XPS M1530 Possible Temperature Issue - Some Advice Please

Hi,

I have had my XPS M1530 for about 13 months now, never had a problem with it so far, however I am getting a little worried about some of the temperatures over the past few days.

I have been playing Fallout 3 and Anno 1404 a fair amount for the past week or two everything seems good, however my temperatures seem to be getting a fair bit higher than they were a couple of months back (May-ish) when I last spent a good amount of time looking at temperatures.

For example I played Anno1404 for about 3 hours on Saturday followed by 4 hours of Fallout 3 and the CPUs got to the high 80s and the GPU touched 95C! THM_ (from HWMonitor) hit 100C!

Now obviously I'm a little worried, it was pretty warm when I was playing (25C), but the thing that baffles me the most is that this has only been happening over the past week or so, before then my CPU rarely broke 80C and the GPU 85C. There also seems to be a loudish 'click' from the HDD when I turn off the laptop when it has been on for a fair while, again, this has only happened over the past few days.

So, any advice? Should I call Dell and try and get them to replace parts?

Thanks,

 

THM_ in HWMonitor is the Intel Chipset on your motherboard.

As you are more than likely aware, there is a known issue with the GPUs with a few of the Dell portables, the M1530 being one of them. I'm not saying that this is the cause, however I would be concerned with it - especially hitting 95c and 100c. I know the 1530 runs hot, but this seems a bit high.

Ultimately its your call as to whether or not you want to consult with XPS Support. Personally, if it were me - I would. They will end up replacing your motherboard and possibly your HDD. If you don't feel comfortable with it, give them a call. You only have a warranty for so long.

 

Thanks,

I'm going to blast my fans with compressed air later and see if that makes much of a difference. Then give it a stress test as described on another thread on this forum where people have posted many temperatures of M1530. Then I'll just play on it like normal and see what happens.

I was thinking about changing the thermal paste, but that kind of thing always worries me, I always think i'll break something!

If no changes I guess I should call Dell to come and replace the motherboard.

Any other suggestions?

 

When you give it a compressed air blast, try to lock the fan blades in place with a paperclip or sewing needle. This will prevent the fans from spinning at an unsafe RPM. Better to be safe

 

Yes I will remember to do that thankyou!

 

Time for new thermal paste! I had to replace mine close to one year of use.

 

I blasted it out with compressed air, however it put a load of white stuff all over it, just ice i guess, I let that warm up and dabbed away the obvious wet patches.

Fired up my laptop and did a set of tests as show in this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=337401&highlight=m1530+temperature and my temperatures seemed alright compared to the others.

So I played Fallout 3 for about 2 hours and none of my temperatures broke 90C, which seems fine to me (i'll post my temperatures later which I find the file I saved them in!). However I don't believe that just cleaning out the vent would have made so much of a difference as I didn't see much crap come out the vent when a blasted it.

I'm tempted by the replacement of the thermal paste, however the guide for it still left me with plenty of questions and I don't want to break anything!

 

Not sure if you have this already - but if you don't, grab it. Its a comprehensive manual on your M1530.

LINK

 

Thanks very much, I didn't have that manual before.

Just a side note, but if you remove the cooling assembly can you put it back together without adding new a new thermal compound? I seem to remember when taking to someone about that years ago on another computer that if you remove a heatsink that you need to put new thermal compound on it because the 'seal' is now broken.

 

Well I did a few tests and these are my results after cleaning the fan:

IDLE (Min/Max)
THM_ 41/55
CPU 39/60
GPU 56/68
HDD 36/37

LOAD (ORTHOS and RTMDRBL(sp?))
THM_ 69/76
CPU 68/75
GPU 73/78
HDD 38/38

LOAD (Fallout 3 for about 2 Hours)
THM_ 43/85
CPU 42/79
GPU 59/83
HDD 41/44

What do people think about those temperatures (bare in mind I've has this laptop since 01-Jul-08), should I still get Dell to replace the board? I've not had any problems <touches wood> with system stability or speed.

Thanks

 

Kinda high on load for fallout 3. When I play L4D my gpu doesn't go over 80/81. Your cpu is high.

 

But are they high enough for Dell to replace the board?

I'm thinking I should leave it for a while, but then I might have the problem that Dell might not have any parts for my laptop as they don't seem to sell the 8600GT version anymore, only the 8400GS for the M1530

 

Also, does anybodies HDD make a rather audiable 'click' when you turn off the laptop, mine does sometimes, but only over the past few weeks.

I haven't noticed any HDD issues, but then the sound seemed to start after I half did a defrag the other day, first one I have done in months, even though Vista said it didn't need doing. I didn't finish it because I needed to turn it off and I had no idea how close it was to being finished since Vistas defrag doesn't give any feedback!

Thanks