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

Copper mod complete...

Copper shim from metal offcuts + arctic silver 5.
174.31 Drivers, BIOS A11.

Idle Temps (before / after)...
CPU: 42 / 40
GPU: 62 / 54

Load Temps (before / after)...
CPU: 69 / 63
GPU: 100 / 70

also, these new load temperatures are with the fan speed on low because they aren't high enough to kick the fan on high.

I can game with no worries!

Thanks for all the help guys!

EDIT: That's in a relatively cold room (68F). In a warmer room (74F), Fans on high, GPU wouldn't pass 72C.

 

Hi,

I've just just completed the copper mod and I'd just like to check with you guys if the temps i'm getting so far are okay, as I've never done any thing like this before.

These are the temps i'm getting after leaving the laptop off over night.

1) 30 mins idle after cold boot.


2) after 30 mins with multiple applications open (inc. google earth, dvd playing, a avi playing, multiple tabs open in explorer etc.)


So what do you think? I'm going to post further temps after the 200hr curing time is up. However if there is anything wrong with the temps now, I'm definately willing to redo the mod.

Additional Info: Used copper from metal off cuts, and AS5, A15 Bios, the fans is always running at low at least.

 

Run a benchmark like 3dmark to get a good idea of what it's max temps are stressed. But 73C seems reasonable if that's as high as it's getting.

 

Okay, have run 3dmark06 here are the temps:



So, what do you think? I'm a bit worried by the cpu max temp, is this okay?

 

It's a little high, the HSF is likely not sitting flat on the CPU die. I had this same problem when I was first experimenting with different thickness materials. That's why one core is higher than the other.
I remedied this by slightly bending the copper heatpipe between the CPU and the GPU.

 

Is it easy to do? or is there a high probability of snapping the copper heatpipe?

 

It's easy to do as the copper is soft, but you have to be careful. Bending it to be the wrong position will make the cooling assembly worse, and bending back and forth too much will run you the risk of breaking the heatpipe.

 

Okay thanks for the tip I'll try it out tomorrow (I've run out of alcohol wipes) and report back.

 

And you can say that without knowing anything about the CPU she uses? As far as I can tell she has a T7500 a 65nm part running at 2,2GHz:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2581623#post2581623
This is a particular hot CPU - way hotter than higher clocked 45nm parts.

In additon many people having 45nm Penryn CPUs and posting in this thread don't have CPU_0_TJMAX=105.0 added to hwmonitorw.ini. That means many people posting temps in this thread and using 45nm CPUs report too low temperatures anyway.

 

Yeah, considering I had a T7500 and T7300 both running closer to 70C, I can safely say that 82C is a little high. Thanks for the concern though!

 

Each CPU is individual. Some get hotter.

I have a T7500 here in a M1330 that I can easily kick against TJunction Max temp and have thermal management kick in:



Also I can't see her doing undervolting. Since undervolting on this particular CPU shaves of 10-20°C off the max, it's hard to say anything here without having more information. The CPU above will also stay cool if undervolted.

 

That is an excellent point, I my temperatures were based on load after undervolting and running ORTHOS for six hours.
I certainly should have taken that into consideration.

I still think the HSF may not be resting flush against the processor though, as this is generally the case when the two cores report temperature spreads more than 1 degree.

 

yo, new member here but have been reading this topic for ages.
i finally got around to ordering the copper sheet from ebay and getting some arctic silver.

just completed the mod and yeah i get great results. i have the heatsink that has the wider plate over the cpu but says revision A01.

my m1330 was one of the bad ones. would idle around 64c with gpu, under load for 30 seconds or so it would reach 105c easy.

i just tried crysis to put it under load. doesnt really seem to get above 70c, which is a good 35c lower than it had been reaching.

cpu idles around 35c, but jump up to around 57c under load

over all, very happy with the results and 2 thumbs up for the guide

cheers

edit:

should note my m1330 has a T7250 CPU 65nm, 3GB memory, 150GB HDD, 8400m GS (obviously :O), windows 7 ultimate beta 7000

 

Welcome to the Cu club & glad to see your fine results

 

I have to agree with Hep! - I've run 3DMark06 (as well as TAT) for pretty much every BIOS revision I've installed and 74C was the highest my 1330+T7500 hit during 3DMark06's CPU benchmarks.

