[CPU + GPU Temperatures + Benchmarks] - XPS 15 [9560] Kaby Lake

Yup as for the software end, everything is 1:1.

I use high end commercial pressure paper on all my repastes to ensure that the contacts are as even as possible.

Balancing heat sinks for a perfect is my middle name.

 

And you're sure the static voltage in throttle stop works appropriately?

Perhaps dell uses a different PLL voltage (often a reference voltage to the cpu thermal sensor) for the i5 vs i7 and it causes an improper reading?

I'm still curious how different these temps are...

 

wonder if this helps you...

Shows when i open up hwinfo, no idea whats an EC but maybe it helps with the mysteries

 

right so, can someone please run OCCT for 15 or 30 mins (ideal) on their 9560 with -120 or -130mV undervolt and post hwinfo for temps, clocks and voltages please?

I need a comparison to check my LM repaste. Its better if you've done a repaste and the clocks always stay at 3.4 GHz

 

how did you get the fan RPM so high??? Max I can get with Dell Command Power Manager set to Ultra Performance mode is both 5100~ each! Anyone know?

 

Right so, significantly more work under the hood and those temps are coming down, 64C vs @iunlock s 78C for GPU with +190/250 OC as well!
Can't blame that on ambient temps check the spreadsheet!

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You know I've repasted and have been working on this right? I'm not at 76C anymore. The GPU is in the 60C's as well, while my CPU temps are still in the 60C's.

I'll update the threads with the results all at once.

Have you broken 7099 in graphics score yet?

::iunlock::

 

nope 6.9k but it is close to 6.2k overall score now

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Here are the experiences I made yesterdy (I wrote it in another thread but decided to put it in here as this seems to become the thread for mods to the 9560 to get rid of throttling.)

I played Watch Dogs 2 to look up temps with OC as this game seems to be pretty demanding to CPU/GPU. Before throttling starts after about 15min and CPU/GPU were in the 80s. VRM temp got about 84°C quite quickly. The throttling was triggered by to much power consumption(PL1 Limit exceeded) and throttled down.

The games stayed playable but frames dropped. Yesterday I overclocked my machine by 200Mhz GPU and 240MhzVram. After a while I looked for HWiNFO and was really surprised. No throttling till then, CPU/GPU at 76°C/70°C and VRM at 90°C (was in the upper 80s before for a while)!!!

(I did take screenshots of HWiNFO as an evidence but have to put them together to get you all the values you like to know.)

What did I do to my machine:

- Undervolt CPU/iGPU/Cache 120/100/120
- Setting PL1 Limit to 48W w/ XTU
- Repasted w/ CLU
- "Repadded" Vram w/ K5 Pro (thanks to the forum for introducing it to me!). I think the heatsink has better contact now.
- Put a strip of electrical tape from heatsink fins to Chassis
- Padded the mosfets to the chassis w/ 4mm 6mW/K (not the chokes, my temps began to rise after doing that)
- Padded the chipset
- Enabling SpeedShift in BIOS
- Using Ultra Performance mode in Dell Command
- Prerender limit set to 2 Frames


I still have to test it again to look for some other flaws, but right now I´m quite happy as I didn´t expect it working that well. I will reset the OC as it was just for testing/playing and me not gaming that much.
I think that´s what did the trick for me by now. An aim is still to get the VRM temps down by some mod...

 

Very nice and similar to my set so it's good to have some more confirmation.

Great stuff.

::iunlock::

 

The moment some of you have been waiting for.

Thanks for being so patient. I just had to make sure to be thorough with some extensive testing to ensure that my theory worked/works.

Here it is!

---------------------------------------OP has been updated as well--------------------------------------------

>>>THE XPS FiX<<<

I'll try to keep it (TL.DR) Free as much as possible.

Issue: GPU Throttling due to the FET's being exposed and not being cooled properly.


The XPS could use bigger fins as well and a larger heat sink area.
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Notice that there are:

CPU, Ambient, Ambient, Temp3, Ambient, Ambient, Ambient and DIMM?

The first, "Ambient," is the temp sensor near the FET's.

105C. Ouch.



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Those FET's under full GPU load were in the upper 90C's. Just crazy. Why did they leave it exposed I wonder? Those should always have proper cooling...


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Those are the ones that get very hot and these little aluminium heat spreaders can be found pretty much anywhere.


