Worrying Temperatures(85C/185F)

I have a dell inspiron 9400 with a T2500 and a 7900 gs with stock clock speeds. Recently, I was playing NFS:Carbon and the game crashed after an hour of gameplay. I rebooted and started to check the temperatures and after only 10 minutes of gameplay, the temperature reading was peaking out at 85 degrees celsius / 185 degrees fahrenheit.I have not encountered any problems of this sort previously when I was playing Oblivion,Americas Army, and other games.

I am very worried about overheating my graphics card and I would like to know if this is normal and what should I do?

 

If that is the temperature of the graphics card, then there is no need to be worried. 85 C is quite within the graphics cards tolrance levels. It can handle 100 C, before any physical damage can occur. However, if the game did freeze/crash, then you may want to do something about it. It is likely that the thermal interface isn't very good, and replacing that is the best thing to do. But, if you do it, then you will void your warranty. Instead, you may want to consider purchasing a notebook cooler, or having a look at the Cooling Guide. Hope this helps.

 

or call dell

 

It is the graphics card temperature reading and while it is within the tolerance levels, is this normal with an ambient room temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius

 

Yes, if you are in a room that is about 30 C, then that does contribute to the overall temperature of the notebook. If it was something like 25 C, then the temperature would probably be that 5 C less. I wouldn't worry about the temperature unless it was causing serious instability in games. If it only crashes in one game, I would wonder if there may be somehing wrong with the game. Also, in the games that don't crash, check what there temperature is. If they do reach 85 C, and it doesn't crash, then that suggests that it is something wrong with the other game.

 

I'd check for any patches to the game, or possible driver updates to help prevent crashes, the temps seem normal for that amount of usage, you can also use i8kfangui to help lower the temps by forcing the fans to high before it gets very hot

 

Like the others have said, it is highly recommended to use i8kfangui to control the fans to help keep it cool. However, you may also want to try to clean the fans as well because they may have gathered up quite a significant amount of dust...

 

I'm having the same problem with my i9400 w/ 7900gs, freezes within minutes of playing black and white 2 on mediocre video settings. I've updated all drivers and such, even had dell replace my mobo...same stuff.