The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Best current video drivers for M1330? Laptop in danger

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by sakanaX, Mar 16, 2009.

  1. sakanaX

    sakanaX Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Recently I've been having trouble with my M1330's GPU overheating. It's been idling at 70-85C and can sometimes get past 100C when under load. Since I'm going to be in Japan for the next few months, it doesn't seem like there's a simple way for me to send my laptop in to get a new GPU or motherboard, if that's the issue.

    So I've been trying various things to try to reduce the temperature. I bought an aluminum laptop cooler with 3 fairly large fans on it, but it hasn't had any significant effect. I also downloaded the latest BIOS, since I heard that the newer ones increase the fan speed. However, my temperatures are still about the same.

    I also read about the copper mod, but I don't have the materials available at the moment.

    Now I'm thinking of getting new drivers for my GPU (8400 GS) in hopes that doing so will affect the temperature somehow. Right now I have version 6.14.11.6909, whatever that is, for Windows XP. I spent some time looking around to try to find the best current video driver for my GPU, but most guides link to versions that are a year or two old. Maybe those are the best, but I would like to know for sure. So if anyone specifically knows what the best available driver is for an 8400 GS on XP 32-bit, then I would like to hear.

    I appreciate it. Thanks.
     
    sakanaX, Mar 16, 2009
    #1
  2. mv_cz

    mv_cz Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Unfortunately, new drivers won't lower your gpu's temperatures. You can give it a try and download newest officialy published nvidia beta driver from here: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/geforce_notebook_winxp_179.48_beta_uk.html

    But the only solution is to do the copper mod. After this mod, my GPU in M1330 idles at 54-58C and under load it barely reaches temps above 75C.
     
    mv_cz, Mar 16, 2009
    #2
  3. fernandez21

    fernandez21 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    101
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    You probably already have, but did you clean out all the dust from the vents and fan?
     
    fernandez21, Mar 16, 2009
    #3