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Here's the MacGyver moment that I had after staring at this thing for hours upon hours (accumulative throughout the past few weeks) wondering how the heck to tackle this thing...

One thing for sure is that this lining makes temps worse. I've tested this over and over again to be sure under many controlled tests.

At least there is a use for this shield if flipped over haha... read on and you'll get the joke...


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You want that area as level as possible....because...


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This is how I had checked the clearance with using my LED flash light.


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Get that area level as possible to ensure the best possible contact later once you...


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Ok so here is that copper shield flipped over haha.

The black side will actually serve a purpose here in shielding the heat from saturating the bottom lid.

Therefore, the theory (well now proven) was to isolate the heat transfer through its own isolated channel / medium (this copper sheet.) - And...it worked / works...


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I've used a little double sided tape to keep the copper sheet in place for when I was measuring the clearance.


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So that area where I had mentioned above to make level as possible? Here's why...

I've marked the places that would need slight pressure from the lid to push the copper sheet down, only on those targeted areas.

So the theory was to have the middle make contact, while creating a slight arch to the ends (left and right) from the center area where the heat would dissipate from the fan air (heat travels from hot -> cold). Hope that makes sense.


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That copper sheet flipped over fits almost perfectly. It was meant to me...


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Okay so now the fun part. If you have some extra thermal pads laying around, great. If not, no biggy. I've used thermal pads because they are squishy and also seals well against the copper side of the sheet as it has some adhesive on that side. These are 2.0mm pads that worked perfectly for what I needed it to do.

The theory (proven) here is to create a channel of air from the fan to blow toward the center. I have isolated half of the area (width) of the fan area to dedicate that for the air channel.

Also, since the thermal pads are sticky and flexible, when you place the copper sheet on top of this, it'll create a nice seal.


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Here is a shot showing both air channels.

Note: At first I was going to use a small tube and cut a whole on the side of the fan blade; and from there route the tube toward the center to have the air blow out through the rear in hopes to cool the FET's. However, after a lot of tests, the air channel method works very well and probably better.


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Apply the copper sheet on top and align everything to get it ready for taping...


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It's important to seal off the areas that really need to be air tight, otherwise it'll lose its efficiency. I've trial and error-ed this many times with numerous scenarios and yes, it has to be near perfect for this to be effective.


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And there you have it folks... Crazy I know, but I can't tell you how many all nighters I've pulled to think of how to tackle this with the limited space we have to work with on this thing...



Enjoy...oh and...does it work?

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Results?

That first, "Ambient" sensor / FET' Temp .... now 69C from 105C.

No more GPU throttling.

CPU Avg. Temps: Mid 60C's
GPU Avg. Temps: Mid-High 60C's

My unit (XPS 15 9560 - 7700HQ - GTX 1050) has been repasted with Grizzly Conductonaut, Repadded, HS Aligned / Mod, and Tuned.



Yup. Very well...

Update:
Here's what a random reviewer said about using these heat sinks on his FET's.

"Used these to cool the MOSFETS on my mATX motherboard, before they were jumping up to 120C now down to about 85C. Prevents the motherboard from throttling the CPU down due to excess heat."

So around ~35C drop in temp for him...and guess what, about ~30C+ drop in temp for me so totally spot on.

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As promised I haven't forgotten about yall...

Right now I've been heavily focused on the new AW 17R4 (Kaby Lake) so if you want to check out what's happening, feel free to peek in to check out the latest.


Th umbs up if you like this. Oh wait, this isn't YT LOL...j/k

Cheers and Happy Modding...

 

@iunlock - amazing post, quite a bit of work involved in that, cool you came up with it. I'll have to give it a try.

 

Thanks mate. Crazy off the wall stuff, but glad it works.

I had tried many different combos and ideas....even the air tube method as I had mentioned in the write up, but it wasn't very promising...

Looking forward to seeing your results!

Cheers

 

I don't have the guts to cut up my stock stuff so I'll probably buy a 9550 cover for $25 on ebay.

 

Oh the black lining rips right off of the cover and having it on there actually makes it run hotter. (It runs cooler without that black lining).

You could also go buy a copper sheet and it'll work just as well, if not better since you can cut it to spec...

But I do understand about keeping stock things fresh.

