L502X: Heat issue?

Bought April 2012.
L502X w/540m and 1920x1080 display.


The first monthor two had 3 mobo/cpu/gpu's, 5 sets of speakers, 2-4 touchpad/panels, heat pipe, hdd, etc. replaced.

Everything but the screen and the casing is refurb on this thing.

After updating to A10, I started having overheating issues, I believe.

I've never had heat issues before though.

While playing a game for ~30mins, every time, it would show artifacts over the contents of my second display, and my main screen would stop and audio would repeat itself, over and over, forever probably.

I reinstalled Windows 7 with all the current drivers from Dell, plus the video drivers from NVidia a total of 3 times, fresh install that is from disc.

Same problem.

Contacted Dell, the lady thought the newest BIOS was A06 and advised me that I had installed the wrong BIOS after an hour or so on the phone and remoting into the computer herself in safe mode. I showed her the Dell page with the BIOS on there, she still said it was the wrong one.

After we couldn't find a solution together, she told me to reinstall Windows 7, the newest drivers and updates and see if that fixes the problem, if not call back the next day.

I could see she wasn't in the mood to deal with my technical problem, so I agreed.

Later I felt bamboozled, so I called back and talked to someone else who was very helpful, understood that there was an A10 and we both agreed from a troubleshooting point of view that since it was the only change, it might be what made the difference. Seeing as the A09 wasn't on my Dell Support page for my laptop, I asked him for the address, which he painstakingly read the entire sha-bang out, missing no ampersand or equal sign.

After reverting to A09, I've had very good luck until today.

It did the same exact thing, except I had music in the background and it continued to play without a hitch.

I played the game again and recording the values taken, this is the screenshot of about an hour of it being pseudo-idle after the game.



Sadly it omitted my GPU and I didn't notice, but it does have the board temps there.

Could it be possible the A10 has done some damage?

I certainly didn't hear the fans very often at all while on the A10.

 

Those temps are a bit high. Can you hear the fan running whilst gaming etc?
A10 shouldnt of caused any permanent damage but you say you couldnt hear the fan on a10, are you sure it was connected?

One quick thing you can do to immediately lower temps is to set max cpu usage at 99% through power options/advanced power options. Make sure the vents/fan is dust free. You can also try a repaste with some AS5 to get those temps down.

 

I already repasted with AS5 on my last new mobo, I heard the fan, but what I really meant is it didn't rev up and down and get REALLY loud all the time, like it does now with the A09.

I've used my datavac on it already, so I think dust should be fine.

I'll check into that max CPU usage setting.

Do you know any tools for benchmarking that might be able to reproduce the results I've been getting without actually having to play a game?

 

The most popular gaming benchmark tools are 3dmark 06 and 11

Futuremark - world's most popular benchmarks and PC performance tests - Benchmarks - 3DMark06 - Introduction

 

I'm going to reboot soon and use those, here are the temps including GPU:

 

96c and 97c are excessively hot, i would give dell another ring and explain to them your laptop is getting to these temps and i would probably want a brand new replacement system. Just be polite but firm and im sure they will except a replacement to be sent to you. As from the amount of part replacements you've had i think your in your right to request a full system replacement.

But it could be something ie the heatsink, is not properly seated or you've used too much thermal paste and the heat isnt transferring through it very well.

 

They sent me a L501X heatpipe/fan for replacement, the paste was done very correctly to my knowledge. Very thin, but definitely there.

The second mobo/gpu was actually fried by the tech that came out.

I've never had any issues before.

I'll give them a call, but it seems you have to give them the pieces of the puzzle one at a time rather than the whole picture to get anything to happen.

 

Just did a fresh restart and ran CPUID and 3Dmark06.

Sadly, it again, didn't catch the GPU temps.

 

3d mark does really test a pc but 99c is too high much more over a 100 and it will auto shutdown, think its 105-110c.

 

Not to hijack a thread, but I'm having a similar issue. I'm getting temps around 95C CPU (sometimes even closer to 100C) and ~80-85C GPU when gaming...Is this common? Should I let Dell know about this?

 

Here's another including the GPU temps.



I didn't call Dell before because it was night time here, I'm on the phone now.

I'll give an update later.

EDIT: The ambient temperature of the room was around 14C and there was a pedestal fan going back and forth over myself and the XPS L502X.

 

Since I'm on holiday in another country for the year, the can't do a system replacement, but they can send out a tech.

They'll be replacing the motherboard/heatpipe.

EDIT: I'll update on the temps of the same test after the replacement.

 

That is a bit hot and i would probably give dell a ring. But i dont have a l502x so im not too aware of temps in a 15" chasiss. But in a xps 17, that would be too hot.

Well good luck and hope they sort the temp problem out

 

The unit was really clean inside, nearly dust-free.

New Motherboard/Heatpipe/fan and everything is down 10C.

The fan sounds different now, a lot more air pushing.

Did the tests with before and after, my 3Dmark06 is up ~180 points and top temps are down 10C for everything.

 

this is normal. some people have cooler systems, alot of don't.

 

ah thats good to hear, congrats for a good result

 

I ended up emailing Dell about my situation, and they're setting up a tech to come out and replace my heatsink and fan. Hopefully I'll see a decrease in temps, but I have some doubts that it'll make a change.

 

Start an application that utilizes the GPU (such as a game) and then run Hardware Monitor, then it will show you your GPU temps too

as far as overheating is concerned, I have that L502x too and the temps go as high as 99 degrees Celsius while playing games inspite of it being on a cooling pad.

Sometimes it feels as if the fan gives its best only after the temp has reached the maximum

 

So a technician came out last week and replaced the heatsink and fan, I'm now down about 10C and peaking at most to 89C CPU and still around 80C GPU. Dell is a lot more comfortable with these temps and so am I.

 

Thats more like it, those temps are actually good for a l502x i get about that in my l702x, except gpu is about 5-10c lower.

 

Can you check what is your BIOS version? I've had two motherboards and a heatsink replaced and only then did the temperature fall down. I've noticed that I have A09 BIOS o the current mobo and A10 on the previous ones. Can it be connected?

 

Got my XPS last saturday. Been lurking this forum for a while.

As soon as I got my XPS I took out the crappy 1366x768 screen and put in a 1080. For some reason dell was not offering the FHD screen when I purchased. Also put in 16GB ram, SSD, and a few other things that I found cheaper as parts than ordering from dell (BL keyboard, wifi+bt, etc.). As soon as I put all these in I booted up and put on a modded A11 bios for my GT525M. (Bought because it can be overclocked to GT550M+ so the 540 seemed pointless) I think the only thing I let dell put into my system themselves was the i7 2670.

Right away I noticed after setting my graphics card to GT550M settings and booted up minecraft for a test, after about 2 minutes HWmonitor was reporting my system at 95*c even while on a cooling pad. Frustrated I took apart my XPS (again :/) and looked at Dell's lovely pasting job. I've never seen any OEM put THAT much thermal compound on a system EVER. Broke out my AS Thermal Compound Remover (Mmm. Lemons) and put on some new AS5 and took out the ram bay door's dust filter. I have to say, I can put my card to GT555M settings, play minecraft maxed and fullscreen and hit a max of 85*. 10* difference just with a simple repaste.

Long rant, I know. But I hope this helps those who just got a new system recently. Check your paste

Thanks for reading.

-J