Dell XPS M1330 - nVidia GeForce 8400M GS - Copper Mod

It will only void your warranty if you get caught doing it. Since the mod is 100 percent reversible and should be undetectable that you ever fooled with it, I'd say you have very very little to worry about with Dell not honoringyour warranty.

 

thx mate i will get in touch with then to sort it out... later on i will post hows the claim goes

 

Can I kindly ask someone that has the pink thermal pad to post the dimensions of it so as to replace mine that has been lost to the unknown world (garbage dump)

 

Hi, I'm waiting on my copper shim to arrive from the other side of the world to do this mod, I think it is a good idea.
My question is: why my GPU temp go to med 80's when my virus scan kicks in, even if I'm not doing any thing on the computer, I thought this might happen after the mod as heat will be transfered from the CPU to the GPU, but with out it the GPU should be doing nothing, I'm getting CPU 72 c, and GPU 85 c.
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Dell XPS M1330 T9300, nVidia 8400M GS, 4GB, LED LCD screen, 320GB 5400rpm HDD

 

Your CPU temps are WAY TOO HIGH. I'm going to guess that either the cooling assembly is not mounted against the CPU flat, there is too much or too little thermal grease, or there is some contaminant in between (like a piece of paper or plastic - and yes, I've seen this several times before).

 

In fact I was not worried about my CPU as my two years old M65 and under the same conditions reports even higher CPU temps but lower GPU now I am
Attached my M65 CUPID report

 

13x13x2~3mm
& it's closer to Periwinkle (#CCCCFF) or purple mountain majesty (#9678B6), than pink...

(roflmao )

 

thanks heaps traveller. love this community

 

Some scenes in clear sky bring my E6850 3.0GHz C2D + OCed 9800GT down to it's knees, down to 17fps ( Looks freakin' great though, especially the real-time dynamic lighting )

but ok, that won't answer your question & I can't answer it, but based on the fact that I've been playing Halo2 (single player) on my M1330 (@ stock speeds, see component details in my sig.) and that's definitely something from the DX8 era and it runs pretty poorly on the M1330. Check out the Halo2 pics in this Flickr set.

So I can't image running Stalker: C.S. on it, not even with everything turned down low...

 

Hahahaha i was sure that i had this issue with overheating

and now i have the crashing and the vertical lines recorded to show
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N7gDT7EFkhk

it just happen... dell cannot denied that i have overheating problem now

just a meter of time to lose it all now
cya later

 

Well there you go... now you get a new one. Pray for a non-faulty one.

 

yep... i called them now and they there is a technician coming tomorrow to change my motherboard and the heatsink because it looks mine is terrible. just saying... my gpu on power save mode idle is running in 79- 81C

so i hope tomorrow they bring a working motherboard

does anyone know how to detect if the new motherboard has the same Nvidia problem??
or what kind of failure or tests i should run to make sure my motherboard is not defective?

thx

 

To quote myself...

Just to clarify, it is very unlikely that a replacement board WON'T be faulty. That's right, if you're getting it fixed, you're probably getting another faulty board. Reason being dell uses refurbished parts for warranty replacements, as they can't sell them in new systems. And how many refurbs do you think they have that were manufactured less than two months ago? Little or none.

Also to clarify, I'm not convinced that these new boards are even "fixed."
I believe they may have improved GPU/motherboard solder contacts, but the cooling assembly will not be changed and EVEN IF YOU GET A NEW "FIXED" BOARD, YOU WILL HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR GPU OVERHEATING UNLESS YOU DO THIS MOD.

For the 1000000th time, I will make it clear - this is a mod to improve the cooling of the M1330 - it is not a mod to fix a faulty GPU.



The nvidia GPUs failing are not because of high temperatures, this only assists them in dying more quickly.
They are dying because the solder points between the GPU and motherboard weaken over time with heat cycling meaning the normal warm up and cool down that happens with normal use.

