M1530 - Major problems!

I have an XPS M1530 that's just shy of 6 months old.
Over the past 3-odd months I have begun to notice some things that I REALLY dislike about this laptop.

1. It gets UNBEARABLY hot. I'm afraid I might not be able to have kids if I use it as intended (ie: on my lap)

2. It can't play TF2, CSS or HL2 at all low settings. That's ridiculous. I suspect that may have something to do with the poor thermals.

3. Its battery life is ridiculously short. Not much of a problem in everyday life, but something that really gets to me on those >6 hour intercontinental flights.

4. The Fingerprint Application (psqltray.exe) seems to dislike Vista x64. I've caught it using up to 1,000,000K of memory.

5. The internals are of TERRIBLE quality. The heatsink offers no reassurance about thermal performance whatsoever.

6. Dell tech support is beyond incompetent. I do believe my 11-year old sister knows more about hardware problems than the 2 people I spoke to.

Would anyone have any ideas what I can do? Can I call Dell over for a physical inspection of the laptop? I divide my time between India and Los Angeles, but most of my time is spent in LA and the laptop was bought here.

 

I suggest downloading and installing HWMonitor to see how your temps are holding up. Points 2 and 3 tell me your system is probably close to overheating (yes, heat can affect battery life). You can grab HWMonitor here:

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

Report back idle temps. If they are above normal - I suggest contacting Dell. Tell them the temps you have observed and question the integrity of the GPU. They most likely will dispatch out a tech to replace the GPU as long as you have on-site repair. If not, they will have you ship it to the repair depot (yikes!).

 

2. It can't play TF2, CSS or HL2 at all low settings. That's ridiculous. I suspect that may have something to do with the poor thermals.
Sounds like something is wrong here...

3. Its battery life is ridiculously short. Not much of a problem in everyday life, but something that really gets to me on those >6 hour intercontinental flights.
You're expecting too much, battery life is rated 3-4ish hours with the 9 cell battery. Even the better 'road warrior' laptops have 6-8 hours, and thats with integrated graphics or whatever.

4. The Fingerprint Application (psqltray.exe) seems to dislike Vista x64. I've caught it using up to 1,000,000K of memory.
Sounds like something is wrong here...

5. The internals are of TERRIBLE quality. The heatsink offers no reassurance about thermal performance whatsoever.
What do you mean by this?

 

Holy moses!
The CPU is idling at 53°/49° and the GPU is at 69°!!

I've been browsing/downloading all day. Looks like I have to make that call.

I meant the battery life is below the expected specs on the Dell website (I think it says 2 hrs?), even under the 'balanced' setting.
The internal heatpipe/heatsink layout looks terribly inefficient for any real thermal management.

 

Which GPU does your m1530 have and what are the idle clocks? (download GPU-z if you don't know how to check)

 

8600M GT at stock

 

Is powermiser enabled?

If you're getting below 2 hours under word processing/internet browsing conditions, then something is borked in your computer.

 

Yeah, it does get pretty toasty right underneath the touchpad for this system and it does need its space to vent. Gaming could be due to the 64 bit OS. I played games with VISTA 32 bit installed and it works just fine for CSS and HL2, but haven't tried any games under VISTA 64 bit. No problems with the fingerprint just yet. Haven't had much problems with this laptop since I purchased it at the beginning of 08, they seem to have done a pretty good job with improvements through BIOS/drivers update. Yeah, battery life stinks with this laptop but with the 9 cell I do get up to 4 hours of non-gaming or non-movie watching productivity. I believe I have been able to squeeze at least 2 hours+ of battery life from the 6 cell. Disable your bluetooth if you don't use it to save more power.

 

powermiser? unfamiliar term. And no, I get under 2 hours with browsing, word, and music.

Games were terrible even before I went from 32 to 64 bit. I disable everything (well, nearly) and still get something below 2 hours on battery (balanced mode).
I'd hate to have to go back to Vista 32, but that might be the only way to solve at least SOME of the problems I'v had.