 

Nice work

I wander if things can be improved by ducting some air towards the VRMs like you did but with less work for air-sealing, just a barrier against fan intakes, without touching the black-lined copper sheet? I'm not sure if this copper sheet drives much heat away, being so thin? Surely one can squeeze in another one this thickness at least.

How much heat gets to the chassis bottom via the pads?

Do you have an idea how much effect just taping the outer heatpipe to the case edge (near the exhaust) has on the CPU&GPU temperatures? And how do they change when you divert that air towards the VRMs?

As you seal off what used to be air intake before RAM, did you notice any influence of this on RAM, SSD, battery temperatures?

Would you happen to know something about that G.SKILL RAM running at 2667 clock, does that work just like that or is any modding involved?

 

Incredible work as always, brother @iunlock ! Very well done. This looks like it must have been a really tough job. I will be following your future works Do tag me whenever/if you decide to do the Gigabyte Aero 14.

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Very impressive my brotha from another mother. Liquid Hz strikes again.


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Awesome work buddy, knew you'd sort it out! Does this still give you the CPU throttling issue where it clocks down the CPU to ~1.5GHz but has no impact on in game FPS?

 

Hah I was just thinking about keeping it nice for warranty purposes, lol.

I do have sheets of different thicknesses of copper that I could use. Also need to find some heatsinks, what are you using to hold them on and do you know their dimensions?

 

iUnlock - That is some major mod work!

A few quick questions. Does this mod have two principal cooling goals:

1. Use alu heatsinks and copper strip to conduct heat towards radiator & heatpipe near radiator?

2. Direct some of the uncontrolled-unsealed blower air to the VRM area?

- Where does that heated air go? Did you remove some of the foam at the grille behind the VRM? Does the middle part of the grille @ case bottom now stay open due to removal of copper strip?

Also, are you getting any throttling? Can you run ROG RealBench StressTest now without any throttling?

Probably thermal epoxy. That should prevent them from loosening and shorting the system.

Use care that bottom case pressure or flex does not rip mosfets right off the motherboard.

 

Actually using K5 Pro is better than thermal adhesive.

Some of the heatsink you can buy come with double sided thermally adhesive transfer tape already, so use that.

 

It must go out mainly via the edge grille near the VRMs (originally this is sort-of an intake, but hardly any airflow there). A little bit might leak under the heatpipes to RAM and then finds way to fan intakes. He sealed off VRM air exhaust the top of the VRM area (there's a few pads conducting a bit of heat to the case, but they also act as spacers for the air gap preventing more heat conduction to the case). The bottom grille open likely doesn't change things much, most of the intake air probably still enters directly above the fans.

I didn't see any foam at the edge grille behind the VRM. Though in my 9550 the conductive sticker band (?) was originally glued around the edge and covering 2/3 of the grille opening, while in his pics it is all on top of the edge and doesn't even seem to touch the grille.

The nice thing here is that the added heat spreaders compensate the lack of fins in this laptop. So the VRM area finally gets some convection cooling, not just conduction as in former variants. The amount of diverted air is likely a sensitive issue. One might be able to adjust it by tuning the size of the hole for the air diverted towards the VRM area - for instance just turning that sealing piece of rubber around rather than removing it and adjusting with the white pads. It'd be great if the vents could remain easily detachable for cleaning dust.

Which are the 2mm white thermal pads? Bought two types of cheapos but none look as squishy...

 

Thanks mate. Looking forward to it.

Thanks.

I've tried several methods before coming up with the route that I took. I was mainly focused on getting high pressure directed air flow vs just overall volume.

The copper sheet while being thin does drive heat away. If you measure the temps with a heat gun you can clearly see the heat transfer. It works and that's why I used it. Of course with a thicker copper sheet it would work perhaps better...which I will try later, but @custom90gt said he'd use some copper sheets so we'll see how it works...hopefully better.

The heat transfer is really good of the pads as I had used some left over fujipoly pads haha...those are expensive so might as well put them to use eh?

Taping just the outer ends has been tried and it's one of the first tests I did, but the problem is, that it saturates the lid with heat thus causing the overall environment to be hotter now.

The small amount of thermal pads at the ends of the copper sheet also transfers heat onto the end pipes, which is why I had used thermal pads there for multiple purposes. (creating the air channel and also thermal heat transfer.)