 

Mate i completely understand your frustration. I am in the same situation, ridiculously high temps on the CPU and GPU. I have had an engineer come round 3 times and replace the board. Yet I am still getting these temp issue's. It is a complete joke. I also paid around £1200 for my notebook. The m1330 is a great notebook it has many qualities but i am getting fed up of the problems it is causing me now, there outwaying the qualities on this noebook and as for the performance of the thing, grrrr. Like you i cannot even play old games properly on it, god I tried to play Age Of Empires 3 the other days on med/low settings and it was still unplayable, RCT 3 is just as bad. I didn't expect crysis at 80fps performance but i expected better then what I've been getting, especially after the reviews i read before i brought it.

I'm seriously thinking about cutting my losses and selling the bloody thing. If i can get £600 that is

 

Hey... just had my motherboard changed... and the copper mode done.. i can see already the difference from the last motherboard
btw the guild are great i though i would have problems but i didnt, it means that its dumb proof!!! congrats

i was trying to install the I8kfanGUI 3.1 on my windows vista 64. when i try to instal the version for 64, the installer tries to install a driver and does not succeed so the installation aborts. Does anyone have the same problem??

fyi - just after pops up a warning sayingthat driver is not digital signed

all the best Beto

 

It's a known issue... just search I8KfanGUI vista 64 or using unsigned drivers in Vista 64.

 

I haven't read the entire thread so I am not sure if someone else has already posted a similar note but...

I had decided to mod my XPS while I was waiting for a replacement HD to arrive from Dell (free of charge, 2 days to wait: very good!) as I was occasionally experiencing some systems crashes.

While waiting for the new HD I installed Ubuntu on an external USB HD and backed up all my data (the old HD had a problem anyways, as reported by the Dell Diagnostic DVD).

The day after, after having booted from the USB and worked for some hours I experienced another crash...

After some researched I found this great thread and then decided to mod my system.

However, before shopping around for the copper, I decided to install the latest nvidia drivers (177.80) and, as suggested by a friend, the latest Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox (10.0 r12).

I worked all day long today and have had no problem at all

For your info I installed a tool (members.dslextreme.com/users/billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html) letting me to keep the GPU temperature and get some sounds played when the temps reaches warning levels.

I will keep you updated if the problem is definitively gone or if I need to shop for some copper.

BTW can anyone please Iet me know what temperature (CPU and GPU) can be considered WARNING and what should NEVER be over exceeded?

thank you so much for this wonderful thread, without this I was most probably moving to a different notebook (and forget dell forever).

 

After for waiting long 200hrs to cure my copper mod here are the results:

OS: Vista 32bit SP1
Ambient of test: 25C

Before: Idle (not using for 10mins)
CPU0=51
CPU1=55
GPU=62

Before: stress test with orthos
CPU0=79
CPU1=79
GPU=77

============

After: Idle (not using for 10mins)
CPU0=42
CPU1=45
GPU=54

After: stress test with orthos
CPU0=72
CPU1=74
GPU=70

Observation:
On playing the idle temp, for the first 10mins GPU is idling at 54-59 but after 15mins GPU is shooting up to 60-64 is this normal? No programs running on vista and Im just watching the temps.

Is this results are ok? I'm still thingking to redo the mod because I am not satisfied :-(.

Thanks

 

elg3ne.. I would say your results are pretty good for the GPU. Very nice that your CPU dropped that much. My CPU temps went down only slightly after doing the mod.

 

elg3ne, what did you use to measure the temps?

I used an aluminium heatsink one of my old lattitude laptops fit perfectly between the gpu and heatsink. I did this after my mobo replacement as I do beleive i would have problem again in few months. I am out of waranty so I will dump and buy another laptop if it dies again. I measure my temps with hwmonitor tool and my normal usage (browsing, few docs etc) between 45-55c. I am not sure how good is this tool as everest reports about 10c more. This is on Vista64. I also have XP32 on the laptop which runs hotter (again monitoring with hw tool). Also also have Windows 2008 64 (I know I know )which runs hotter again about 10c more.

