m1530 temps at 90, should I call dell?

I always knew my comp ran hot, but not until I got HWMonitor today did I know how hot. I did a load test and CPU/GPU and ACPI temps went to 90. CPU and ACPI temps would drop to 65 ish after this, but the GPU stays kind of high in the 78-85 range. (Anyone know why this is happening?)

Also, when playing games, my temps are almost all at 87-90 all the time. I thought it might be my bios (A12), so I switched back to A09. This did not change anything.

Basically my question is, should I be calling dell support to take a look, and what do I tell them? I've never had computer warranty before. Or is there something else I can do to fix this? It's very hot to type on and sit on my lap.

A last question, these temps are being measured currently with the laptop on my desk, with the lid closed and an external monitor/keyboard/mouse plugged in. Is this causing increased temps? Should I be leaving the lid open?

 

Make sure that you are not covering any of the vents near the top left corner of the system. There is an intake on the bottom of that corner, and outtake on the back. Which games are you playing?

Normal Idle Temperatures are 51-69.
85 is higher than average, though keep in mind the 8600GT can handle temperatures 90-95 degrees.

A12 bios is the better one for cooling, but seriously, if damage is done, no bios upgrade will help just because the bios upgrade simply makes the fans kick up when you start up to lessen the sudden expansion of heat.

Typically Dell has 1 year warranty, you can call Dell to take a look at it as those temperatures are a little high. Though keep in mind if any action is taken, they will probably replace the motherboard with a refurb, but it doesn't matter much as long as it runs at lower temps.

 

How long have you had the laptop? I had temps like that until I had my motherboard replaced. Apparently there was a revision in August which lowered the temps somewhat. Now, after undervolting my CPU my laptop runs pretty cool.. I'm also gonna be applying arctic silver in a couple days. These two things I recommend everyone do.

 

My idle temps are around 50 or so. I don't have any vents covered, I have the 9 cell battery which lifts the system off the desk a bit. There is a surround speaker (for my TV) behind the laptop about 2 inches from the outtake vent. I wonder if this is making a difference?

I downgraded the bios because I read another threat that A09 turned the fans on earlier and that it might help. But with both bioses the temps would climb to 90 and then drop, then start climbing again.

I'm playing world of warcraft btw. But the same thing happens when using ORTHOS and RTHDRIBL to load the comp. Temps climb to 90 then drop and reclimb.

I have a 4 year warranty on mine, so that's not an issue. Not sure what's going on though.

 

I personally do not use Arctic Silver, though I did get my laptop in August so good temps are achievable without the use of Arctic Silver. If the temps get too hot, the laptop will automatically shut off. I would say best is to take care of the problem sooner than later.

If you just playing world of warcraft, your temperatures should be 79-81 tops... unless you leave your computer on 24/7 or something maybe. Definitely should try to get mobo replaced.

 

I got it in July. This may help then. What is this undervolting I keep hearing about? Does it make the computer run slower at the cost of lower temps? Or does it not change the performance?

I have arctic silver I used for my desktop, how hard is it to apply? I don't want to void my warranty either.

 

Yes but also keep in mind that if you run past 85c the GPU will frequently downclock and performance will be terrible. You can count on this.
Nvidia posts those temps in the 90's in their specs, but what they do not tell you is that downclocking is inevitable.

You most likely have an issue that is very common, and something that myself and some others have discussed in great detail (I'll try to find that thread).

The short story is that every one of us pulled the heatsink, cleaned off the crud that Dell puts on the chips, and reapplied thermal compound and reassembled. The result was that everyone experienced dramatic drop in temps and never saw downclocking again. My results were as follows:

Before thermal compound replacement:
CPU low:55c high:88c
GPU low:65c high:94c

After thermal compound replacement:
CPU low:45c high:67c
GPU low:55c hight:77c

Note: I used undervolting as well to achieve those temps.

After doing this mod, not only will you have perfectly stable operation, but your 3DMark scores will go up as well.

Note: bios A09 is unique to all other bios revisions because the fans turn on 5c earlier and greatly help to keep down temps. Overwhelmingly, everyone who has tried the other revisions report that A09 runs coolest. If you want to test this for yourself be sure not to change anything else other than the bios or results of temp measuring will be skewed. After recording your temps then move on to other means of reducing temps.

