Dell XPS M1710 temps

Hi,

This is probably the one hundred and second thread on this subject, but after searching for similar threads, I just couldn't get a straight answer.
The temperature of my Geforce Go 7950 GTX reaches almost 100 degress celsius (97 to be exactly, but I'm pretty sure if I let the stress-test run for a couple of more minutes it'll get that hot).

I don't have a problem with this, but since this is my second videocard (the first one died after three years, I guess due to overheating issues), I would like to know if I may expect this to happen again.

So, for all of the M1710 owners out here: what are your GPU temperatures after stressing it for, let's say 10 minutes, with Furmark (stresses your GPU really really hard)?

Please mention them in celsius, and with what program you read out the temps (some programs, like i8kfanGUI deducts 8 degrees of the real temperature).

Thanks !

 

Spir4: you're in luck. I'm someone who's killed my fair share of m1710 cards.

It's not entirely your fault that the 7950GTX runs incredibly hot. Even at dead idle and cleaning every iota of dust-bunny out, the 7950GTX idles in the low to mid 50s C and mine has shut itself off on many occasions playing 3D shockwave games such as "Age of Speed 2" (A favorite of my little sisters) and tankball 2 (an online game favorite of mine). The problem is a hybrid of a poor cooling design combined with a poor design for a gaming laptop. When you make a gaming laptop, you want the heatsink as short as possible to minimize the opportunity of heat escaping where you don't want it to. Dell's double-gated heatsink on one side is about 4 inches long, and on the other side is 9 inches long. It's also very thin, which means that the heatsink is under a lot of stress to get that heat out, and the little "end-gates" are nothing too robust. Also, look at the center plate of the heatsink, it's aluminum instead of copper to cut costs. (Copper's thermal conductivity / ability to move heat away from the source is the highest of all practical metals. Only silver is higher). The reason you describe above is EXACTLY why it isn't bright for m1710 owners to OC their cards to even nVidia's true stock spec of 575 MHz core / 700MHz memory. These cards are in such a poor environment that you simply cook the card faster.

I ran furmark for 20 minutes on my stock-clocked card, and hit 98C peak, after starting at an idle of 51C. I suspect another 5 minutes would have initiated the "damage control shutdown" sequence. If you have the computer still under warranty, contact DELL with your documentation and explain you have a faulty card. I know DELL is having problems with the 8400m GS cards in the xps m1330 line, but I'm not sure about other cards, other than they are very poorly designed to get rid of heat in an efficient matter. Otherwise, chalk it up to experience and purchase a laptop that's better in the cooling dept.

Source of games:
Tank Ball 2
Age of Speed 2

Play em for a bit, see what the GPU does. As for recording temps, you can use either i8kfangui i8kfangui or HWMonitor HWMonitor. For i8kfangui, make sure in the options you set the offset for CPU and GPU readings to 8 degrees to compensate for the error caused from the read sensor. (It reads 8 deg below the actual temp, so if it says 40 without the compensated offset, it really means 48.)

Come back and let us know how things go!

Jason

 

Hey Spir.. not sure if you have tried it, but you might want to give the 190.38 driver a try (laptopvideo2go.com). I suggest this since the driver (actually any nvidia driver after 185.66) properly enables PowerMizer in mobile cards. What this means to you is that the GPU will downclock when not under load (meaning gaming). This is perfectly acceptable since surfing the net, email and even watching a DVD does not require full blown clock speeds on the GPU. With the reduced clock speeds provided by these drivers (again, must be 185.66 or later), your GPU will run cooler.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/159-19x-series-geforce-driver-releases/

Give it a try

 

rep'd. A very VERY good suggestion batboy. I only added mine as I owned the same model as him and did a lot of research as to why mine was dying as well even at the "DELL stock" speeds. If that doesn't work, then it's dustbunny cleanout / steep prices for a new 7950GTX time. (I see them on ebay for about $450 to $550 usually.) I have 186.03 on my current Sager, and I love it. The thing the OP doesn't mention is what OS is employed. Thats the only reason why I wouldn't jump to 190.38 unless that driver exists for OP's OS.

Jason

 

Correct on the OS point of course. Another factor is using a laptopvideo2go driver. As long as a person understands the concept of a modified INF file then there really aren't any issues. It amazes me however how many peeps (not saying the OP is one) have trouble with proper driver removal and install of a new driver.

In any case, it should work fine with the M1710. There are days I still miss my 1710. That subwoofer really thumped it.

