my 8600m gt is thermally failing....

my m1530's 8600m gt is now idling between 69-73 degrees celsius, as opposed to the 58-65 it did when it was new. also, in-game temps are now well into the 90's. will be calling dell support this afternoon to have them set up a tech to come out and replace it.

 

Sounds like the heatsink somehow went loose or something. Do you move the it around much?

 

its sat on my desk for the past 2 weeks. also, i just received a weird beep from the laptop's internals. strange....

 

two words.. call dell...

 

Definitely call them and get it fixed ASAP.

 

I had the same problem. The heatsink grease had completely dried up. I removed the heatsink, applied some good grease, and the problem was solved. If you don't have experience with this kind of thing, then do as pchan said.

 

Same as above - the thermal paste on mine had completely dried. Replaced it with some arctic silver and blew the dust out of the fan and its as good as new :]

 

i'm relatively experienced with modding a pc's internals, but i'm a little apprehensive to void the warranty on this one.... how difficult is the 1530 to open up and have the heatsink removed?

 

It's really not that difficult. I think that the only thing you want to watch for is the blue thermal pad over the northbridge chip (the chip located at bottom left side heat pipe). What I did was just run 3dmark once to get the temps up, and I think it helps to separate the thermal pad from the chip since it gets heated up. As far as screws to remove, just 7 of them. After screws are removed just wiggle the heatpipe a little and it should come right off.

I wouldn't worry about warranty. As long as you don't ruin that thermal pad, no one has to know that you did anything. The only person that will see the board is the tech that comes to replace it if your efforts should not solve your problem. They likely either won't even notice, or won't care. They will probably just do what they came to do.

Just do as you normally would and remove that crud that Dell thinks is heatsink paste with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol. Be sure to clean it well. Be careful around the tiny capacitors surrounding the chip. Then apply a very small amount of new heatsink grease to the top of the CPU and GPU but just leave the thermal pad the way that it is for the northbridge. If you have experience with this stuff then you already know that too much paste will have an insulating effect. DO NOT get any grease on the areas with resistors/capacitors.

When you see the globs of Dell stock paste stuck to the sides of your chips, and then notice that the paste is completely dried up and cracked on top of the chip, it will be no mystery to you as to why your temps are high.

 

awesome post. thanks for your help. i took a look at the heatpipe setup and it seems pretty straightforward. i'm gonna go ahead and order some arctic silver tonight.... thanks again.

 

No problem. You might want to record your max temps while running 3dmark or something. A 'before and after' will give you numbers to go by so that you know your effort reduced the temps.

Also, when you are done with the mod and have recorded your data, then go for the undervolt. Undervolting should buy you another reduction in temps, higher 3dmark scores, and a little more battery time.