Does anyone know any good tool to monitor the temps?

 

I use HWM. Now I made some test again but with another mod. Undervolting the cpu and here is the result:

OS: Vista 32bit SP1
Ambient of test: 25C
NVIDIA Driver: v.175.97 V32, A08

Before: stress test with orthos (10mins)
CPU0=72
CPU1=74
GPU=70

After: stress test with orthos (10mins)
CPU0=65
CPU1=67
GPU=69

I am very pleased with the result but the fact that these mods will only prolong the life of xps, I'm still worried when gpu dies because I dont have any warranty anymore. :-( I hope it will last for for another 2 years.

There is a new nvidia driver release yesterday & I will try to do some test with the new driver later.

 

Quick related question:
I picked up an m1330 yesterday - mfg date of Feb 2008. (It was sitting in the backroom at Staples for the whole time). The price was RIIIIIGHT.

Got it on a whim b/c of the price... reading up on this stuff -- is it worth the hassle of ownership or should i move on?


The way I was looking at it --- its got 2 years warranty from yesterday, what are the odds that, if it breaks 18-24mos from now it WONT be with the fixed part on the mobo?

 

if i will be given a chance to return my xps, definitely i will return it to them. it is not worth the hassle..the headache... the worries when it will die..and when it happens it will eat your precious time on talking to the tech support when your gpu die.

i just hope my mods will prolong the life of my xps for another 2 years.. after that it will be easier for me to let go... it is very hard to accept the fact that i pay for a defective laptop that will not last for long...

 

I personally would not buy an M1330 today, even if the price was "right"

 

Has anyone attempted this mod on an Inspiron 1420? I get GPU temps up to 97C when playing games. I know that to do anything to the 1420's GPU, you need to take apart the motherboard.

 

quick question... if I replace my mobo with intel integrated vga, what else I have to buy? right now I have the mobo with nvidia. Is my existing cooling assembly will fit the integrated vga mobo?

thanks

 

I dont think it will be cheap to obtain that mobo in the first place.

 

You'd have to buy the entire bottom half the the XPS. The cooling assembly is different, as is the entire plastic base. You'd be able to re-use your CPU, memory, hard drive, wireless card/BT module, keyboard, LCD and... that's it. Not worth the investment.

About 150 USD. For just the motherboard though.

 

According to thread 290098 you will only need the mobo and the heatsink

 

Could you post a link? Because I know other users have looked into this as well and the bottom plastics are not the same.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=290098

 

What can I say? Try it I suppose.

 

Sorry as Newbie I'm not allowed to post the link (I can do that after 15 posts )

 

Thank you all for your support and comments.

The new Dell nVidia GeForce 8400M GS 176.44 A10 video driver with Dell XPS M1330 A13 BIOS firmware is likely to improve the cooling.

Drivers & Utilities section has been updated.

 

The new A13 bios is cooler! BUT the fan is running at almost all the time!.

 

Great, even more noise

 

Hi there just coming back for the feedback... well after 200h after the had my mod done... i fell my computer much colder even the aluminium plate. I have some low temp pick of 31C!!!

my GPU have some hot pick of 74-78 which is great on IDLE of 50

anyway was really easy to mod it and great support as well... thanks so much im pretty happy with my temp now.

all the best Beto

 

This afternoon my XPS M1330 joined the long list of failed motherboards...when starting up the notebook nothing happened. The power light flashes for a second, followed by the battery indicator, and then all goes black. I tried different adapters, different batteries, removed and reset the RAM and attempted a startup via Fn + power button to no avail.

Dell XPS Support was most helpful and promised to send a technician over this Friday. Gives me plenty of time to remove the copper mod and install the backup heat sink I'd purchased earlier just in case. I'll let you all know how it goes and if the technician gives me any trouble! What motherboard version will be brought as a replacement? Will he also replace the heat sink? I'll be sure and keep a close eye out. I'd also upgraded the CPU with a 9300 2.5 GHz, but I don't think he'll complain about that one.

