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

I lapped my copper shim out of necessity (I cut it myself, so it was chewed up). I also lapped Dell's heatsink. GPU 45-52C idle, 70C load. CPU 31C idle, ???C load.

 

My XPS M1330 motherboard has been changed by Dell twice due to Nvidia GPU low heat tolerance. My first one got fried with Sims 2 (I never played it on this laptop since then) and the second with Sims 3 (Nephew installed it on my M1330 ). I did a copper mod (following the instructions on this forum) with my 3rd motherboard which has just been installed last week. I made a record of the GPU core temperature with different usages of my laptop before and after the copper mod. I used the HWMomitor 1.1(freeware) to monitor the GPU temperature.

GPU temp before copper mod (in Centigrade)

Idle - 66
Internet (browse pics & stream video) - 77 to 79
Internet (browse email & eBay) - 69 to 74
Played pacman (80's version graphics) - 87
Watch DVD or video (WMPlayer) - 86 to 91
Played Contra FCEU (Nintendo Family Computer graphics) - 98


GPU temp after copper mod (in Centigrade)

Idle - 59
Internet (browse pics & stream video) - not tried
Internet (browse email & eBay) - 64 to 69
Played pacman (80's version graphics) - 81
Watch DVD or video (WMPlayer) - 71 to 74
Played Contra FCEU (Nintendo Family Computer graphics) - 89
Played Sims 3 - 89

I didn't dare play Sims 3 before the copper mod because my nephew only played it a few minutes and the nvidia GPU failure symptoms appeared. Now my laptop so far doesn't show any symptoms yet after a couple of Sims 3 sessions lasting 1 to 2 hours each play. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, we can all see the improvement and hopefully this will help the GPU life last longer as it should be.

I'm just wondering why Dell don't make such mod to the laptops they service due to nvidia failure. Have they made improvements with their newly manufactured laptops?

 

@oramorph, I had a dell laptop, a CPx from the 2001. It too suffered from a gap between between the cooler and either the 8mb! ATI rage card or CPU (I forget which.) It had one of dell's infamous greasy hairy thermal pads to bridge the gap, but it did a lousy job. I put in a copper shim which helped immensely. So obviously Dell still hasn't learned anything in 8 years or so.

 

My XPS 1330 is a little over a year old and I had the copper mod on for approximately 9 months now...machine's still running cool, usually idling around 58 degrees Celcius and never past 76 degrees Celcius under load.

For any new copper-modders, I'd suggest putting it on as soon as you get the machine (that is if you don't buy the warranty), it's just not worth the risk waiting to get a refurb motherboard and then placing the copper mod on

 

Hmm.. that is interesting. I was planning on replacing the ageing thermal pads on my old XPS laptop with this.
It would be great if you could share some pointers/tips/pics. I heard this stuff is like thick putty and very difficult to spread around. How thick is the IC7 on your computer (umm... that would be how many tubes worth per CPU/GPU ?? )

thanks

 

quoting myself to update the resutls:

more than a month has passed since I applied ac5 to my m1330.

room temp: ~27C <-- 3 degrees higher than the previous test

idle temp: (gpu170mhz/ram100mhz) 58C
rthdribl_1_2 running 10 minutes(it does not get hotter after 3 minutes): (600mhz/400mhz) 65C

I really suprised that it stayed at 65C (even it steps down to 63 after 6 minutes). I wasn't using my laptop for a month, being afraid of burning the gpu. Strange that idle temp won't drop radically but in full power almost 32 degrees drop occured.

Note that, the fan won't even running in full throttle, it stayed silent during the testing. I really don't know why the fan never runs at full speed (after a11 bios, fans always running but in low speed). If I force fans to full speed with i8kfangui, idle/full temps will become 51/61 respectively. Almost magic.


for completeness sake, here is the DX9 Real-Time High-Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting Download:
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/archives/rthdribl_1_2.zip
(Don't let your gpu go above 85C

 

My Vostro 1310 suffers with heat too, they are pretty the same in the size-heat problem. I used two lapped 1-cent coins, one for the chipset and one for the gpu and put normal white grease between. Applied AS5 on CPU.

I was expecting better results, but the thing is almost no change. I get I think 5-8°C less in full load, dropping from 95-98°C to roughly 90°C. The idle temperatures are:

CPU: 49-53°C (Undervolted C2D)
GPU: 59-60°C
HDD: 40-42°C

I was thinking about Undervolting the GPU, using the NvBitor Bios Editor, based on the thesis that the Chip under good cooling conditions can overclock a lot, so it seems it not need a lot of voltaje to operate. I'ts a risky bet, but I will need an emergency rescue disk to blind-flash, just in case.

Regards

 

unless you used pennies before '83, it's made out of zinc and not very good at heat transfer. either find a penny that's made out of copper and make sure you clean it real well with some soldering paste to remove all oxides., or buy some copper plate..