The bottom of the copper sheet over the heat sink plate is not fully covered so there is still air flow. This is why I had marked the specific targeted points to have pressure and not the whole area.

All the RAM and SSD temps stayed the same as before.

The RAM at 2667 should work, in fact I have some sticks that I'll test out and post the results...I did put some 2800 RAM in there once for giggles LOL...it booted, but the RAM just down clocked.

Hope that answers all of your questions.

Thanks @ThePerfectStorm . Although tough and lengthy it was fun.

Sounds good...Cheers.

Cheers to the love of the game.

Thanks mate as always.

The CPU holds the default clocks, but you have to adjust some settings in TS...

However, the good news is that the GPU even OC'ed stays rock solid.

Ah yes...although I don't think it would effect the warranty, at least here in the States, but it could be different elsewhere, but I understand.

Looking forward to the results! The thicker copper sheets sound promising and I'll eventually redo it with copper sheets sometime.

The goal here was to be able to recycle and reuse what was already there.

Oh and if you're using a copper sheet, make sure to line the back with something to shield off the heat like the black stuff on the stock copper sheet. (So that it doesn't saturate the lid with heat.)

Those little heat spreaders came with adhesives on the back. Pretty handy, but you could also use K5 Pro.

Thanks mate.

1. That's correct. Aluminium conducts heat faster, but copper conducts heat more with a higher thermal conductivity rating. So the goal is to remove the heat as fast as you can from the FET's then onto a medium that can absorb it, while moving it away toward the end pipes / fin area.

2. Yes, there is virtually no air flow, stock, so that center area is just left with an open grill on the rear of the laptop, that does not work. (As we know for sure...) Therefore, instead of it being just an intake, the rear vent is now more of an exhaust. Why it was designed like this, who knows...but yes the goal is to get as much targeted air flow to the center, for it to exit out of the rear.

The heated air exists out of the rear grill vents.

Yes I have removed the foam.

Yes the bottom underside of the lid area stays open, but parts of it makes contact with the center of the heat sink. However, where the end caps are you want those to touch lid because there needs to be a gap there to channel the air flow.

No throttling. I've ran FS Loop for several hours... I'll play some Overwatch and game on it later today.

The heat spreaders came with 3M thermal adhesive already on there. Also, the pressure from the lid keeps them in place as well...it's pretty secure.

I've probably spent more time measuring everything from clearance to pressure to ensure that there isn't too much excessive pressure, thus the specific sizes of the thermal pads used.

Believe me...I'm OCD... for real OCD. Just ask @DeeX .

Yes the air exits out of the rear. Tried and tested.

The copper sheet is marked with targeted areas that are to make contact over the center area and also there is a specific area on the CPU area (also marked) where the copper sheet is touch, because that area gets the hottest.

The bottom open grill doesn't do wonders, but it does help vs keeping that sheet liner on. I've tested this several times....Yes, the majority of the air does flow from right under the fans indeed.

Yes there is a big lack of fins on the XPS. They are way too small.

The amount of diverted air was carefully calculated and balanced to where it would make an impact. I don't see how that would be a sensitive issue when the results prove it to be working?

If you just adjust the stock pads on the end tips, it does not give the same effect. I've tried this several times and the air pressure is weak and just escapes .

You have to completely seal it off, air tight around the certain areas for this to work...in order to create that initial high pressure, all the while for the air to be directed in the right direction.

The goal is to direct as much concentrated air to a targeted location and this is why you need to seal things off air tight or it will not be as effective. Therefore, simply moving the little black rubber spacers does not work.

 

@iunlock - I didn't see if you had posted, but what size are those heatsinks? trying to find something of similar size.

Thanks buddy

 

Ooops....here ya go... 6mmx6mmx3.5mm

Cheers!

 

@iunlock

The bottom case slots restrict the amount of air the fans can pull in. Cutting some of those out and replacing with some less restrictive screen might increase cooling capacity a bit.

I have seen a few of these mods on other laptops eek out a couple of degrees improvement. Here you would get a bit more air running around the VRM also...

 

Yes indeed... as soon as I finalize the blue print of where to cut on the the spare lid, I'll be replacing that area with a wider opening.

Great stuff...

 

Here are some real world gaming temps after [The XPS FiX]:

 

Here's a random cool coincidence that I just found...

(OP and Post #111 updated with this.)

