XPS 1640/1645/1647 heat vent issue

This is what I'm most curious about. How much does it fold up? Can you post a pic of it folded up vs. not folded up? Portability is my biggest concern.

 

Guys, why are we talking about coolers here? You really think Dell will pay for your coolers? They don't even want to fix the problem, why would they pay for your coolers.

I have a gift certificate on newegg.com, but i don't want to spend it on coolers. Why should we pay for the mistake that Dell made and refuse to face.

Let's combine our efforts here, and bring more people to this thread and tell their problems. As Dell_Bill said in the throttling thread, his job is to measure the online sentiment around a given issue. In other words, if he or Todd or Brad don't find that this issue is out of control, and will hurt Dell's reputation and sales, no real action will be taken. Therefore, if you are concerned about the heat like I do everyday, please stop talking about buying a cooler here, instead, inform more people about this problem, telling them how we were treated and ignored by Dell and spread the words among online bloggers and media. This is how we got them took action on the CPU throttle issue, and this is the only way we could get them do something about this...

Thanks.

 

Very True I will Start a new thread lets get this back on topic of a way to get Dell if any to fix this vent issue and I will try to address all the the things you asked for in the review

 

There is already a thread started on GPU Throttling for the SXPS 1645 here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=462786

Let's try not to split-off into different groups so simply posting there would be in our best interests (as it is already on its way) and any sort of documentation and/or concerns/questions presented can be addressed or displayed.

 

I begin to understand DELL logic in regards to vent issue. Less than 25% complain = non issue for DELL. Cost of redesigning vent too high so other measures might be put in place -cooling device(s) can be order from DELL free of charge upon request or by users who feel are affected due to overheating. excessive heat=safety issue.

 

any link??

 

What link?

 

They are gonna provide free cooling devices????? How about some DRY ICE COOLING or something???? Cuz without the vent being redesigned i dont see the point of any cooling devices actually cooling the laptop..... it will cool the laptop by 2-5 degrees max.... But if the vent is redesigned then there is no necessity of any cooler!!!

 

So Dell Bill, Todd,

what would you say the level of sentiment around the vent issue is now? In a scale of 1-10, what would you say the urgency of this issue is? What should we do to bring it to 10? (assuming that you are actually on ourside and truly want to help some sad customers who are affected by a poorly designed product.)

 

Arent the heat vent and the gpu throttling the same issue?
Anyway have a look here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6038599#post6038599

 

I was talking of starting a new thread in a different forum regarding an NZXT Cryo LX cooler


and no the heat vent and GPU throttling are 2 seperate issues

 

Yea I get it now
The heat vent is ruining the screen and causing the gpu to throttle.

 

I agree. If the Vent is designed properly, the machine will not be that hot, and the GPU won't reach 84c all the time.

 

anyone has any private talk with Dell guys to see if there is any re-design of the vents taking place?

 

I very seriously doubt they are going to redesign the vent and ship it to anyone, considering the issue effects so few people.

Now, if they would send us an extra vent that is the exact same as the one that is on there, that'd be awesome. I could just fix it myself.

As of right now, I have it sitting on two coke tops and have a desktop fan blowing in the side when playing Metro 2033; it works so far, I haven't come close to 84C.

 

I am sure it affects more than just few people the problem is that most of them don't even know they're affected. Once some of them get injured and DELL gets slapped with legal action hopefully they will get wake up call..... and only then changes to vent would be put in place or XPS 16 will be discontinued.

 

I don't understand how this vents design will injure somebody How many slots do you guys have on the vents 4 or 5

 

So you want to do the mod on the existing vent, and keep a new one for spare if you want to sell the laptop?

What kind of modification you are thinking?

 

Basically, yes. I am not quite sure exactly how I want to modify it; I would have to do some testing and see what would work the best. There is no point in me testing it if I can't get a spare.

Edit: 5 slots.

 

How many slots do you guys have? before you start modding

 

I believe I have 5 open slots, so I am not sure what mods one will do here..

 

Like I have said it before, if you do cover 3 of the slot on the top, and use notepad cooler, you may be able to achieve the same thing without modification.

People think that it will burn up, but I don't see how if you are keep blowing air at the bottom using cooler, and you have two available slot open to remove the excess heat.

My problem is that I have paid so much money for this laptop, and I really don't want to buy the cooler for $75 more, and the noise.

Some says that the Zalman coolers are nice, and virtually quiet, and fits nicely with this laptop.

I am also dealing with Dell for the screen flicker issues, but problem is that I just love the laptop. I would like to return it, and take my money to buy something else or wait till them fix design flow which hinders the performance.