On a side note, A14 managed smooth operation in TAT at 85% duty on both cores without throttling once and max temps hit 77c & 81c for the respective C0 & C1 cores.

On the other hand, I suggest she tries to re-apply the AS5 (perhaps it was too little or more likely, too much, etc.) before bending the heatpipe because regardless of how maliable the heatpipe may be, I doubt she'll manage it without massive trial & error...

 

Wanted to thank you all for this thread along with the other M1330 gpu issue threads.

I ordered mine earlier in 2008 and just experience artifacting issues with it (intermittent green splotches) and sent it in to Dell for repair thinking the issue would be fixed. Well it's "fixed" but still a ticking time bomb I suppose. Ordered one of the copper spacers from the UK store today and will install with AS5 when it comes in.

 

Hi all,

I did also sa copper mod, and it's working fine. I am using now the notebook for normal browsing, documents, movies, and never go over 50 C.

But I've noticed some things and I want to ask your oppinion.

- when the cpu temperature is rising the gpu temperature is rising also, even if the aplication is not using the gpu. I believe this is happening because both of them are on the same heat pipe. If this is true, than the vice-versa should also be true. Then if we drop down the temperature of the processors from the heat pipe, so the GPU temperature will drop also.

So here are my questions/tips:

1. If I undervolt the processor, and following the logic above, the GPU temperature should go down also , isn't it ?
2. The motherboard chipset temperature, is in my case always with 5-6 degrees above the CPU and GPU. Would it have logic to mod the chipset also? Because if we manage to drop down the cipset with 10 degrees ( is 55 right now ) , the CPU and GPU temperatures will drop down also because all of them are on the same heat pipe.
3. The same copper mod for the GPU will fit on the chipset ?
4. I have noticed before doing the mod, that there are some aplications that are constantly using the processor, and over heat it. The one that all of you should uninstall if you care about you notebook is McAfee. Even if I already paid for it, I have replaced it with AVG Anti Virus wich is free and is not using the processor at all. Also get rid of all unnecessary aplications wich is running in the background. It will do wonders to the processor, and also to the GPU.

 

1. Yes, that's correct.
2. Not really worth doing, you'd likely raise the temp if anything - remeber, it's on the same heatpipe too and will have the same theory as the GPU/CPU correlation applied.
3. No one has tried it to my knowledge for above reason.
4. This is true, but it's software related 100%. I would suggest Avira AntiVir over AVG. AVG kinda sucks

 

Hi Hep,

2&3. So I will be the first to do it. 8 bucks worth speding for this wonderful community. If it is not working, I will uninstall it and let you all know.

Also a few more tips ( for any notebook, but it will help more this notebook ) :
5. Dust it more often. At least once per quarter.
6. Do not play anymore on it. Buy a PS3 I'm serious.
7. Keep it unpluged more often, on power save mode. For me it is 1-2 degrees cooler when it is unplugged.
8. When you are not using it, close it. Give him time to cool off.

For me , when I am writing this, the temperature of CPU/GPU is 46/47 C. I believe that I can go lower if I will do 1 and 2, and i keep rigorous with the next points.

 

I've recently installed Windows 7 onto another partition of my M1330.

What I've noticed is that when browsing the net, and in general usage, the laptop is really cool.

The CPU and GPU temps are still around ~40 C and ~50-60 C, which are typical post copper mod temps when running Vista. However, other bits of the laptop don't seem to heat up as much compared to if I am running my Vista x64 partition.

Anyone else noticed this too?

 

I dunno about that, the laptop GPU goes up to approx. 66C for me when playing Fallout 3. That's about the temperature you'd expect from a properly-cooled laptop. The copper mod has transformed the m1330 from a laptop useless for gaming, to a rather nice mid-power gaming laptop.

 

Kinda with this though.