Update:
Here's what a random reviewer said about using these heat sinks on his FET's.

"Used these to cool the MOSFETS on my mATX motherboard, before they were jumping up to 120C now down to about 85C. Prevents the motherboard from throttling the CPU down due to excess heat."

So around ~35C drop in temp for him...and guess what, about ~30C+ drop in temp for me so totally spot on.

 

Excellent.

In the XPS FIX scenario only, How important do you sense the factory themal paste vs regular repaste vs liquid metal?

 

Due to the XPS's limited nature, small fins and small heat sink unit, I would highly recommend LM for sure.

The second alternative could be Kyronaut, but since we're dealing with the laws of nature here with that heat Monster, I'd go LM.

The factory paste is a no go...

 

Nice work @iunlock .
I am wondering is there a temperature drop applying those mini heatsinks only. Did you by chanse run the tests before full mode? Or maybe this will be contra productive as they get hot very fast because of aluminum base?

 

Thanks.

Yes I had ran several tests with just the heat spreaders on there and you're correct in that they did heat up much faster.

With the faster heat transfer due to the properties of aluminium and with no air flow, it was just as bad as stock, if not worse by a few degrees.

 

Those alu mini heatsinks work in a desktop as there is some residual air blowing around inside the case. And there is some convection in a large case. Doesn't take much air movement.

As iUnolock notes, there is virtually no air movement inside the XPoS

 

These I guess?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20pcs-Alumi...MOS-IC-Chipest-Cooling-Heatsink-/221723027375

Not much choice this small though, the other I found would need trimming
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Enzotech-MOS-C1-Copper-MOSFET-Cooler-10PK-/252414079757

 

I ordered the ones in your first link. Sucks they have to come from china, but i couldn't find anything that size on ebay/newegg/amazon. I detest cutting heatsinks, way too much work...

 

Those could work. There is one spot where you need a 6x6 for it to fit. Also you need 6x6 so that it doesn't touch the chokes. Lastly, you don't and it too wide because it'll touch some transistors. Just make sure cover those with a small amount of electrical tape or something.

Cheers.

::iunlock::

 

Latest XPS 9560 BIOS (1.2.4) may brick notebook

"Dell's most recent BIOS for the XPS 9560, version 1.2.4, seems to be causing many notebooks to become unbootable after upgrading. Ironically, the update (which is for some reason still available on Dell's site days after the problem was reported to the company) says that it will improve the Thunderbolt Adapter Boot feature."
What good is to report problems, when the response is as it is?

 

Yup, no go there...

 

More snacks from Dell camp. Dell uses the buyers of their newest BGA machines as Guinea Pigs

 

At least there is a good working bios. No issues with both of my XPS's. Runs fine...

I don't see the hype in putting too much stock in the new bio's when there are versions that work just fine.

The XPS is a good bga machine lol...either way you slice it, it does what it's suppose to and then some...

 

How the hell are you guys getting Prime95 temps in 60s with just undervolt and repaste especially with just 2500RPMs?!? I undervolted by 135mV (both core and cache), iGPU by about 100mV, used Conductonaut and this is the result...at least no throttling but...

Do you use new version of Prime95 with AVX, or FMA or which instruction set it is that they are using?

 

iunlock: how many threads have you used in the wprime?

 

Go to Advanced Settings and always change the cores to 8.

Also, have you seen this? I know it gets buried in the forum, but I've also updated the OP.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...5-9560-kaby-lake.802345/page-12#post-10500419

(It's easy to remember though when referencing it now as I usually just tell folks to go check out post #111 .... )

 

Yeah I saw that it's crazy I don't plan to go that far right now, as I won't really be gaming much...my goal is to have full performance available for stuff like Lightroom while keeping laptop as quiet as possible (ideally completely silent)

But nice job man, I might get to that later :-D

 

Figured I'd post an update here. I followed @iunlock's guide and temps are much cooler. The problem I have now is I get TDP throttling on the processor after 10 mins or so of real bench. I have a feeling it's the intel thermal drivers but I haven't had much time to mess with it. CPU goes from ~30w to ~14w even though the highest temps I have is 75C for the GPU and 70C for the CPU. Ambient temps are in the high 60s.

 

Feel free to PM me. Congrats on your repaste!

 

...

 

What's the max PCH temp?

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