 2.
As I checked the fan RPM on HWinfo, it spins at a RPM of 4000.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Onego! You're a champ

Yeah I will definitely repasting my CPU, just waiting for my 7970M to arrive so I can just do everything at once.

So if I got the DELL card, how does controlling the fan works?
Will order one from either mxm or upgrade monkey prolly tomorrow or Friday! Can't wait :S

Anyone here wanna take 460m off me??!

 

The Dell card should automatically work with fans

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

 

The fan control works automatically and does not require hwinfo to adjust its fan speed.

As well as that, you may connect to a HDMI port of a device via the display port.

 

Oh cool. And the HDMI, will be awesome

Btw when you overclock the 940xm, what TDP and TDC did you set it to? 25 across all threads?
Last night I set the TDP and TDC at 70 and 24 across all threads and when I play Football Manager 2012, it went to around 82-85, when I open browser with youtube, it goes up to 89 :/

Is that normal for temp for overclocked 940xm? Football manager is CPU intensive game. And I set the fans to around 5000 rpm.

 

I usually go around 80TDP and 65TDC @ 25x when I was still using the GTX460M. Now when I have the 7970m, it throttles due to the fact of having insufficient power being supplied to the GPU. Previously my temperatures were at 84 degrees maxed out.

 

Hey Onego, so do you overclock your 940XM now or you just leave it at stock level?
Is that insufficient power from 240W PSU? Wonder what my 150W gonna do :s

Do you reckon we can overclock the 940xm while paired with 7970M or it has to stay at stock level?
Reason being, I use some apps that's CPU intensive and I usually overclock the 940xm, just wondering if I can still do that if I grab the 7970M.

Also, someone offered me local pick up for my GTX 460M for $150, is that too cheap? Lol.

Thanks Onego!

 

The fact that the 7970m throttles is due to the motherboard limitation of the power supply which limits power intake to 150W. Having a 240W PSU will only enable the psu to run cooler while overclocked and by using the 150W psu along with the 7970M and the 940XM may push the 150W PSU to its limits and would cause it to die soon.

Overclocking the 940XM is still possible. All you need to do is to undervolt the 7970M to a certain degree, and overclocking would not be a problem. And if some of the apps need not utilize the graphics card at all, you may go ahead and overclock the 940XM to its limit.

$150 might be pretty good considering this card is nearly 2 years back.

 

it is normal, i am also around that range of temperature