 

Yeah, it's pretty ambitious to use coins at all anyway... very hard to get it perfectly smooth, and even then to have both sides perfectly parallel to each other. I'd just go with paying a few bucks for a copper piece.

 

Did you guys undervolt the CPU or the GPU to reduce temperatures???

 

I used one tube of ICD24 (the larger tube of ICD7) and it was just enough to do two applications for my CPU and one application for both of my 4870 cards in where I replaced like 6 thermal pads and replaced the TIM on the core.

yes its thick like putty, you dont spread it around though you use compression to spread it, meaning put a big bead (glob in the case of a thermal pad replacement) and it will spread itself when the heatsink is applied.

There home page has a good install tutorial including pictures.

 

I did the copper mod only 2 months back but did a M1330 XPS Heatsink mod!! also over weekend just gone. My temps are nice and low now. compared to when it was a standard unit and then with the copper mod.
I shall give my final report on this mod next week.

 

Thanks guys. Unfortunaly, I complete lapped the cent so I can't look at the year anymore. Well, it's very hard and expensive to get the famous plate in my country, the company that sell copper sheets are expensive and has to buy and entire sheet. But I have another idea to get "real" copper and cheap. It would be a shame not to get real copper since we are an important copper producer country ahahaha.

Regards

 

Well, my 1330 crapped out again (first was 6 months after purchase, and then it's been a year and 3 months since).
I still have warranty, so it's going back to them. With the 1 yr extension, I'm covered until April 2011. I'm fully expecting it to fail again, but I'll do this mod after the last warranty replacement near the end of the period (unless they discontinue the 1330 and I get a new model replacement...)

Just to clarify, with the IC7, with a thick enough glob, I can get by without copper, and just the paste?

 

Correct.
In theory, I don't know if it's been tried with the M1330 specifically yet.

 

Any idea if this will work with the m15x ? I also want to try OCZ Freeze instead of AS5 but Im not sure if it is silicone free or whatever the stuff is that damages heatsinks.
Are there any other laptop cooling mods I can try ? I dont have any overheating problems as such, just want a laptop that runs cooler.

 

This will only work in a laptop that has a cooling pad.
Does your M15X have a cooling pad? No? Then you can't do it. Don't forget that a laptop generates heat, so it's always going to be higher than ambient temperature.
Some people might consider my idle temps of 40C on my E8400 desktop high... until they find out that my ambient temperature is about 32C.
Just some things to consider.

 

Not sure if it has a thermal pad, will ahve to check it out. So this mod does not work on cards that dont have thermal pads ?

 

I did this mod last year with a three times folded heat sink blade. This summer, I decided to do the mod properly (with isopropyl alcohol as a cleaner, and a piece of copper bought from metalcutoffs).

The mod, as familiar as it was, went smoothly for the second time. I did a dry run as suggested by a previous user.

Here are my results:

(Windows XP SP3, Forceware 174.31)

Crappy mod - idle:


Crappy mod - load (rthdribl 1.2, 1280x724)


New mod - 10 minutes after start up (not incredibly accurate, but I was anxious)


New mod - load (rthdribl 1.2, 1280x724)


Even JUST after doing the mod, my load temperatures went down from 80 to 68! I am very pleased.

This comes as the final thing in a list of upgrades I have done to the M1330. I first changed the RAM, swapped the keyboard (spilled tea on it and the CTRL key just screwed up), and I've even hacked the Zalman NC-1000 that I've been using for about a year now.

I will wait a month to get used to the final average idle and load temperatures. Right now the GPU is sitting at 56 and I am eager to try Left 4 Dead

EDIT: L4D at 1200x800 elicits 72 degrees, and the idle is about 55. Hopefully curing takes it down a few.

 

Seems like a good idea, gonna try this mod once I got the copper shim

 

Here is a heatsink mod I did http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=393071 also if you click onto the thermal paste link there are some reviews on the subject (paste)..

 

I recently updated to Windows 7 RTM.

The GPU idles at 48 degrees! BRILLIANT!

 

U mean RC? Release candidate,

I thought Release to manufacturing isn't out yet..

 

Build 7260 was leaked. My coworker was nice enough to provide me a copy.

 

Really want to try this mod out but I can't find any copper shims....anyone know where can I buy those copper shims????

 

ebay....search on m1330 copper

 

there's only one on ebay.....selling for $20....thanks for the search advice tho, gonna try to search for another later

 

Email for a quote [email protected]

 

for the copper shim? r they selling it form the uk?

 

Is the 14mm x 14 mm copper fit on the nVidia 8600gt on the xps 1530 because I need to replace my thermal paste soon.

 

Pretty sure it's not needed on the M1530, there's not a thermal pad on the GPU IIRC.

 

But it will still work on it if I wanted to do it right? The dimensions for the copper is still the same?

 

Yes they are.

Basically where you have a thermal pad on your chips to heatsink you can replace it/them with a bit of copper and thermal pasta.
They height may well be different.