Disclaimer: This is all true as long as there is no other problem (IE - warped heatplates, dust in system, fan malfunction, etc.) If there is poor contact of the heat plates where they touch the chips this is devastating to the chips and must be corrected.

 

Ok I will call them tomorrow or Monday. I don't leave it on 24/7, I put it in sleep or whatever that low power thing is whenever I'm away. It also goes into sleep/shutdown after 1 hour of idle. The temps will climb from 50-60 to 90 within a few minutes of running the load tests. WoW gets them up to about 86-87, but I haven't run the temp monitoring during a high stress environment yet, just around cities.

 

Undervolting is simply lowering the amount of power going into a component of your CPU.

Take a processor for example. Since there are different processors and different voltages, say for example. Three different processors consume 1.1V, 1.5V, 1.4V. Manufacturers dont want to deal with setting the power unique to each processor so they automatically set the amount of power going to the processor at 2V, so that they don't have to worry about it unless a processor consumes more than 2V.

It does NOT make the computer run slower, it does NOT make the computer run faster. It lowers the amount of power going to it. It DOES help with the battery life slightly, and lowers the heat only marginally because less power to being transmitted to it. Though with the temps your having being well above the norm... its just like having a bandaid when your system could otherwise be normal with or without undervolting.

 

No it does not. It actually enhances your performance because, especially while gaming, there is extra power available from your AC adapter and the video card can utilize it so that it doesn't choke under full load. The greates advantage is however temp reduction.

You will see no decrease in CPU performance from undervolting. What is happening here is Intel has introduced the acceptable voltage range for several series of CPU's. For the sake of compatibility across all revisions, the specified voltage is a little higher than it should be during all C states. A modest reduction of say 150 milivolts at the highest C state will get you around 8 or 9c in temp reduction.

 

I'm laughing to see that Forte and I said basically the same info.

 

Epic fast replies! How do I go about this undervolting? And what should I set the voltage to?

 

Here is a really good undervolting guide.

Thing is, I've become obsessed with lowering temperatures after getting such a crappy deal on my laptop for the past year. I had no idea about undervolting and thermal paste, but your laptop will run like a dream if you take out the time to do it.

Also, the cooler your laptop runs, the more potential there is to overclock, and therefore more FPS in games. It's well worth it to cool your laptop as much as possible (take a look at cooling central). Also a good guideline is 70 on the CPU and 80 on the GPU max. You can go over a little if you're overclocking, but never anywhere near 90.

 

Useful threads:

Guide to Undervolting:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

General Undervolting Temps for M1530 (for how low you may be able to go):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=267405

 

This is so true. It's like getting a new machine. And Paperkut has suggested good limits for temps.

For CPU the roof should be around 70c, and for the GPU the roof should be around 80c.

 

One more thing no one has addressed, although probably minor. Is it ok to be running with the lid closed all the time (external monitor etc)? Temps go to 90 under load tests regardless, but I havent tested this out in WoW to see if I get lower temps.

 

Leaving your system on with lid closed does increase heat, because your display DOES generate heat. Having it closed just increases the amount of heat that is going towards your system making less air circulation that is not good. Sure you can do it, but it is best to leave lid open or hibernate your computer if you feel its too much of a hassle shutting it down.

 

If you ever decide to throw on arctic silver, here is a guide specific for the m1530. Also, when you're applying it, make sure to spread it out using something like a credit card (like shown here). The "grain of rice" method isn't advised. If you don't do it properly you'll end up screwing yourself moreso than you already are.. not to say applying thermal paste is a hard job, it just needs to be done properly.

 

Yeah, I'm going to second that. Bad things can happen if that compound is too thick and spills over the sides of the chips.

The closed lid will affect temps.

And to go along with the undervolting guide, this may be useful.

For my T5800

6.0x 1.050 volts
7.0x 1.062 volts
8.0x 1.075 volts
9.0x 1.087 volts
10.0x 1.100 volts

In my case here I reduced the high C state voltage from default of 1.250 volts to 1.100 volts. I lowered my CPU high temp by 8 or 9c.

I am perfectly stable with those numbers, but you may be able to go even lower.