I went ahead and replaced the crappy thermal stuff with AS5 (copper is still on order) and with minor usage sits at ~31 C for the CPU and mid-50's for the GPU. I expect the CPU to remain approx the same and drop down to high 40's low 50's with the copper mod for the GPU.

 

3 things -
1) Thank you for this site, the instructions, and information.
2) I got Got my copper today, and did the mod. Saved my styrofoam quasicooler thing just in case I end up getting warranty work
3) I find it ironic that between the front page and this page, I had to click through a De11 XPS Laptop advertisement. Does D e l l know what this page is for? Are they addressing design and execution inadequacy with advertising? Thats not the solution.

So - I got my laptop in late November, 2008. I have zero warranty and zero support through De11 because I bought it from 8est 8uy. (which really really upsets me)

Here are my before and after screenshots, both are with no gaming, Powersaver settings to lower cpu speed and vid card speed as much as possible, and sitting on top of a thermaltake t1000 notebook cooler.
Things may already be cooked, there was a gap between the nvidia chip, the styrofoam and the heatpipe.

I am, SO IRATE as a customer, that De11 would choose to continue selling this product, and would unload them without support through the 8est 8uy channel.

oh yeah, the screenshots:

 

jakerson9, guess it's only the 2 of us. My warranty got expired last November. Altho I don't have video issue with my XPS. But the fear that it might broke down anytime really sadden me. Anyway I did the cu mod and it was ard the same temp like your machine.

 

How about using polished 10 yen coin or 1962-82 one cent coin as a copper sheet?

 

I have installed 10 yen coin on the GPU. The temperatures are in average 10 degrees lower than before the mod! I guess this is it?!

 

Well, I guess it's a problem that you can throw money at to fix.

 

If you read through, this has been discussed several times. It's a pretty bad idea since you REALLY NEED an even surface. Even though your temps are lowered, you risk cracking your GPU core.

Nah, I never had warranty.

 

Hep is right. Don't take risk. Unless you lap it "flat" with a glass. I wonder waz the grade of the 10 yen coins.

 

This is a great and helpful thread - thanks to all who contributed.

I thought I'd relate my experience. After a year and a half of running fine my M1330 suddenly developed an overheating issue when running any 3d application. The machine would shut itself down, in fact.

Everything looked fine, but clearly something wasn't. I tried the mod, which cooled the CPU down into the 40's at idle, but the GPU was still running 80 at idle and took about 60 seconds to hit 105 when under load (about the same as pre-mod).

Looking at the cooling assembly I think that perhaps the copper tube separated slightly form the aluminum structure around it - so that heat wasn't transferring properly from the aluminum. It wasn't clearly pulled away or anything, but seemed a little "loose" and I had no better guess. Fan was working, copper pieces seemed wedged in place properly...

I had the "old style" cooling assembly without the "fins" on the aluminum at the GPU end. I ordered a used cooling assembly online, which happened to be the newer style, and installed it - along with the copper mod.

Now the CPU is around 38 idle and the GPU around 54. Under load they reach the mid 60's (CPU)and high 70's (GPU) (lower than the GPU idle temperature before).

So - if anyone has trouble getting the mod to work, even though it seems like you're doing it all right, one possibility might be a problem with your cooling assembly - especially if you had sudden onset of high temperatures.

Hope this helps someone.

(Used MX-2 and oxygen-free copper cut to size by an online source. Oh, and I used a Dremel with a brush to clean up and polish the copper on the new assembly a bit. Was hoping for even lower temperatures - maybe the fan would never come on above "low," but a 30 degree C drop seems OK.)

 

Thank you for reply.
On 30s page I gave up trying to find previous discussion about coins... Sorry!
I will be very grateful if you can give me the link.

By the way, I used three kind of sandpaper to polish the coin on a glace surface. The coin surface looks now perfectly flat. After tightening without the Arctic silver the coin was fixed although not absolutely; so I could still move it a little from side to side. I think I am getting good fit after applying the Arctic Silver, but still giving it some room for heat-dilatation.

Before applying the coin, I went to a shop and checked the copper sheets they got. I found some 1.5 mm sheets, smallest (100x100 mm) for 8 dollars. Firstly, they refused to cut 15x15 mm size piece from it. Secondly the surface did not look perfectly flat, so I would have to do some sand-paper work on it anyway.

