XPS 1640/1645/1647 heat vent issue

That's very useful information to have and it's what I suspected on the primary throttling thread -- either this GPU sucks more than usual or the thermal design of the XPS itself just isn't geared to having a blocked-vent + this GPU running for even more than a few minutes at top speed. 184degress F is just very hot... The HD 5830 on the envy has a TDP 4-6W lower than the 4670 but it's hard to gauge how much that will allow temps to stay sane.

The other thing to look into is why the fan speed never increases above 30% -- could be GPUz misreporting or some other driver issue perhaps?

 

Ye I don't know..the shader temp is also bugged.
I'm using 10.1 driver

 

The 5th row is the only one that is blowing the air outside in the XPS 1645. The rest of the 4 rows are blowing it right onto the screen. So unless they change the screen part blocking the vents or change the position of the vents to the left of the laptop ( i prefer the screen part mod as there will be a lotta heat coming out with the i7 in the hood) there is no way this issue will be resolved.

And also there is no point having just one row to blow the air outside. No point at all. They can change it and make it more like ALIENWARE with two exhausts at the back and proper channeling and the screen not blocking the vents. Then it will be probably the best i7 laptop yet released.

 

They might have to redesign the whole thing to achieve that. Might as well just release a new refreshed model and give us all upgrades. Free of course
I might be dreaming.....

 

I think it is obvious that this laptop needs a refresh. The cooling system has been designed by an inept team of engineers. The issues has now been compounded now that they have allowed more wattage to the system to prevent throttling. Trouble is now the system is overheating, it has incredibly poor ventilation and Dell are doing bugger all about it.

Personally I would be rushing to get a new design out. Let's hope that CES brings some new information.

 

Well I have to say, since I installed A07 and received the 130W Adapter the 1645 is not Throttling and is not Over-Heating.

I have played Crysis and Dirt2, both showed no Throttling issues or Heat issues.

1. ThrottleStop Log only reported between 13x and 19x
2. Temp @ Idle: 44c-48c
3. Temp when playing Games: Were @ 70C

 

On your LCD screen?

 

Yes, on my LCD screen (RGBLED), I have to say since the 130W adapter and the A07 Bios, it has been working great for me. I hope that it works like this for others as well, if not I would contact Dell for a replacement.

 

Well that 130W / A07 bios doesn't change anything about the heat issue..except maybe that now the GPU is stressed more because the system is less CPU bottlenecked.
My GPU goes to 84c within 5min of running furmark while the LCD screen is open.

My GPU's idle temp is 55c

 

Maybe some models have badly set heatsinks? My CPU idles between 36 and 46 C, the fan turns off at 36 and comes back on at 46. My GPU temps never go above 71C under 100% load with furmark. I do use AS5 but it does not lower temps that much, only 3 to 5 C

 

What resolution are you running your games at? 800x600? I had to drop mine down to 1024x768 to be able to play without stuttering and it still starts to after 30 mins of play when the machine heats up because of the fan blowing all the hot air back into the machine.

 

I had my settings set to High Performance @1080p and played for 45min-1hour with no issues at all, sorry to here that you are still having issues. From what I have been reading it seems that some people still are having throttling issues and some are not.

 

seems like we will have to wait a bit on the vent issue, just based on Bill's comments in the throttling forum. Although it does seem that he is really looking into it. Frankly, it would make more sense if the vent spanned that entire left section of the laptop next to the battery - going from top to bottom of the laptop to give maximal area for heat dissipation.....

 

But that wont fix the problem either. I have this laptop for about 10 days aprox and I am seeing yellowish colors at the bottom left of the screen, which is HOT. This heat is from the vent and its definitely causing sth to the screen, its just a problem of waiting to see what happends.

 

Nicotine stains? Mine has been running pretty much 24/7 for a month with no issues or stains... It gets warm but not much hotter than the top of my 24" lcd screen.

 

I dont smoke..
It is only noticeable in darker colors..

 

I would like to join this threat and say as well, that the ventilation of this lappy is quite not well considered. And I do not need to be a smart Dell engineer to notice this. I am pretty sure that the hot air on the left side of the screen is something bad.

For example. I got my screen replaced. Great. But after a week using it the left side of the screen started to bleed white. I mean,that on black background you can clearly see that the left edge of the screen is brighter.

Too bad . This laptop indeed have quite a lot of design issue. I mean, at first CPU power management, PSU power, RGBLED lot of problem, now ventilation problems. Complete disaster

Nikolay

 

This is hilarious. It is ridiculous to know about a problem on some of your old models, fix it and then reproduce the same problem on newer model. OMG

Ok, lets say they will fix the cover and replace it. But they also will have to replace all the screens affected. And if they do not fix it ASAP they will have more screens to replace afterwards.

Nikolay

 

There is no way the could fix this by replacing a cover. If they want it fix they will need a major redesign move, its not gonna happen with this machine.

 

Eversince I first saw the XPS 16 I noticed how the cover blocks the exhaust when it's opened.

Imho the only way to really solve this would be by cutting away a part of the cover, so air can flow freely out of the exhaust. Redirecting the air to the bottom just won't completely solve the problem on stressed xps16's, since the cover reaches so far over the back of the laptop. The back of the laptop would have to be 'lifted', like the 9cell battery does, to create enough space between the cover and the surface the laptop is sitting on.

 

That bleeding you mention is actually pretty characteristic of monitors. It is because of the placement of the LEDs, and you can almost always see this on any monitor when displaying a black screen.

 

Tip for dell engineers:
LOOK (yes, with your eyes) at the laptop before putting it in production

 

Like I have said before, I wonder if we can put some sort of black electrical tapes between the bottom of the lcd, and top of the vents to deflect the heat from blowing inside. I have not tried it yet, but will do it over the weekend.

