new laptop 9200M gs Question

hey there guys!

a couple of weeks ago i was here asking if i could upgrade the cpu on a dell latitude d610, well i managed to sell that note for 200€ and got myself a compaq cq60-215ep Link for the same price...pretty nifty deal i must say

but as soon as i connected the note, the temps where at 83ºc idle and on load it passed 110ºc and shut itself down...

i took it apart and it had a bed of dust on the heatsink, i cleaned the heatsink and now it idles at 45-55

but on load it still goes as high as 100ºc ?!?

im using speedfan and stock clocks core-500mhz shader-1000mhz memory-400mhz

is that temp normal for this gpu?

thanks

 

do you guys think it can be because of insufficient heat dissipation?

i took some photos to the board and heat-sink when i took the lap apart.

take a look at it and please tell me what you guys think.







so, what do you guys think? i it enough??

thanks

 

Did you clean the chips and reapply thermal paste on them?
Check the heat sink itself, make sure the heat pipe is properly welded to the heat exhaust.
When you screw everything back to the motherboard, make sure you screw the screws real tight, make sure the heat sink contacts the chips with no gaps between them.

Try different graphics card drivers, either off nvidia.com or modded

 

yeah, i did all of that...

but i have a really lame OCZ thermal paste maybe thats the problem...

whats the normal operating temperature of these cards?

 

I don't know about 9200M, but a normal laptop GPU should not exceed 90~95ºC, at most.

As for thermal paste, I never bother with any other brands, I always use Artic Silver:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007

 

ok thanks for the help, ill get a decent thermal paste, ill just have to find artic silver 5 in portugal....im screwed...but anyway thanks for the headsup on the temps

 

Implying that the 9200M GS is not normal.

 

Eh, don't use arctic silver. While the differences in pastes won't be mindblowing, provided that they're cured and application is done right, the fact that AS5 is conductive while most other pastes are not is reason enough right there. I recommend MX-3. Or Arctic Silver Matrix if you want to stay AS.

Anyway, if your computer is idling well, but not doing so hot(pun!) on load, it could be simply it's not well designed for that or that your fans aren't spinning up properly. Run a quick stress test, like Furmark, and listen to see if your fans kick into higher gear.

 

My 9200m GS card doesn't far exceed 60C-70C while gaming usually its in the sixties. when idle it's about 35C-40C

 

That temperature is too high... i would do the following to drop it.

1. Undervolt CPU to reduce load on fan...
2. Get notebook coolling pad..
3. Get 195.62 drivers and use the following riva tuner tweak to undervolt GPU in this way safetly...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=456313

4. Apply new thermal paste on CPU and GPU...

 

i dont think i understand what you are implying, do you mean i should get a less conductive paste? wouldn't that make the chip hotter?

tnhx for those temps now i know what to aim for

1-i have already contemplated that option but wouldn't that kill the performance?

2-already ordered one, should be here tuesday

3- the 195.62 from Ndivia or DOX? i already have dox drivers

4-will do that, im just not sure which one i should get...i thought artic silver 5 was the king of thermal paste clearly its not...

help?

 

get ICD-7 or MX-3 and as for drivers , get the official NVDIA ones.. work well with the tweak..

 

hey, hold on a minute! Are you sure there must be thermal paste on the gpu and not a thermal pad? It might well be that there is a fat gap between your GPU and the heatsink which results in such extreme temps


EDIT
ahhh, discard that! Just looked at your pictures and saw the pads. But now I have another question - are these pads fresh or used? Because, apparently, you need to put new pads every time you take the heatsink off, otherwise they lose in their heat transfer capabilities.

 

you read my thoughts, i was just going to make a new thread about thermal pads.

yes the GPU and the intel chipset both came with thermal pads.

i let them be since the manufacturer knows best....should i use thermal paste instead of thermal pads?

look at this photo i took

 

my 9200gs in my HP laptop usually runs about 65 degrees when overclocked by 35-45%. when its not overclocked it runs about 60 degrees. something aint right there matey.

 

no, you better use thermal pads, but you will need to get some new ones because your current ones do not provide sufficient contact since they were already used. Another way for you, if you really want to use thermal paste, is to get a copper plate of about 1-1.5mm thick and place it there as a gap filler, with thermal paste applied on each contact area. However, if you do that, you need to be extremely careful when choosing the thickness of the copper plate - if it's too thin, there won't be enough contact; if it's too thick, it might crush the chip.