 

Ohh well the in the 1530 there's thermal paste on the gpu and cpu and a pad on the last chip so can i still apply the mod to the gpu even though it didn't have a thermal pad to begin with?

 

No I would not place one on in that case.
Basically in the design of the M1330 the thermal pad were used to make up for the overall gap between Chip and heatsink to transfer the heat. In your case it looks as if there none on your GPU try looking into adding/bounding a heatsink onto yours..Have a look at my sig.. you have to fabricate your own..

 

I don't think it would be bad to try it since the original heal sink comes with a thick layer of thermal paste and I will be adding arctic silver 5 and that is just a thin layer, and the copper should fill in that gap i should have right? Plus i hate idling at 60.

 

That will work, not worked on an M1530 myself the height of the gap is the only issue then.

 

ok ill try it out

 

Hi all. Here are my results:

2 XPS M1330 machines. One, machine No.1, is 1year old and got busted
recently (vertical lines). It was repaired by DELL 1 1/2 weeks ago.
The other one (machine2) was bought 4 months ago, is new.

- Two machines on bed, 26.6°C room temperature
(46% humidity), windows open
- No program was running despite HWMon
- 1 hour run
- No power supply (only battery)
- Newest nvidia drivers (from DELL)
- Windows Vista
- Machine 1: BIOS-A14, Machine 2: BIOS-A15
- No changes done (e.g., no copper mod etc.)

Machine 1
THM 40°C
Core0 37°C
Core1 40°C
GPU 56°C
HDD 38°C

Machine 2
THM 46°C
Core0 54°C
Core1 55°C
GPU 62°C
HDD 38°C

So, the new machine is more hot than the old, repaired one. Especially the
temperature of the CPU is higher by 15°C. Does anybody know why this is the
case?

For machine 1: Shall I install the copper mod?

Thanks all.

 

I would do the mod on both M1330 to be on the safer side of things.
Also once done see which bios you find better for you out of the two (A14/A15).
Why they differ in temp, bios,drivers,power supply,components,air flow who knows!

Warning: You have both units on the bed, that is a no,no place them on a cookie tray or hardboard when using on the bed, this way it allows for air&heat circulation.

 

can you flash both machines to same bios and test again?

thermal settings on different bioses vary radically. Eg. my heatsink fan has *never* gone to full speed after bios a10 (even when gpu reached 95C), and new nvidia drivers conflicting with older bioses (stop-go effect on fan).

And I guess you should install the copper mod. it makes gpu run cooler, the only failing part of m1330, so possibly make it live longer.

 

Thanks for your kind responses.

BIOS
====
Well, I don't know about changing BIOS. So you would change
one machine from A15 to A14?

Copper mod
==========
I have a guarantee of three years. I fear to loose it.
However, I will think about it. - To my opinion it would be better
to use two heat sinks for this machine: One for the GPU, one
for the other chips. Because there is not much space left, it will
be difficult I think.

Is there any solution that I can back-assemble things when the
machines crash? One 'DELL solution', one 'incognito' solution?

Cheers.

 

Other comments/questions:

1. When I use an external screen (HP w2207h, 22 inches), the GPU
temperature raises from 59°C to 65°C! It means that more
recourses are taken for a larger screen area. This makes
5-7°C!

2. There are these options in the BIOS:
a) Intel Dynamic Acceleration
b) Intel Speed Step
They are both active. Does it make sense to disable them?


3. Is there any possibility to down-clock the speed of the
nvidia graphic card?

Thanks for some hints,

cheers.

 

That makes sense.

No, that would do more bad than good. Rather, it would only do bad and no good.

You should be able to downclock the card the same way you would overclock. Pretty sure most people are using RivaTuner.

 

why dont u just try using a thick glob (5mm) of IC Diamond 7 instead of a copper plate? A lot of people apparently are doing it ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=372333).
If you do go ahead and do it - try to get some pics

 

Interesting....if I hadn't already purchased my copper shim, I would have given this a try....

 

Two more questions:

1. When you remove the cover (backside of the computer) you
can see the aluminum foil covering the whole cover. Aluminum
foil is a good heat reflector (radiation of heat). Does it
make sense to remove it? I guess that the foil guarantees
that the computer is a Faraday cage. Is it?

2. This is addressed to the people who changed to the copper
mod: Did you ever have an accident "à la vertical lines"? How
long do you have this copper mod working for you?

Thanks in advance for some answers.

 

Last question for today: What is a 'normal temperature'
for a CPU and the nvidia GPU? Does anybody has an idea?

Greetings.

 

Will this do? If not, im fkd... I already ordered it

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390064964403

Please reply :/

EDIT:

This all depends on what cpu/gpu you have. If you'd post your specs we could determine what would be reccomended and what the limits would be.. What are your temperatures now?

 

That'll do, but you'll have to cut it. 100mmx100mm is way too large.