 

I know, going from to an np8662, i miss the subwoofer! I think though that until we get a better footing on this poster, we need to assume nothing. I use LV2G on my m1710, but Dox hasn't done much with LV2G lately, he stated he was taking the summer off. I guess for us that means we must wait a bit before we see more LV2G drivers. (I want to see 190.38 Dox'd)

Jason

 

Man now I'm really ashamed
You all gave great replies, and I thought nobody was replying to my thread because I didn't get an email that somebody had replied I guess I have to turn that option on somewhere in the control panel of my account

I'll try to reply to everyone. If I forgot a question, please let me know

First of all, I've been using the 186.18 drivers from laptopvideo2go.com. When I launch ATItool, the speed of the core/mem drops to 100MHz when I'm simply browsing the net and such. So PowerMizer is doing it's job good I think.

@ ganzonomy: I'll try those games tomorrow first thing, and I'll let you know how it turned out Unfortunately, my M1710 isn't under warranty anymore, but I did contact Dell about this 'overheating' issue, and they kept hammering about replacing the fans and such. But I don't think there's anything that can be done to get the temperatures down.

I also tried replaccing the cooling paste with Artic Silver 5, but that did not change a thing. In fact, as I recall, before I put that Artic Silver on, I don't think the temps went above 94 But since AS5 needs to get 'settled-down' for 200 hours before you see real results, I'll wait a couple more weeks to see what it does

What also concerns me is that the fans kick in way too late to keep the idle temp low. Currently, my core temp is 82 degrees idle. My laptop has been powered on the whole day, but I only browsed the net a bit. My fans haven't turned for more than 10 minutess tho during the whole day. I know I can tweak that with i8kfanGUI, but if I use that program, sometimes my fans flip a bit and go of and on constantly (I think that's where the BIOS tries to take control of the fans again, but i8kfanGUI tries to doe exactly the same ). So I'd rather stick with the BIOS fan regulation. In games, it doesn't matter anyway. Even with the fans at high speed, the core still gets too hot.

PS: I use Windows XP Professional

@ ganzonomy: seeing that your max temp is also around 97-100 degrees celsius, made me a little less woried that at least nothing is wrong with my laptop, and those temps are 'normal' for this laptop

 

Just another humble opinion, but dump ATI Tool. I would also UNINSTALL that fanGUI POS as its not meant to work with the M1710. Trying to control your fans and overide the BIOS profile will just kill your card that much sooner.

Stick with HWMonitor for temps and if you choose (although I would not suggest it) to overclock, then stick with NVIDIA System Tools.

 

I only use i8kfanGUI for temp monitoring anymore, because together with Speedfan it's on of the only programs that shows all of my temps. The only difference being that Speedfan automatically sets my fans at medium speed when launching the application, and i8kfanGUI doesn't. HW monitor doesn't show all of my temps, like the temp of my RAM memory.

I don't use ATI tool not for overclocking tho, just for the benchmark to stress my GPU Or is there another reason that I should dump that tool?
What do you think about speedfan by the way? I can't control the fans with it tho. I'm certainly not planning to overclock my videocard, and never have done it

 

I had a similar problem - my M1710 would shut down under load due to heat. I opened it up, cleaned out all the dust, and put MX-2 on the CPU and GPU heatsink. It now never goes over 80c load, and never shuts down

 

Well my CPU never gets really really hot to be honest.
How did you apply the MX-2 on your GPU? Only on the core, or also on the RAM chips? And how thick did you apply it?
Because I applied AS5 on the core, a very thin layer, and it didn't help a tiny bit

 

I used a credit card to apply a thin layer to both the GPU and CPU chips - I didn't put any on the HS - it should spread automatically once you screw down the HS.

 

Yeah, I did exactly the same, strange
Could you please run FurMark for 10 minutes, and see what FurMark gives you as the max temperature of your GPU?

 

@ ganzonomy: I played those 2 games, eacht for half an hour, and my laptop didn't shut down or anything. My CPU temp was about 51 degrees celsius, and my GPU temp about 75 degrees. Both the fans were running at 2500rpm.

Now I'm trying to figure out what triggers those fans. If I run FurMark, the fans only start to kick in when the GPU reaches about 87 degrees celcius. But if I play those games, they start at 70 degrees
I also noticed in ATITool, that the core and mem clocks rose to max clocks when playing that game. But is that necessary? I don't think so

Weird, very weird

 

OK, I'll try to remember to run some tonight. If you like you can email me at [email protected] and we can compare benchies - I might forget if I'm not reminded

 

Just curious but how does using i8kfanGUI fan control kill your GPU quicker? It enables you to keep your GPU much cooler than the Dell Bios does (my fans don't engage until the GPU reaches 80*C corrected) so how would this cause the GPU to fail sooner? thanks

 

. . .it's a complicated matter. I wouldn't say that in this case it would kill the GPU since there are two fans and two components that require these fans. However, I8k it isn't really up-to-date vis-a-vis the M1710, and we are talking BIOS control, which carries deeper implications.

Now would you really take the gamble of using an old homebrew software that tweaks the BIOS, on a piece of hardware that said homebrew-software wasn't supposed to support?