 

Ok I'm going to do the undervolting thing here in a minute. I have a T9300 and I haven't seen anybodies voltages on that yet so we will see where it goes I guess.

I know all about the credit card/razor blade method of thermal application I have been doing it a lot on the desktop (a whole nother long story).

As for the lid being closed, I have it closed when the computer is on and I am using it. Sorry if this wasn't clear. I have an external monitor and mouse/keyboard. I don't leave the display active on the laptop screen, only on my external monitor when used in this fashion. I usually shut it down or hibernate it when I'm not using it, though. I will probably leave the lid propped open from now on.

 

On a side note, can I undervolt my old gateway laptop so it doesn't run so hot? Or are only some comps undervoltable? The stupid AC adapter on that thing melted itself once already.

 

This is a notice for all those that may attempt the thermal compound mod.

You don't have to worry about voiding your warranty as long as you don't damage anything in the process. Even if you do, you may be able to talk your way out of it. What it comes down to is that the only person who will see your handy work will be the tech that comes to replace your board if you fail. They will most likely not care, and just do what they are paid to do. You would really have to end up with a jerk if they would report you to Dell.

Guidelines:

1. Clean all of the existing compound with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swab. Do not leave any old compound.

2. Be very careful around the tiny capacitors and resistors surrounding the chips. If you snap one of those off you're in deep.

3. Do not allow any thermal compound to touch those resistors and capacitors surrounding the chips.

4. On the M1530, be very careful not to damage the blue thermal pad which sits on top of the north bridge chip. You will be leaving that as it is.

5. On the M1530 there are 7 screws. Remove them, and just lightly wiggle the heat pipe/heatsink assembly and it should come right off.

6. As for the blue thermal pad, I believe it comes off easy if you run 3dmark or whatever, and get the temps up. Then remove the heat sink. I did that myself and I think the heat helps to separate that blue pad from the northbridge chip.

7. If you destroy the blue thermal pad, once again it spells trouble. You need it because the north bridge sits slightly lower than the GPU and CPU. Therfore the pad is needed to take up that space. If you ruin it, then you have to get another heatsink with one of those pads already on it. Your only other option is to cut a copper shim. May the force be with you if you go the shim route.

Edit: english724 brought up a good point in a PM with me. Clarification: When I speak about the blue pad, one of two things must occur during heatsink removal.

1. The pad sticks to the heat plate of the heat pipe assembly.
2. The pad sticks to the north bridge chip.

Most likely it will stick to the heatsink assembly. The only important thing is that you do not hurt the blue pad.
I suspect that it may be easy to tear that pad if you are not careful. Mine stayed perfectly intact, so just have a light touch and all should be well.

 

ALL computers are undervoltable. So yes, you can undervolt your old gateway laptop to lessen the heat. All laptops are undervoltable both new and old.

 

So I just did a massive undervolt. I have the T9300. Ran at 0.9625 at 12x for 40 mins with no errors on orthos. I set it to 0.9750 just to be safe though. Final settings:

Super LFM 6x: 0.9500
6x: 0.9500
7x: 0.9500
8x: 0.9625
9x: 0.9625
10x: 0.9625
11x: 0.9750
12x: 0.9750
IDA 13x: disabled

After an ORTHOS only 8 min temp test:

ACPI max 75
CPU max 71
GPU max 75

After an ORTHOS and RTHDRIBL test (CPU and GPU loading):

ACPI 82
CPU 79
GPU 83

Quite an improvement from 90s across the board. GPU is at 75 right now playing WoW (down from 86).

 

Nice 12x voltage there. Your temps have certainly dropped, but there's still room for improvement. Get a new mobo, apply thermal paste and possibly invest in a cooler for massive drops

 

Is it strange that it is so low with room to go possibly lower? One question about this though.

Usually I was running orthos and RTHDRIBL to do CPU and GPU loading at the same time to test temps. When I did this, the temps were as listed above. However, ORTHOS started running slow and became unresponsive for 5-10 seconds at atime, followed by 2-3 seconds of normal operation in which the time would tick by fine and the GO would light up like usual, then it would go unresponsive again (no time would tick, no GO would light up). After 5-10 more seconds it would catch up and add the time again.

