Temperature Observations - New Dell Driver v175.97 for XPS M1530

Dell' newly released driver v175.97 for XPS M1530 - After using it the past few days
and monitoring regularly in different conditions, I have found that idle GPU core temp'
are at 59-61C. Min 54C and max 65C-66C.

And I have been in contact with Dell tech support here as well as couple of my trusted
friends in US who have contact' n trusted sources for information from Dell regarding
this, and we figured out / thought / kind of understood that the new driver version'
were released for better performance as well as for keeping the average temp' and max temp'
as close as possible, thereby, preventing the hot-cool cycles from damaging the GPU
component. THIS is not because they suspect that every product has been shipped with
faulty GPU' but just as a precautionary measure. Compare this with a hot-cool cycle of
temp' from 55-56 to 74-78 and from 59-61 to 74-78. The max temp' with both this driver
and the previous driver (either the M1530 stock or the ones from the M1330 line like
174.31) are looking to be the same... but its the idle temperature that' been raised
a bit. Now is this good or bad?

I don't know.. thinking from one side, it looks like at least it prevent's the excessive
hot-cool cycle of the GPU core and the resulting stress on the materials, making it
last long... I am not saying this is good, but this seems to be the idea.

On the other side, does this higher than before idle temp, stress components within the
GPU core or its surroundings??? I don't know (May be the experts can chime in with
their thoughts)..

But at least it looks to me the driver is very stable of course, temp' are stable too, max
for me didn't seem to cross 76-78 even under high load... So, can someone tell me or share their
views / thoughts on the idle temp' being around 59-61C? Is it good or bad?

Thanks.

 

Hmm. The problem with higher temps is that if you were to shutdown/sleep/hibernate at those temperatures, you're going to be performing that hot-cool cycle. The same with booting up cold to those high temperatures; thereby increasing the temperature changes. I would prefer idling at lower temperatures because I can then shutdown and do less damage to my computer (hopefully, who knows really) than if I were to idle higher temps (a larger decrease in temperature when shutting down). That's scenario 1.

Scenario 2 is to leave the computer on, idling forever at high temperatures or low temperatures as it does not matter. This would in theory counteract the hot-cool cycle as you're not ever cooling it, but it's staying at a constant temperature. There are of course problems with this because most of us will use the battery and eventually it'll shut down.

Since I'm a university student, I'd just be safe and keep the idle temperatures low and close to the cool temps as possible so that's why I chose to stick with the 174.31. My max idle temp was 66 so far and my min idle would be 52 but I'd hover around 58-60 usually so I should be ok. Even the range while idling is small and is unavoidable, although if I could keep the fan on all the time I wouldn't mind, as I barely pay attention to them (fan program suggestions?).