 

Yah I love my laptop as well however what you just said rob is what i have done bought a cooler with the screen bezel actually covering the top slots and temps aren't bad at all no heating problem for me due to me having C2D.

 

Sitting it on bottle caps and using a desktop fan, I see zero overheating. (If you have a 9cell, skip the first part) lol. The temps are actually fantastic, which is what I did for playing Metro 2033. It's just the fact that I paid so much for this laptop only to have to fix the problems myself, kinda pisses me off.

But, if I could get another vent, I would probably block them off and allow it to blow out of the lower 2 and cut out the top so it can blow up as well or something.

 

Although the idea you are suggesting will work fine.... If the three vents are blocked then the hot air inside will take time to get out making the laptop even hotter.... But with the cooler, i think you will have the exact temperature as the laptop with all the vents unblocked without the cooler!!! (a bit confusing, but true as far as logic is concerned)!!!

 

In the long run, who knows what will happen to the monitor??? Permanent yellow near the heat evnt??? And people who have taken only 1 year warranty will be seriously pissed if this happens after it expires...

 

There will be no real improvement in overall system temperature unless DELL put additional slots on the side of the laptop.... and with that being said I doubt DELL will move any components inside to accomplish that It's simply too expensive at this stage.

 

Well, that's what I want to prevent by blocking those 3 vents, so hot air won't be blowing at the bottom of the screen.

I think I will be happy with the Cooler + blocked vent solution if Dell gives everyone 3 year warranty at no cost. I think most people who uses cooler says that temperature will stay below 85 hopefully for GPU after prolong game or 1080P movie experience.

 

Hi Guys, do you think this will work? Im thinking of a vent design something like this.
http://hopeinterior.com/images/illustartion.JPG

 

Wow, that's a nice mock-up. The curvature of the vent seems like it might help naturally direct the hot air upwards towards those upward vents. Though, unless you really have experience with these type of things, it's hard to tell whether the temperatures would increase or decrease. Testing is the easiest way to confirm that, but you'll probably need another vent to mess around with. Or, are you thinking about using your one vent to do this? What would you block the screen-oriented openings of the vent with? The design looks promising though.

 

That is more or less what I was planning on doing, except also allowing it to blow out of the bottom (depending on clearance with 9Cell).

But, I would like to have a non-modified original vent to replace it with in case I decide to sell it or anything like that.

 

Hope DELL could create one for us? and if they say only few were affected with this heat vent issue.. yadah yadah, maybe what they can do is.... "provide when requested by client", in this way they won't be oblige to change the vent of all units(whether sold or still in production)? I'm willing to pay for it as long as cost is reasonable (even though we know whose fault it is)

 

i wont use mine hehe i still have plan of selling it in the long run, ill try to look for a junk 1640 and take it's cover instead, not sure if the older model's design is exactly same with 1645. wish me luck to find one, and hope this works...

 

Pretty Design,

Still won't help with airflow inside the chassis.

Apple has a similar design on their uni-bodies, better heat dissipation.

Ours are like insulated coffee cups.

Need to find a way to cool the air as it exits the machine.

It would be useful if we had photos from a laser thermometer documenting the temps with the lid open versus closed, in idle versus gaming conditions.

I don't see the air blowing on my screen as big a problem as the temperatures inside the case.

Just my two cents worth.

 

Agreed, I left a XPS 1645 under load (A08 + 150W PSU + 920XM) for 20 min and touched the screen/bezel. Actually, I held my hand to it for a minute or two.

Definitely warm to mildly hot, but reports of the XPS RGBLED ready to burst into flames are greatly exaggerated....

Nothing better than seeing the 920xm pull 65w under load.....

 

Btw, you know if using a keyboard protector/cover also hinders the airflow?

 

This looks really good, but will have hard time to get dell customize case for the existing 1645's.

I am in favor of removing the back cover, and redesign to get all of the heat out from the bottom cover rather then the existing vent.

 

Hi Dell Bill and Todd,

I think Dell should feel really proud! Because you are ignoring this problem, we are discussing how to redesign and modify the vent ourselves. This is sooo sad!!!

You think this problem is not serious enough and you can ignore it now, but I am sure in the long run when all 1645 users start to have similar problems due to the heat vent, you will be the one feel sad!

I hope one or some of the online bloggers or sites will talk about this issue soon after receiving emails from us and seeing the discussion here.

Guys, I recommend everyone doing the same thing, report this problem to local websites, bloggers that you know. This is the only way to push a company like Dell to face this problem and redesign the vent for us. I have contacted the following websites,
www.cnet.com; www.pcworld.com; www.laptopadvisor.com; www.digitaltrends.com...I am going to contact youtube bloggers soon. Any other sites you can recommend? All I asked was to have the 1645 with A07 or A08 Bios to run any modern game for 15 minutes, and put your finger between the vent and the screen. Any saine and honest person will find this unreasonable hot.