When I set my voltages back to default 1.13725, this stopped happening (but temps jumped of course). No other programs were seemingly running slow at this point. Also, it ONLY did this when running RTHDRIBL at the same time to push the GPU. Orthos was fine if rthdribl was not running. Any ideas?

EDIT: Also, should I replace the mobo AND do the thermal grease, or just the thermal? Also, do you think if I call dell out here and he replaces the mobo, I can convince him to put on my arctic silver?

 

ORTHOS alone really stresses the CPU but I guess using it in conjunction with RTHDRIBL really pushes the cores to 100%. I suggest you leave it at your undervolted levels, it's not like you'll be stressing your cpu so hard like that for extended periods of time. If you do see some instability (or any BSOD) with your day-to-day stuff then push your max multiplier up one notch.

 

Only thing I had was while playing WoW, I would get a fatal error and it would shut down. It happened twice in a row in the same area. I restarted to see if this fixed it (because this kind of thing happened some times before doing any undervolting anyway) and will see if it still happens. If it does I will push up the volts some.

I ran 3dMark05 and got these results:

3DMark Score
8520 3DMarks
CPU Score
12548 CPUMarks

 

That 3Dmark 2005 score is good. It's right in the ball park with mine at default settings (anything between 8100 and 8700 is typical with these machines). They vary a bit depending on what driver you are using.

Just do the things that we talked about and your stability will return. Myself, paperkut and all of the countless others know the rewards of cleaning everything and reapplying thermal compound. It will act like a new machine.

When you remove the heatsink you will see exactly what all of us saw - melted thermal pads all over the sides of your chips with nothing but air pockets on top of the chips along with burn marks resulting from lack of thermal transfer (I am fairly certain they are pads).

Whatever they are, they have a ridiculously high failure rate. I have a new heatsink, and see what everything looks like before assembly and heat up. They look like pads. Assuming that's what they are, there is no mystery as to why these units have such heat problems. Nothing can replace good thermal compound.

 

Undervolting probably is a good idea - I'd leave it enabled so long as it doesn't cause errors (obviously you can't if it prevents you from playing your favorite games). But, even if you can't undervolt, I wouldn't actually go any further than that. 90C is still well within specs for the Core 2 processors, and 85 is for the 8600M GT as well. Lower will be better, especially for the GPU (since it has a heat-intolerant defect as all 8xxx nVIDIA GPU's do), but even at 90C you should be fine, especially for the CPU. That is assuming your environment is at least as warm as average (not 90C playing in a refrigerator).

Your 11C CPU decrease from 90C to 79C is similar to what I got (though I started out in the high 80's). My guess is the WoW error is with the program itself, especially if it was happening sometimes beforehand. The GPU's a bit hot still, but I'm not expert in XPS 1530 temps - I have the Inspiron 1520 and its slower RAM may be helping keep my temps lower.

The bottom line is, even 90C temps shouldn't cause any harm, and messing something up applying thermal paste or replacing the motherboard will void your warranty. If it were noticeably causing problems and your warranty were up I'd say go for it, but with 3.5 years left on the warranty I certainly would not go to hardware modifications.

The one other thing you could do is modify the GPU BIOS to undervolt it, thus lowering its temperature, but that's much more risky than CPU undervolting (which gives a black or blue screen at worst), so I wouldn't recommend that either.

That's actually a ridiculously good undervoltage on the maximum-frequency end. The 9xxx series doesn't go as low as my T7500 on the lower-frequency mode, but in terms of heat conservation you can't really beat what you've got. And 40 minutes should be plenty - when I hit the lower limit I got an automatic restart in less than five seconds, and one step above that has still not crashed after a couple months.

 

I replaced the thermal paste in my XPS M1530 with AC5, and have just done some undervolting (T8300 - 12x down to 1.075v) - pretty impressed with the results, idle temperatures are about 27C and an hour under load from ORTHOS gave me a high of 53C.

 

joeytav, those temps are friggin awsome!

Yes, that is within specs but what Nvidia is not telling you is that downclocking is inevitable at this temp range. You cannot have good performance past 85c.