So I decided to do this experiment!

Thank you!

 

I did this on a Vostro 1400 (Inspiron 1420), because my motherboard was replaced and the technitian didn't put a thermal pad between the GPU and heatsink, so my GPU temp would spike. I put a layer of OCZ freeze in there for a temporary solution for a couple weeks, but the thermal paste alone couldn't dissipate the heat quickly enough while gaming, but I finally got around to buying a piece of 1mm copper for the mod.

I can truthfully say that it worked and my GPU idle temp is now 43 C instead of 47 C I got using using thermal paste, or 80 without anything.

Just a warning, you have to take apart the entire laptop to get to the GPU; it's not very difficult (the Dell Service Manual, which can be found on the Dell website, basically gives you step by step instructions), but it's kind of scary the first time.

If anyone wants to do the mod on a Vostro 1400 or Inspiron 1420 I have about 4x2 inches of copper (1mm thick/18 gauge) minus a small 14mm by 14mm square. If you want it, I'll give it to you for the cost of shipping, which should be around a dollar or two. I'll expect that after you're done with it you'll put it back up for grabs so that this sucker will be all used up at some point. PM me if you're interested.

 

Hello,

Another success story here.

I couldn't play Civ4 at 1280x800 for more than 15 mins (temps were around 105C), so I decided to do the copper mod.

I bought the copper piece from metalcutsoff (ask them for more pieces if you don't find them, they will relist more) and AS5 (3.5g syringe) from ebay too for less than 15 euro.

It takes no more than 10 mins to make the mod, I've used a small thread to remove the thermal cooling pad. Then I applied common alcohol for cleaning wounds (it's 65% ethanol and 35% isopropyl alcohol) as thermal compound cleaner. I used a common contact card to spread the AS5 compound (don't put too much compound, a very thin layer is enough) in the cores and the thermal cooling assembly, put the copper piece and reassemble the cover module.


Results:

I've noticed that fans don't have to work almost all the time so it's better to reduce noise and save battery. And fans start to work later with bios A14.

Before:
GPU Idle Temp: 61C
15 mins playing Civ4: 105C, hangs, or black screens

After:
GPU Idle Temp: 56C
30 mins playing Civ4: 77C


Conclusion:

I couldn't believe that this mod could work so well but after doing it I'm very happy. I also expect that temps will go lower as the compound cures in 200 hours. This mod is really effective and I don't know why Dell doesn't adopt another similar solution to deal with one of the problems derived from the defective 8400GS.

Kudos all for the mod.

 

Copper modded a newish M1330 yesterday using a piece of copper cut to specs (buddy of mine is a jeweler so he had all the tools to make it the way I needed) and AS5. GPU results:

Before: 63C idle / 100C+ load (and that's after like 2-3 minutes in Doom 3 -- I didn't try pushing it any further for fear of doing damage to the machine)

After: 53C idle / 78C (peak) load (after abusing the GPU in every possible way, and by playing UT3, Left 4 Dead, etc. for 30-45 mins each).

Like I said, this is a pretty new M1330 so even with a non-defective 8400 die it is still prone to frying. A little irritating that such a small modification on Dell's part would have fixed this issue from the beginning, but I suppose their bean counters figured the additional steps would cost too much during the assembly process, and that only a small percentage of M1330 owners would ever push their units to the point of cooking.

Anyway, for fun I decided to copper mod my old M1210 (w/the GeForce Go 7400) and received similar results (peak GPU temperature of about 75C under brutal and extended usage). The piece of copper I used wasn't as flat or smooth as it could be so I may have my friend cut me a new one to see if I can get the temps down even further. For anyone wanting to try this on an M1210, the M1330 shims you see on eBay are too thick; you'll want something around 1mm or just under that for the M1210.

 

Oh yeah, even if you do copper mod your M1330 I would still use a notebook cooler (like the NC1000) if you plan to game on it a lot.

