Hot Dell XPS m1330

I received my XPS m1330 about two, three weeks ago, with the nVidia 8400 GS. I've installed a few games on it like Warcraft 3 and the Orange Box, and have been playing once in a while. It just occurred to me to install Everest and see how hot this thing gets. Temps were reasonable while idle:
HD: 37 C
GPU: 70 C
CPU 0: 42 C
CPU 1: 45 C
But then I loaded Half-Life 2... and the GPU went as high as 95 C! So I poked around the forums here a bit, and saw that other people were having cooling issues too (though I couldn't find a lot of people's GPUs under load... usually idling). I read somewhere that the 167.45 driver for the 8400 GS ran the coolest out of all drivers, so I tried that one.
So I installed 167.45, and idle temperature of the GPU dropped to about 67 C... but load temp when running Half-Life 2 became as high as 100 C.

Yikes.

Then I tried the Dell nVidia driver... which kept temperature at about 75 C, but made it pretty painful to play the game, so I assumed all it did was limit the performance. I went back to the 167.45 for the performance, since I paid for discreet graphics for a reason lol.

I also read about the A11 bios, and I was considering trying it until I read that it lowers battery life. Well, how exactly does it lower battery life; does it just make the fan kick in more quickly? Because I'm not planning on playing games while on battery. However, I AM starting college in 2 months, so I'd like to preserve my battery life as much as possible.

Another note: last week I played HL2 episode 2 for about 3-4 hours straight, and it never overheated or anything, but the palmrests got a bit warm and I could definitely hear the fan hauling a**. But I could see the GPU overheating in the future if I'm not careful.

So any suggestions to help limit the load temperature? I read somewhere about adding a copper plate to the heatsinks... how easy is that to do, and how much does it help? Is there a chance I could severely mess up my m1330? I want to be able to play games once in a while, but I doubt my GPU could survive temperatures hot enough to boil water for long.

ANY help at all is appreciated .

 

Copper mod if you dare .

 

Hehe, I'd like to try, but I want peoples' opinions on it first. I'm not too worried about warranty, I just got the really basic 1-year option, and am usually extremely careful with my laptop. However, I don't want to potentially destroy it. I'd like to know the chances of success vs failure before I try.

 

Yeah make you sure you read all CAREFULLY, isnt that hard actually.

Look here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081

 

I've also got the m1330 with nVidia 8400 GS.

I always thought my laptop was running pretty cool... my previous HP's palmrests would get VERY warm, almost hot, with modest programs running. The m1330's palmrests never get more the warm.

However, I've now installed HWMonitor, and it's showing my GPU at 83-85, and that's with Firefox and Acronis running, and that's all.

So... should I be concerned?

By the way, I downloaded the latest BIOS, A11 and installed, but where can I find what driver I have for my GPU and how hard is it to upgrade? Is it basically the same as flashing new Bios? Click on the program, let it run, and then reboot?

Thanks!

 

That's a rather high for an idle temperature. I ended up saying "screw it" and installed the A11 BIOS too, and now I'm idling at 61 C. I think the average value is supposed to be 70 C... 81 C is a bit scary. To check your driver version go to Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager -> Display -> right-click on your video card -> Driver Details.

Interestingly enough, my battery life seems to have actually improved a bit, despite others' experiences. Odd.

 

I just downloaded GPU-Z and it's giving me a reading about 9-10 C lower than Everest is... would GPU-Z be suffering from the same problem that I8kfangui has? (you know, the offset 10 C problem?) Or is GPU-Z more reliable?

 

everest is very accurate.

 

I also downloaded nTune and RivaTuner, and they both agree with GPU-Z... or are they inaccurate as well?

 

i hope u are using the latest everest revision
http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?ps=UE&lang=en

 

Oh that seemed to fix it. I'm now idling at 55 C... hooray! HL2 still maxes out at 95 C, but that's a LOT better than 105 C. Can't believe I panicked so much when all I had to do was download the new version of the freakin' program.