Some notebook manufacturers (won't say any names) have unscrupulously disabled the downclocking set point of the 8600M GT and set it higher than it should be. This is just passing the buck and it will equal a short life span for the chip. Rather than fix their inferior cooling systems, notebook OEM's are running these chips hot.

There is only one real solution - fix the cooling system. All of us that have done this thermal compound mod have GPU's that never pass 80 even while punishing the GPU for hours. We also don't have any downclocking and thus our games do not stutter. So there you have it. Your goal should be 80c or less on the GPU for solid performance.

Like you said, as long as you don't mess something up, it does not void your warranty. I spoke to a tech about this. They don't really care if you do this mod and they are the only ones that will see the internals (when they come to replace your board). They know that the stock heatsink compound (or thermal pads) are faulty. You're just doing what they would do anyway - replace the thermal compound. As long as you don't physically damage anything on the board during your compound replacement, then you're good.

This procedure is not for people with heavy hands. There are countless warnings on these boards stating that only people with experience (building or repairing PC's) should attempt this.

 

I believe that the reason that people report success after a board replacement is because the tech uses thermal compound upon reassembly. I have seen a brand new heatsink and I would swear that they use preinstalled thermal pads. That would explain the ridiculous failure rate.

These pads melt and end up on the sides of the chips. After doing the compound mod I conclude that the only thing wrong with these M1530's is the bond between the chips and the heat plates of the heat pipe assembly.

Chances are you are probably actually going to get a board that is older than the one you already have, if you opt for board replacement. I was going to have my board replaced. The tech showed up, we talked a bit, and then when I looked at the board it was revision 1. It was older than what I had. I was confident that I could fix this problem myself so after discussing things with the tech I declined the procedure.

I'm glad that I didn't go through with it. My machine is still brand new, I fixed the faulty compound, and It runs like a champion, even overclocked. CPU never passes 68c and GPU never passes 77c.

 

Alright, I did it! I replaced the thermal compound on the CPU/GPU with AS 5. There were little what looked like silver pads that were stuck on and took some working to get off the heatsink and they didn't look like they sit right. Just for confirmation, I don't put any AS 5 on the blue pad right?

Well I ran the tests after doing this, and here are my new results:

Idle
-CPU: 45
-GPU: 62
-HDD: 44

CPU/GPU stress load at 0.9875 V
-CPU: 71
-GPU: 82
-HDD: 41

Load at Default 1.1375 V (was going to 90 then getting underclocked before)
-CPU: 78
-GPU: 85
-HDD: 37

3D Mark Score: 8490
CPU Mark Score: 12497

Much an improvement in temps for sure! The GPU is still a little higher than I would like, however. When I first started it up, I ran it for 5 mins at 1.000 V and got CPU 66, GPU 77 and it seemed to level off, then I ran up the temps some with the voltage to default, let it cool to idle and then I ran it at 0.9875 V. Then the temps went higher than this to what is listed above (CPU 71, GPU 82). Is this because I needed to give it more time? Any suggestions on why the GPU is still kind of hot?

Thanks for all the help everyone!

 

through undervolting, cleaning the fan assembly, and replacing the thermal paste with ocz freeze, i got a massive, massive decrease in both cpu and gpu temps. my gpu temps are now below 80c, despite being overclocked to 700/950!


edit: i noticed you said you used arctic silver..... i believe it needs a proper "break in" time of 200 hours before it reaches optimal operating temps. just as a reference, on stock clock speeds, my gpu temps under load, were in the low 70's with the new thermal paste and an undervolted cpu.

 

Nice job guys! Together we are collectively proving that Dell has a problem with not using reasonable quality thermal paste. The results speak for themselves.

We are also proving that Intel's one-size-fits-all approach to CPU voltage is also a mistake and a big factor in this heat issue. Undervolting is getting all of us CPU temps that are 7c to 10c cooler.

stepintoliquid, those are awesome results. You have achieved the below 80c threshold. And you also have an insane overclock!

english724, your results are equally impressive. You are staying below 82c on the GPU. I do have a question though - what bios revision are you using? If it's A09 then you already have the best version. A09 beats all the other bios revisions in heat control. If you are not using A09 I suggest that you do and then see what the max temps are on the GPU. Otherwise, I would say that you have reached your goal. You should be stable now.

