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

Oh, I was under the assumption that fraps recording killed the framerates. Well let me try and make a short video, I will probably only include the last one minute of gaming in Crysis and show the temps so that the upload doesn't take too long. I'll play for 30 minutes before recording to make sure that I get the max temps.

Actually, I just saw that FRAPS only allows for 30 seconds recording in unregistered. I'll record 30 seconds and include a shot of the temps.

EDIT actually FRAPS can't record the normal desktop to show the temps, so I can just provide the screenshot of the temps after 30 minutes of game play. Only trying to show to others that a copper mod is more than sufficient due to the contact of the heatsink being only aluminum.

 

I did the copper mod today!

Idle Temps. before mod - ~68-71C
Idle Temps. after mod - ~44-46C

The guy who thought of this mod is a GOD.

EDIT - Actually, it's hovering about 58 now. That's still real good!

 

Waiting for my second mobo failure, then I'll put the mod to good use.

 

The temps are fluctuating quite a bit right now, 52C right now. I guess this is the AS5 settling in. Still, given the 70C idle temps before, this is excellent! I feel I can game with no worries now!

 

Was gonna put that in my signature, but it doesn't fit


Jake, look into undervolting as well. Lowered my CPU temps about 10C which helped down my GPU temps about 2C.

 

Yeah I forgot to mention I'm undervolting too,12x @ 0.975v... CPU temps were never an issue anyway, but every little helps.

I just fired up Unreal Tournament because suprisingly it used to give temps of 90+ because of the newer HD textures and D3D9 renderer. 66C o.o Lower than my old idle temp.

 

Long time watcher, first time poster.

I just did this mod with a modification

I took a rather thin copper blade from a heat sink and then folded it twice and hammered it as flat as I could to create my copper piece.

However, as I tried it afterwards, I wasn't noticing that huge of a temperature drop (perhaps it is curing, as I am using AS5?). My load temperatures are still up in the 100s (playing DMC4 hahaha)

I realized that I wasn't able to get the black adhesive off the GPU and that my acetone wasn't able to really change it all. Should the GPU be a copper color when the adhesive is fully removed and should I redo this part in the mod?

 

Hammering probably caused your shim to be uneven, I'd retry that, this time skipping on the hammer part. The GPU will not be copper, if you look in the pictures it's almost like a black mirror.

 

This kind of looks copper, no?

 

That's just the light reflecting from the flash.



I know this is not cleaned, but the gunk is mostly clear and this is what color it will be pretty much.

 

Then mine must be cleaned okay, I guess.

I will try different methods of flattening the copper. Good thing the shim is small enough that one blade can make about 3 at best

I was so afraid that I had done it wrong that I was fearing the GPU was going to explode as I did the mod at work :S

 

There are some great deals now on the 1330. Anyone know if the newer ones are still experiencing this? also, is this a gaming only problem? I don't play any games, i just like the size of this top.

Thanks

 

If you don't game, get the one with Intel graphics so you don't have to worry.

 

Thats great. I currently have an XPS M140 with the intel and I think its fine. Thank You.

 

Hep!

Thanks for the advise. I took apart the heating assembly and noticed that the thermal paste was not evenly spread on the copper thus contributing to your non-even theory.

Considering i had to make do with what i had I actually managed to find a clamp that was extremely effective in flattening the folded copper.

I'm running some games right now but already portal runs at 80 degrees max using 1200x800 and DMC4 (intensive game) runs at 83 MAX (far from the 101 it was before but maybe that was because it was worse than the existing thermal pad due to my careless fabrication) at 800x600 (DMC4 is INTENSE for the m1330...)

Idle temp is around 66 whereas before i remodded it was at 76. YIKES.

I LOVE THIS MOD! Thanks to all!

 

Just a note about DMC4, since it was designed for widescreen, you should use a widescreen resolution. I went to the Nvidia control panel and created a custom resolution - 768x480. The advantage of a 13" notebook is that such low resolutions still look mighty nice. At that resolution, the game runs at a pure 60fps and I can enable VSync + Triple Buffer.

The game used to push the laptop into the 90's, but now stays in the 70's for me.

EDIT - Just gave UT3 a go - 73C!

 

Hey shakey jake, i took your advice and was finally able to run DMC4 at the lower resolutions at widescreen

i love this forum more and more

though i have to wonder if 768x480 looks better than 800x500. i'll give it a shot.

 

hmm, when i play DMC4 after creating the custom resolution my LCD acts like the resolution is too big and has the panning thing (where you move your mouse and the screen moves to show the missing parts)

hmmmmm

 

one more final nag for you guys

i'm using two applications to monitor the GPU temperature
one is HWMonitor which is FANTASTIC
the other is a tray application called NvTempLogger

HWMonitor is reading temperatures which seem normal (because i'm used to them), but NvTempLogger is display temperatures which are exactly 10 degrees lower.

which one is correct? (most of the time?)

 

hwmonitor

10char

 

I only trust GPU-Z's temps tbh.

 

I tried RivaTuner and it matched HWMonitor.

No more NVTemp...

 

After closely paying attention to everyone listing their results from their own copper mod, I finally decided to take the plunge as well...even though Dell finally had announced their way to cope with the situation:

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

Although they would extend their warranty for another year (for a total of 2 years of warehouse warranty), I wouldn't want to have to deal with my laptop gone for more than 2 weeks, nor would I want to risk a ****ty technician doing a crappy job of replacing the motherboard (due to the defective GPU overheating).

So after some testing...