 

thanks for those temps, mine is at stock and while playing cs:S i had to quit because it was 110ºC already

thanks for the advice, but why shouldn't i use thermal paste? im asking this because before i came here i googled thermal pads vs thermal paste, and every forum said that thermal paste was better...im not doubting you i just want to know why you think its better.

thanks

 

well, let me try to explain. First of all, the forums are right, thermal paste is usually better than pads since it allows for faster and better heat exchange between the chip and its cooling system. This is very important for CPUs because their workload is never a constant figure (besides 100%=)) and their cooling must be able to react instantly to any changes in temperatures. However, parts like chipsets and low-end gpus such as yours work in much more predictable way consuming much less power and, consequently, emitting less heat, which changes more gradually. This is where manufacturers save money by going with cheaper solutions such as thermal pads (it's not only the price of the pads themselves, you have to consider other things such as easiness of assembly for some chinese dude at the factory and time one unit spends in production line). But when they do that, they design their heatsinks in such a way that there is quite a bit of space between the chip and the heatsink. A thermal pad fills that space completely (thats another thing that makes it cheaper for manufacturer - only one surface on the heatsink has to be perfectly aligned) but, if you apply thermal paste instead, it will just flow down the chip and what you will end up with is mostly air between the heatsink surface and your covered in paste chip. Air is not very helpful in transferring heat, is it? You could experiment by applying some paste on all chips, then putting the heatsink on and then taking it off. You will see that the paste applied to the processor die is pushed to the sides and there is only a thin layer of it left on its surface, while on every other chip it's going to be substantially less consistent. This is why I mentioned copper plates in my other post - they would fill that gap and help the heat to be taken away quicker. Essentially, you have two choices: either go with an easy solution of replacing the pads and getting your temps down to their standard values, or spending some more time and effort, but in the end be rewarded with more efficient cooling system. The latter would be of interest only if you're planning on overclocking your GPU in the future, otherwise I don't see much point in doing it.


PS: there is nothing bad in doubting ppl, don't apologize for it))) If we could believe every stranger, it would have been a completely different world.

 

thanks for the reply.

no i dont plan on overclocking it, i do do enjoy the feel of a cool notebook under my fingers i wont lie to you.

i think ill go with the thermal paste, option, do you think i should lap the heatsink first? or is there a chance that the thing is completely flat, and i wont have to lap it?

and btw the heatsink is aluminum, does that even matter at all in this case?

again thanks!

 

I used the OCZ Extreme Freeze. Very easy to use, and very cheap.

 

Sorry, I didn't explain myself well enough. I mean electrically conductive. If AS5 gets, say, splashed on some transistors, electricity will be conducted through the AS5 and will cause a short. Which is bad.

New non-electrically-conductive pastes, like MX-3, ICD7, of Shin-Etsu X23 have superior thermal conductivity.


Also, I second the idea of a copper shim. In fact, I have some spare copper lying around. What are the dimensions of your GPU die, and about what thickness do you think you need? I can cut them myself and mail them to you.

 

yeah i have that one two, in fact thats the one im using right now. did your temps improve with that paste?

 

just measure the thickness of the squashed bits of your old pads, that should give you an idea of what the distance is. If it's about 0.2-0.4mm, you might get away with just paste, if it's more than that, then the risk is higher and, if it's over 0.7, you'd have to consider lapping. You'd have to put plates on chips first (with a bit of paste), then put a bit of paste on top of the plate and then put the heatsink on top. It's like making a tiny sandwich. Actually, there was a very good guide on this website somewhere, with pictures and pretty detailed instructions, just need to search for it.

The fact that the heatsink is made of aluminium doesn't matter much in this case, it's very rare nowadays when it's made of copper, so don't worry about it.

Anyways, it's 4am here in UK and I'm having a busy day ahead of me, so I better go and catch some sleep before it's too late. Hope I was helpful and good luck with your lappy. Keep us informed on your progress

 

I see what you mean about the conductivity now, thanks!but actually im very careful with that and already applied thermal paste a lot of times before, im just not very knowledgeable with brands...

i dont realy know the size of my gpu die ill have to unassembled the note again to see that, anyway thank you so much for offering help i appreciate it.

 

thank you so much for the help, youve helped a lot! believe me, ill keep posting until this matter is taken care of!

again thanks for the help!

Edit: I just dont understand want you meant by plates, why should i need them if the heatsink is laped?

 

soz, i was going to write "padding" there. probably I was thinking about something else at that moment. btw, remember, even if the heatsink is flat, the chips are very likely to be sitting at different height compared to the cpu

 

Let me know once you do. A copper shim sandwich is the best way to fill a large heatsink-GPU gap and still have optimal cooling. It's what's keeping my GPU happy.

 

again thanks for your help guys, youve been very helpfull, ill unassemble the note and try to use only the thermal paste.