 

Could you please specify "under load"? If you run any modern game...the heat vent will go nuts. Most areas of the screen will be only warm or even cold, however, the bottom left part of the screen (where the heat vent is) will be burning hot...if you find this "warm to mildly hot", I guess boring water will be quite hot.

 

chichiman,

Whoa!

We can appreciate the frustration.

There are two methods, increase air flow inside the chassis, or decrease the temperature of the exhaust coming out of the machine.

I would suggest changing out your thermal paste and using a cooler.

I know, it sucks; but what we are asking is a major redesign; won't happen, as Todd has already stated that the temps that they are seeing is within their specifications.

If you go complaining to the press, the very people that will respond to the press are the very same people that you are attacking; Bill or Todd.

 

For your info, judging the heat/temp using hand is not very correct. I remember I tried to use a thermal sensor from my DMM, put it near the vent, its recorded around 60+C, even the GPU/CPU is around 70-80C from readTemp. And my guess is when it reach the LCD, it would be 50 or less. While our body is around 37C, but you will felt it is very hot, because your skin temp maybe is 29C or less.

But prolong hot air blow into the LCD may have negative effect, I think that is why Bill / Todd is trying to gather the evidence , if they get it and pass it to the production/engineer team, I think we may receive a fix from Dell soon enough.

I hope the plastic (is it plastic, it felt like plastic) of the LCD screen (the screen is glass??) can handle the heat, just like the car's heatlamp cover, its plastic, but it will not de-coloured or become yellow after years of sunlight shinning on it.

Maybe Bill can explain the material uses in the LCD transparent cover, that may comfort some of the users (like me).

 

i agree with susuman, if DELL can only confirm the material used and that it won't destroy the LCD even after my warranty period... for me it's a "case closed"!

 

OR to end this once and for all, if DELL can just assure they will cover the LCD damage (due to heat vent) even way pass my warranty period. This will be a "case closed" for me!

 

Instead of redirecting the heat like that.... Wouldn't it be better if the fan was changed so that the airflow direction is upwards instead of direclty hitting the blocked region????? In that case if the outlfow is good then the heat dissipation will be much much better and with a cooler this will be under the GPU temperature limit.....

Just my two rupees!!!

 

I think that's better, but still... i think DELL would not like the idea... as additional fan would be needed (additional expense to them) or changing something inside the unit will be quite troublesome to them, plus dont forget they need to replace the vent cover (additional expense again).

 

They will have to change the vent part as a whole part so that the modification is easy.... And also they can keep this issue as a "CALL TO GET FIXED" issue ......

So the people who are not gamers or high end users and who are quite happy with this laptop can keep the stock vents but on the other hand the guys who are gamers and high end users can get it by making a call...

 

For Dell, probably the easiest way to fix the issue on newer models is just redesign the hinge to lift the screen higher up when opened or farther away from the vent.

Redesigning the entire thermal design would be a pretty difficult job and would require a LOT of changes in the assembly of these laptops.

 

I actually like that idea quite a bit. I would say they have the real-estate to do it (space). The biggest problem I would foresee though is the structure itself wouldn't entirely cover the lower portion of the model. The other problem I see is in order to fix the first problem it would take a major redesign of the entire machine. ::wacko Really I don't see much of a fix anyway you go except doing a complete overhaul. I suppose that the only option then would be to not sell the RGBLED (as it seems to be effected whereas the WLED doesn't) and offer customers either (1) A screen replacement + equivalent component upgrade for their loss of the RGB or (2) a complete reimbursement. Still I'm not entirely sure the heat is what is causing the RGBLED's to go bad, maybe aggravating the condition, but I wouldn't know for sure. I don't really think DELL will act on this issue unless they really see it as a more widespread problem. That's my "two cents" as the saying goes.

 

i have a WLED, and the screen really gets pretty hot after 20mins of play. perhaps other people just don't knew about it or notice it. or maybe they dont use demanding applications but still if all users will use application with demanding resource, i believe they will also feel the issue.

 

Like I said, I'm not worried.

I've felt much hotter on laptop chassis before. I've left laptops closed before that didn't sleep properly and when opened the next morning the entire screen was blazing hot (much hotter than the air blowing on the RGBLED) numerous times for hours on end and no problems.

With the reports here, I fully expected to leave my system running under load with a 920XM and touch the screen and snatch it away going, "Whoa, that's hot!" It wasn't even uncomfortably warm let alone hot. Mind you this is with a 920XM sitting at 65w and the GPU in the mid to high 70's.

Way too much FUD.....