I want to use Laptop Cooler, but nice aluminum ones are expensive.. There is no easy fix. I wonder if Dell is monitoring this forum, and considering changing the back cover design slightly. Not too much too change

 

Second Tip for Dell Engineers, look at your competitor ("cough" ASUS "cough") and what they did on the g73... at least inspire yourself.

 

Bump...........

 

OK, so my 1640 was replaced with a 1645, and it's like I bought a new heater. This laptop overheats like crazy. I can't even use the laptop for over a minute on the bed before it overheats. If I hold the laptop slightly raised, the laptop overheats. I've updated to the newest BIOS and had the heatsink and motherboard replaced. What is it that could cause this?

 

The combination on the i7 CPU that you got and the poor ventilation. Thats why

 

Mine is not getting hot at all with casual use like surfing, music, some youtube hd. Only when Im gaming heat becomes noticeable, but nothing problematic.

 

Casual use is ok. however, once I play any game, I always need an electric fan next to the heat vent (the one blocked by the screen)...I feel that the glass is going to melt if I don't have my electric fan on. Honest, this is a pain because now I can't really use it as a mobile unit when i want to play game because the electric fan always needs to be on at the same time...

Dell_Bill, can you let us know when this will be fixed? I really need to know this to see if I need to return this laptop. 130W and A07 fixed most of the problems we had before, but this heat...geezzz.

 

As far as I know most electronic components (including leds) should withstand temperatures well beyond what we consider hot to the touch. If your CPU and GPU reach lets say 80C i doubt the temp on the heatsink fins will be higher than 60C and the air coming out higher than 50C and thats on the high side imho. My Bro has a laser thermometer, i will use it to test temps and post back.

 

On Desktop CPUs when you are running stress testing programs, you can have temperature gradients of 25C within the chip itself before it even gets to the heatsink. The hottest spot on the core might be 80C but heat can dissipate very rapidly over a short distance so another part of the core could be under 60C.

Core i CPU and ATI GPU chips can run 100% reliably with peak core temperatures beyond 80C.

 

I was playing Bioshock2 yesterday while downloading some things and my system was hitting 85C....

Dell had a "special" 3rd level tech call me today about the heat issue and he told me he was going to get back to me on the issue.

PS I am running a 1645 on the 130watt AC.

 

OK, so I got some real world numbers. Running Furmark for 5 min and prime95 x 2 without my laptop cooler on:
CPU: 70C
GPU: 81C
The Fins of the Heat sink: 55C
Screen bottom left: 49C
Screen bottom right: 27C
Ambient: 21C

Not to bad if you ask me. As a reference my external Samsung 245T reaches 46C on the hottest part of the screen.

 

Well this one bothers me the most

 

Ok..so now how-to remove the 84c limit?

 

To be honest, i don't really worry about the CPU & GPU temp as the machine feels only warm but not hot overall.

what worries me is the screen bottom left...In my case, I feel it is so much higher than 49C. I wonder if you measured the temp 15 minutes after, would the tempture be higher? It takes a while for the glass screen to accumulate all the temperature.

anyway, thank you very much for the info you gave.

 

Well as the fins only reach 55C the screen will never heat up that much as heat disperses.

 

Hi everyone,

I just got done talking with Bill about this issue and wanted to provide an update. We're talking with our engineers and trying to get a resolution.

I do have a question (and forgive me since I havne't read the entire thread yet) but the people seeing discoloration on the systems, how long have you had them?

I ask for a few reasons. 1. to get an idea how long it takes for the problem to show up and 2. to see if any of the changes they did to the manufacturing line a while ago helped with this issue.

As I get more information I'll try to get it posted here for you.

Todd

 

Bill and Todd's XPS adventure...
Completely off topic just a funny name coincidence.

 

just saving for me to find easily in the future

 

Well, recently my screen was replaced and initially the backlight bleeding from the left side was not that strong. Hardly noticeable. But a week or two after that the bleeding started to be more noticeable even with the brightens set to minimum. There is a back-light bleeding from right, but it is very very small compared to the one from the left side. Hope this helps.

Nikolay

 

What is DELL waiting for....?

Current vent design generates way too much heat which exceeds safety operation temperature for WLED or RGB screens.

If the current vent can't be redesign fast, IMO all XPS 16 line should be discontinued ASAP due safety hazards.

 

Hold on a second here. Many of us are concerned that the heat might cause adverse effects with the screen.

However, unless you're going to show me proof that the heat exceeds safety standards (which I'm pretty sure isn't even remotely true), then you can't go around saying this and expecting Dell to take you seriously.

 

And you base this on what? The lcd on the xps only gets 3C warmer than my 24inch samsung does, i doubt its a real issue, i have had my samsung for years and its fine.

 

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling."

 

strags.com has more recent ATI versions posted

 

Which one are you talking about? I dont see any new ones. I am using the ATi Catalyst 10.3 Beta. It works great. As its march now, I am waiting for the final release

 

You have the most recent I've seen, I'm also using the 10.3 Preview / Beta

 

Hi Todd,

I believe the discoloration people were seeing on their screen was transient - i.e. while the heat was at maximum blowing on a darkened screen they could see it. I don't think (not 100% sure) that the discoloration persisted after the heat dissipated.

Thanks for still hanging with us on this model!

Brandon

 

I noticed it not too long after using TS with a 130W adaptor; this is no longer needed with A07, play some game for several hours strait and you should start noticing discoloration in the LCD panel. It should only take a good day or 2 to reproduce on a test system.

The discoloration is mostly noticeable when the screen is on but displaying nothing. You can also see that when looking at a pure white screen, the area around the vent is no longer as bright and robust as all other areas of the screen due to this discoloration.