As soon as he's replaced everything and bids me farewell, the copper mod is coming back on!

Salut

 

No way to know until it's there, but it will have the problem as well, since it will be a refurbed board.

Pretty sure CPU upgrades are allowed by Dell without voiding your warranty. Doubt he will even notice to be honest! No reason for him to be paying close attention to that.



Best of luck,
Hep!

 

What thermal compound are you going to apply? will it not be noticeable?

 

Thermal compound...good question. The heat sink I ordered from Dell Spare Parts already has thermal compound in the area above the CPU, and a blue thermal pad over the GPU and bridge. I only have Arctic Silver compound, which I don't dare use. So the only thing I can do is clean up the GPU and CPU silver compound with alcohol, install the replacement heat sink and keep my fingers crossed. Hopefully some of the Dell compound will bond to the CPU and he won't say anything. I'll be sure and bring him a cup of coffee and cookies to keep him happy! Do you really think these support technicians are that vicious? I haven't read anywhere on these forums of someone's warranty being voided during a motherboard replacement. I had also overclocked the GPU with RivaTuner but have a spare HDD with Vista already installed as a backup where no modifications have been made (CPU undervoltage, GPU OC) so that won't be a problem.

 

he he.. Sneaky!! I like it

 

You're allowed to replace the thermal grease last I checked... so not a problem.

 

Do you know this for a fact?

If so my 1530 will be floating in arctic silver tomorrow!
Though plenty of other posters seem to think it will void the warranty, so I d'no any thoughts?

 

Who else says this? I thought the CPU was one of the things Dell allowed to be upgraded without voiding warranty.

 

There definitely are a good few posts about how applying arctic silver voids the warranty - hence I was of the opinion that it was void if you decided to upgrade the compound, otherwise I'd have done my gpu and cpu ages ago.

 

A pair of UNYSIS technicians stopped by first thing this morning and promptly replaced the motherboard. They didn't ask any questions (assuming they'd noticed at all) about the upgraded Intel CPU or the Arctic Silver thermal paste remaining on the heat assembly. Simply replaced the motherboard, started the notebook after having entered the Service Tag number, and made sure the machine booted up properly.

I noted the motherboard part no. and Revision:
PPID CNOPU073016679A00XU
P/N 0PU073
DOM 15 October 2008 (Refurbished)
REV A06
BIOS A12

The NVidia GPU board connections had clearly been modified, with red plastic-looking shielding on some of the interfaces.

I promptly started up the laptop again after having replaced the HDD with my RivaTuner and RMClock-installed Vista x32 operating system and noted the temperatures. Idle GPU temperatures hovered between 65 and 75 °C, which were still relatively high. Then I fired up IL-2 Forgotten Battles and started a track while noting the GPU temperatures with RivaTuner. Within a few seconds, the temperature skyrocketed to 96° C (OC settings 500 / 720 MHz) and I quickly terminated the program!

Then I pulled out the faithful copper strip and Arctic Silver compound, replaced the heat sink with the new one I'd ordered and added the copper mod. Idle GPU temperatures have immediately dropped to around 56° C! With 3 more years left on the warranty, I feel confident that I'll be able to call again anytime and have the boys stop by again should the motherboard fail. Just remember to pull out the ole copper strip before they arrive (or sending the laptop in to the Dell depot) and all should be OK.

 

Hi there, could you please tell me where you looked at the motherboard's info regarding its revision?

I have a mobo which has cpu whine, i am interested in checking wether its the latest revision or if i have any hope in asking for a replacemente, getting the latest revision and ending with the whine issue.

thanks

 

The whine issue is not the motherboard, it's the processor itself.

 

No it's not. I've changed my T7250 for my brother's T7250, the whine is exactly the same.

Also changed it for a friends T7500 ... exact same whine

I think it has to do with mobo, not CPU