As for the 'break in time' that step is referring to, that's true. You will see the max temps drop another couple of degrees C after a little time.

 

Hi, my temp are alot more higher than your, most problably my xps it's about to melt ^_^

Core idle/max 57/92
Core idle/max 57/97

GPU idle/max 65/97

after 2 hour of wow

Most probably is better if i call dell tomorrow

 

I am at A12. I tried A09 before doing these mods but it was heating to 90 regardless so I switched back to A12. I will see how things go with the break in and potentially try A09.

Hmm your temps are scary high. I would suggest going through the steps I did, undervolting first then reapplying thermal paste.

however, you may want to call dell and get things replaced because some of your components MAY have been damaged with temps that high, depending on how high it has gotten for how long in the past.

 

Whoever asked about the blue thermal pad; you either leave it alone or replace it for some copper and AS5.

I opted for the latter, and it works just fine!

 

I'm going to second this. As english724 says those are scary high temps and there is always a chance of components being weakened when you are approaching 100c (remember this equals 212f, you're boiling at this point).

And yes, if you feel that this thermal compound mod is beyond your capabilities then you should call Dell and have a tech do this for you.

 

joeytav, are you saying that you did the copper mod for the northbridge?!

If you did that's totally awesome! Maybe this is part of the reason why your temps are so excellent.

 

Copper Mod is for M1330 if I recall correctly unless there is a new one out for M1530.

 

I think it was *needed* for the 1330 since the cooling system was completely FUBAR out of the box. It isn't needed on the 1530 but it'll still probably shave off a couple degrees

 

The insides of the M1530 are laid out differently than the 1330, so you can't just follow a 1330 tutorial to get the same effect for the M1530 just because there is already plenty of room for air to circulate and with the bigger form factor, it already allows them to position things in the system in better places.

Thats why in the M1330, little do people know, after long term use, there is goo that just oozes around the insides because the cooling was kinda poorly designed that heat generated melts the goo causing it to go random places.

 

OK, let's clarify. 'Copper Mod' does not only mean that you did a copper modification on just M1330's. It can also apply to any computer that you modify it's cooling system with copper.

That said, what we are talking about is the fact that the northbridge chip sits slightly lower than the GPU and CPU in the M1530. This is why we are telling everyone that wants to do the thermal compound mod and their machine to be careful and not ruin the blue thermal pad because it takes up the space between the north bridge chip and it's heat plate.

I want to know if joeytav meant that he removed the blue pad and used a copper shim - thus has he done a 'copper mod' on his northbridge chip?

His temps are abnormally low. All of us that have done the thermal compound mod on our M1530's have defeated the heat problems that plague this unit. However joeytav may have stumbled accross yet another way to reduce heat. His copper mod may be more powerful than any of us had imagined.

Hey joeytav, you out there?

 

joeytav I read your last post again and from what you said it looks like you did use a copper shim.

Do you know the thickness of your shim? That would be most helpful because now that you have tried this, I am going to.

I was wondering about the effects of using a shim to replace that pad early on
but it was my assumption that the gains would be minimal. But after seeing your temps I definitely want to try now.

 

Hey,

When I replaced my stock thermal stuff for AS5, I also added a copper shim between the north bridge and heatsink as I tore the thick blue pad by accident. I couldn't tell you what size copper I used, I just found it lying around in the lab that I work at, but I just cut it down to size with some clippers and put AS5 on both the north bridge and the heatsink, and sandwiched the copper between them.

To be honest, I'm dubious as to whether or not a shim is required; The heatsink assembly is angled so that there is contact between the north bridge and heatsink without the need for the blue pad (tested this using some blu-tak, incredibly high tech). I just put it in for good measure :]

 

ok i called dell this morning, they told me that temp till 95 are totally normal o-o, but tomorrow they change my mainboard... ?_?

 

Temperatures until 95 might be totally normal, but surely that just indicates that bad cooling exists across the whole range

I'm on a train just now with my laptop on my knee, running Ableton Live and a hefty amount of drum samples and its still only 35C for my CPU temperature.

 

I did the copped mod on the 1530. I've since removed it - I found that better application of thermal compound is more important than a piece of copper. Although with that said I'm going to do the mod again soon