 

Hi guys, mine suddenly got white screen with lines. If I do the mod, will it be back to normal? Coz everytime I turn it on, it's just always white with lines. I'm afraid mine went out of warranty but there is a mention here that Dell gives extended warranty to those affected so technically, is mine still under warranty? I bought it April 2008 in Dubai. And now I'm back here in Philippines and I don't know if its covered by international warranty. Any replies will help. Thanks!

 

...read page one.
No one wants to read, they just want answers. No, it will not fix your problem. It may make the lines go away temporarily but it will not fix the problem, it will surely return within a month or less.
I would suggest replacing the motherboard... whether that means under warranty or not, it's the correct path to take.

 

Thanks for the reply Hep! Hopefully once I have this fixed, I need to sell it now. I have read that you have already sold yours? Anyways, thanks again.

 

Yes, I have actually had several M1330s and all have now been sold. A big part of it was because of the faulty GPUs, but I also had aquired some other laptops that fit my needs as well, and the M1330's would fetch me the most cash, which at the time, I was in need of. Selling is not a bad route.

 

, I tried to take out the fan assembly, but the screws are so tightly wound by the last technician. Philips screwdrivers just cam out, and I've broke a flathead one already.

Any ideas on removing the screws?

 

Mine were extremely tight as well, but with the right amount of pressure I was able to get them to turn without stripping the screws. Just be patient.

 

I tried them again, but still the screwdriver still keeps caming out with the pressure I applied. I'm a bit scared to up the pressure; the motherboard is already flexing a little.

 

You need to put enough pressure that the screwdriver will not slip. It is also VERY IMPORTANT to use the right screwdriver (#0 in this case). If you keep slipping the screwdriver like that, you'll eventually strip the screws...
Then you're screwed, no pun intended.

 

Just completed the copper mod - finally got the thing in the mail.

I'm beginning to wonder if there's a variant of the heatsink as my temperatures seem higher at idle than with just AS5 applied. Granted it has just been applied tonight but I am seeing an idle of ~39o for the processor and 59 for the gpu. While this seems on par with most others doing the mod, I was roughly 31/55 for the CPU/GPU with just AS5.

I'll let the break in period of AS5 go through first though and see. And the heatsink has an A02 sticker by the fan and an A01 on the pipe itself near the CPU.

 

If the correct screwdriver doesn't work, try a flat-heat that fits into the screw. A philips just kept slipping for me but with some presssure and a small flat-heat screwdriver I was able to remove it.

 

Wanted to add to my post.

I redid the mod since I wasn't satisfied with the initial results, it seems with the copper applied it was not making correct contact with the CPU . I bent the pipe slightly and am now seeing 29/50 for cpu/gpu with a max of 60/75

 

what is the temp measuring tool you use? for how long after the xps is turned on you get the 29/50 idle?

thanks

 

I get 28/51 idle (with 20C ambient temp) and my laptop's been on for an hour. I use the latest HWMonitor to get my temps.

My max GPU temp it 57 under gaming use (Red Alert 3, CSS, HL2 lost coast and TF2), not properly stress tested it as I see no need to.

Under volted T9300 and the fans are set to kick into full speed at GPU>=56C.

 

Does someone here know the measurements needed for a copper plate for the motherboard chipset? ...I haven't done the mod for the nvidia-chip yet, as my computer is still in warranty, yet, I am on the 4th motherboard so far I would think it would be cheaper for Dell to just get some prefabricate copperplates and stick on their heatsinks, rather than shipping out tons of motherboards for those of the customers who stuck with a warranty plan, on the other hand, it might just be a whole marketing thing from Dell, producing products that are bound to fail withing a year, and the motherboard is cheap compared to the whole system, and the system being dependant on it, you kind of bind you customer to the warranty period pretty neafty... Anyway, my motherboard chipset of course runs fairly hot as well, reaching above 90 degrees C when watching for instance a 1080p movie, so I thought I'd do the copper mod for it too...

 

HWMonitor is the tool I'm using for the temperatures. And it's roughly ~2 hours into it with mild usage.

As to the above to get 57 max for the GPU seems outstanding running that, I was capping at the 75 max (though I believe that was a spike) with CS:S going for about 30ish minutes.