If i cant do that for some reason ill try the thermal paste and try to see if im happy with the temps, if im not i happy with the temps i think ill take your help forge, hope you dont mind sending that to me.

Ill keep you guys posted in a week or so thats when ill unassemble the note cuz this week is kinda full...

Again thanks and as i said ill keep you posted

cheers!

 

Good sir, it will not be free. I will require $1 for postage, labor, and packaging. Hah.

 

good sir, you're bloody expensive!

 

hmmmm, do you accept euros?

yup thats consented extortion...if there even is such a thing...

ok I have news, the cooling pad i ordered arrived today! im using it right now!

the temps now stay at 82ºC have been playing css maxed out for 25 minutes now and looks like thats the max temps i can get.

i still dont have the thermal paste replaced, all i managed to find at my local computer stores was Chinese branded paste, so i passed on that.

Also i have been looking around and cant seem to find thermal pads to replace the ones i have, so i guess thats out of the question unless i find some tomorrow, ill go to the mall they have a Fnac there, so maybe ill get lucky.

My last hope is that the heatsing touches the chip so i can apply thermal paste as im sure ill find some, as for the pads...not so sure...if everything fails, ill ask for forge help (thank you so much! )

Im going scavenge the mall tomorrow, also ill go further if im not lucky.

ill keep you guys posted!!! stay tuned

BTW: the guys also had spire branded thermal paste, i know about the fans they make but never heard good things about the their branded paste so i decided to skip it and try my luck elsewhere

 

hey guys just solved my problem!!!

i did all by using the guide lines you guys provided and it worked!!!!

Heres how it rolled!

I went out and got me some decent thermal paste (OCZ)

then i came home took the note apart and applied some directly on the CPU GPU and northbridge, i put it back together then i unscrewed it and i noticed that the thermal paste was not touching the heatsink (as Njoy predicted)

Njoy you where right the northbridge and the GPU where not at the same hight as the CPU, so i had to improvise

I remembered what forge said about using copper sheets to make hight...i didnt had copper sheets so i used some 1c coins to make hight and used thermal paste on each side.

i had to remove some thickness from the coins using some power tools i had lying around. when they where about 1.5mm thick they where good to go.

i used sandpaper to remove any lumps (P320) then, applied: paste, coin, past then heatshink. then putted the thing back together and tested it.

Here are the results!!

Before

Without cooling pad
-Idle 60ºc
-load +110ºc

with colling pad
-Idle 55ºc
-load 82ºc

Now:
with cooling pad:
-idle: 47ºc
-Load 70ºc

without cooling pad
-idle: 55ºc
-Load 82ºc

EDIT: there are the GPU temps, the CPU never gets hotter then 63ºC it also was at 110ºC

one thing i noticed. On my lap it does the same as with the colling pad 70ºC

one thing that is bugging me.
The coins that i made are not super aligned, they are OK they dont look like a hill, but they arent a perfect 180º angle, they have a few lumps but thats it...

is there any problem with that??

thanks so much!

 

Ah ha ha, man, you're just brilliant! Such an usual way of sorting that out)))

Well, even if they are not super aligned, it should still be fine since the paste must fill all the uneveness. Just use it for a while, see how it settles.

Anyways, congratulations!

 

tnhx if it wasnt for you and forge i wouldn't had been able to pull it off!

i owe you guys one!

edit: btw +rep for both of you, im going to install the latest Dox drivers to see if anything changes

 

A penny, eh. So that means you needed a fairly thick piece of copper.

Oh well, as long as it works out in the end. In any case, you want to get those coins as flat as possible. Take a hardcore sander to them. The flatter they are, the more contact they make, and thus the better heat transfer.

 

i used regular sandpaper to give them a light shine, plus i assembled the computer now and taking it apart is a pain in the ...

ill leave it this way for the time being....

anyway i think that the notebook design is flawed, the first thing i noticed was that the heat exhaust is on the back, so when i open the screen it partially covers it....

one other thing is that the inferior case holes that contain the fan are too small and the computer is too low, so the fan cant suck enough air, i noticed this because at full load with the dox drivers i have the temps of:

CPU: 73
GPU: 88


but when i raise the note, or put it in my lap (leaving the fan hole exposed) the temps go to:

CPU 62
GPU 79

?!?!?!?!

i didnt tryed it with the screen closed because i didnt remember it at the time, and plus i cant use the keyboard (i dont have any spare USB ones)

i still have HP warranty until mid 2011, so i guess ill leave it as it is and if he dies ill send to to warranty (but ill take out the pennys first! )

what do you guys think?


EDIT: i forgot to tell you guys that the fan only goes on full at 88-90ºC, thats why it wont go higher, i wish there was a software to always leave them on full speed...that would help a great deal.