***HW Monitor PRO was used to measure temperatures
***rthdribl v.1.2 (DirectX9) was used to stress the GPU


Before Copper Mod:

Min: 63~64 Celcius
Idle: 67~69 Celcius
Load Max: 90~92 Celcius

After Copper Mod:

Min: 51~52 Celcius
Idle: 62~63 Celcius
Load Max: 76~79 Celcius

For those who are afraid that it'll void your warranty, do not fear as all you need to do is replace the thermal pad (remove it with a box cutter/knife as instructed). I kept it in the little ziplock bag that UK metal cutoffs sent the copper in. Excellent guide and mod suggestion, couldn't be any happier!

I'll be posting some other test results after the 200hr cure time...and I've read somewhere that you're able to use the laptop even though it's curing.

 

**** those ignorant Dell employees!
I'm loving DMC4 at 84 degrees BABY!

 

just another random question: what are the safe bounds for the processor and the GPU for temperature?

i read somewhere else in the forum that the highest the CPU should get is around 80 but i haven't a clue for the gpu?

 

Anything 90+ is a concern, though GPU's can take more heat than CPU's. Some might argue 100, though I'd of started to worry before then.

I've been playing UT3 all afternoon - 73C!

 

Yeah been trying these "new" drivers 167.45 and don't get over 62C but I am almost positive that the temps are wrong as with the newer drivers I get 73C.

 

If the temperature increase/decrease is immediate when upgrading/downgrading drivers, then one of them is reading the incorrect temperature. A different driver would not cause an immediate 10C decrease.

 

i heard laptopvideo2go's drivers make the GPU run a bit cooler. is this true?

 

The thing is, that is hard to determine, installing drivers require immediate restarts.

 

Generally HWmonitor will report the correct temps, not the 10C off ones.

 

It purely depends on the driver.

 

The program you use does have an effect, some software like i8kfan load their own driver I believe which is why some software requires tweaking regardless of your drivers.

 

Point made, but HWmon does not report the correct temps if the driver doesn't.

I'm going to do the mod again Hep!, just need to order some copper.

Is 1.5mm still the ideal size?

 

I have found that the cooling assemblies vary so the thickness varies, but I've moved past using a thick piece of copper and now just use a thin (under 1mm) shim, and have carefully bent the heatpipe so the aluminum block is closer to the GPU.

 

Well I just had a strange experience

I call up metaloffcuts.co.uk to order my copper and as soon as I said the words "fourteen by fourteen by..." I was asked if I owned a Dell M1330 followed by "are you Kreeeee".

I'm afraid I didn't catch the name of the guy I was talking to, but after a brief discussion about why they get so many orders from around the world for 14*14*1.5mm copper and how I ordered the wrong sized piece of copper initially when we were all experimenting with thickness's I was offered a piece free of charge

Great bloke and a great company to deal with, but it was very strange to have a company I am calling to purchase from know my online alias

 

I didn't get free copper

 

That's a really funny story, Kreeeee.

I've been monitoring my temps with Rivatuner (helpful in-game) and i notice the idle temp of the GPU really varies throughout the day. It's only been 4 days since the mod, but idle temps are in the ranges of 58-68.

Load temps are awesome though. DMC elicits a max of 80 now. Higher in the incredible cut scenes and detailed environments.
I tried rthdribl 1.2 full screen at 1280x800 and it only gets into the 76-79 range.
The entire orange box at 1400x900 only gets to 80 as well. It's so awesome not having the fan blaring at high speed when gaming.

I will post some more numbers for the non-believers when the curing period has officially ended.

 

Love this mod! The mod brought down my GPU temperature with 10 degrees celsius and now my GPU is idling at 53-57 with 177.83 drivers and A12 bios.

Thanks!

 

What about under load?

 

Nvida driver version 175.97, A12 BIOS
----
before mod: 60C idle ??C under load (my guess is 90+)
----
after mod: 52C idle (HWMonitor 1.10)
force fan on high (using I8kfanGUI 3.1) : 46C
under load (rtdribl): 62C
no force fan (using I8kfanGUI 3.1)
under load (rtdribl): 73C

My specs: 2.4GHz C2D T8300, 7200RPM drive, 6-cell battery

Difference is 8C under idle, and 20+C under load Thx all!

 

Has anyone tried without any copper at all? Which means just the thermal paste in between heatsink and GPU.

 

No can do. The gap is too big: 14-17mm.

 

1.4-1.7cm?

Got my copper from metaloffcuts, going to install it this afternoon

 

If you have the cooling assembly with recessed L's you can do it with no copper, but you have to bend the assembly. If you have raised L's, you can do it with just a thin shim, and bend the assembly, which is what I have done.

The purpose of this was to reduce the upwards pressure on the CPU on the cooling assembly, which was causing my CPU core temps to be too far apart on idle.

 

Just done the mod (awesome delivery time of the shim!) and my idles are:

Brackets are temp difference from before mod.

core 1: 35 (+2)
core 2: 35 (+2)
GPU : 53 (-13)

So, what are the standard apps to test peak temperatures?

 

Pretty much everyone is using 3dMark06, I've recently gone back to 3dMark05 since there is more to compare to.

 

I've swapped the 90W AC adaptor that comes with the M1330 for a 65W adaptor (that came with one of my Latitudes), and my idle temp. for the GPU has gone down a fair bit; I'm now getting 48C - 53C, rather than 51C - 58C.

Just thought it might be worth a mention.

 

Your M1330 came with a 90W adapter? Mine came with a 65W from the start, the kind with the bright blue LED and the hexagonal tip.

 

3D mark is a poor test of maximum likely system temperature though

I use half life 2 lost coast to test mine. I used to get 102C in that and now I get 73C

Also, how can I control the fans speeds as my idle temps are a little high now as the fan dosen't kick in as often as I'd like it to, are there any guides out there?

Cheers.