 

I may have missed it, but what are your 'under load' temperatures? Utilize HWMonitor, Everest, RivaTuner, etc. as mentioned before to get these temps. In regards to battery life, there are a couple steps you can take. Tweaking your power scheme is one, undervolting and ensuring powermizer is enabled will all help out. For reference, powermizer is a setting from Nvidia that allows your graphics card to downclock when it is not in use, thus saving battery. You may see a 2-3 time downclock, depending upon the driver. While on the plane, if you make sure to turn off all internal radios and any unnecessary pieces of hardware, dim your screen a bit, and powermize, you should see an improvement. In my own experience, I went from about 1:30 to 2:00 after tweaking everything and turning off the screen when I was not looking at it directly. Also, another battery may be a good investment. Back on task, if you find your temperatures for the GPU are 90C+ and for your CPU at 80C+, you do have an issue that I would definitely let Dell know. It could be a thermal mount is incorrectly placed, the TIM was not applied correctly, or a faulty chip. Best of luck with resolving your issues.

 

I haven't taken load temps yet. Are the idle temps not high enough?
Also, the battery isn't THAT important. I guess I could just go to powersaver mode and deal with the performance hit. I might buy a 9-cell battery for traveling. thanks for the suggestion.
The thing is, every time I call Dell (twice so far), the people I speak to insist that it's a software flaw of some sort, that it's *not* a gaming laptop, or some such stupid thing to keep from getting any real work done.
Is there any way I can just get some action from Dell's side?

 

The more you can document and reference, the better you will be in dealing with them. If you can record idle, standard, and stressed load temperatures, graphics card clocks, and errors you can then provide them to the representative, manager, etc. to get more done. If your load temps are in fact too high, then you may see some cooperation. In reference to the software issue, they may suggest a newer version or help you troubleshoot the error. I have found Dell to be fairly helpful, but you must invest your time on the phone and climbing the ladder. I have spent way to many hours on the phones, chats, emails, and tests, but across my two Dells and the numerous other client computers I have been successful in finding a resolution.

 

Cool, thanks.
Will take more detailed readings/screenies of everything and give 'em a call tomorrow.

 

I would totally recommend undervolting. My M1530 (8400m) would be at 85-86 stressed for both CPU and GPU, and it was burning me in certain spots. I was able to undervolt all my multipliers to .9500 with absolutely no issues and no stressed my CPU goes up to a max of 72. Even if you contact dell, undervolt in the meantime.

 

On the airplane I suspect you're not using wireless, so turning the wireless feature off (if you haven't already tried this on the plane) should alleviate some of the heat coming from the wireless card located underneath the touchpad. I turned my wireless off when I still had the Vista 32 bit and played it at the LAN party... the system was staying pretty cool and had no problem keeping up with LAN games for 10+ hours continuously with one game or another. I don't know what my CPU temp is right now, but just from touch my system is fairly cool, except for the wireless card area (which is VERY hot!... nothing unusual though and it is sitting on a cooling pad at the moment).

 

I suspect those temps you reported are in fact a bit on the high side (53°/49° for CPU @ idle). For comparison my T9300 idles @ about 30c. Granted the M1730 has better cooling than the 1530, the CPU still shouldn't be running that hot. As for undervolting, yeah thats an option - but should every user be forced to do this? Nope - the CPU should be 'usable' straight from the factory in my opinion.

GPU temp is questionable. It's a bit on the high side, but then as I previously mentioned, the M1530 doesn't have the best cooling setup. You could give the 185.66 or 185.68 driver a try from laptopvideo2go. Its a very stable driver and runs nice and cool. If you don't know how to replace the INF file, be sure to review their tutorial ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9243).

PowerMizer should be working - to determine this, download GPUz and install. On the sensor tab you will see GPU Core Clock and Memory Clock. If PowerMizer is functioning correctly, the clocks should be around 200/100.



Hope this helps.

 

There is nothing wrong with 50C idle..

Just as long as CPU load temps are <80C, the computer is fine.

Also, I would say that your 17" has a lot better cooling than the slimmer 15" m1530.

 

If it's still under warranty just send it in. Wasting time trying to figure it out will definately make it worse. I have the 9 cell battery and it will run for 3-4 hours internet only on balanced mode.

 

Thanks for all the input guys.
I'm swamped with work ATM, so I can't risk sending her out but I will definitely do so when the load lessens.

 

Did you clean the fan and vent in your M1530? If not, you might want to do it. Dust might be building up and that would affect cooling.

 

I did a thorough clean, put in new thermal paste and reseated the entire heatsink assembly.
I think the culprit was the thermal compound - when I took off the heatsink, it was BONE DRY.
Terrible QC from Dell.