M1530 - Cooler, Thermal Paste, Other?

I have had my M1530 for about a year now and, like many other people, experience the excessive heat issue. The touchpad, the area to the left of the touchpad, and the narrow area to the left of the keyboard get extremely hot. That's only the top-side; the underside is extremely hot as well. I currently have to have a normal desk fan blowing into the back to even maintain somewhat reasonable levels of heat, but the following screenshots of HWMonitor I present to you are likely not reasonable at all.

I play World of Warcraft mostly, and a bit of CS:Source here and there. The laptop gets extremely hot during that time. The following is a screenshot of HWMonitor immediately after I closed WoW (3 hours or so). Note the maximum temperatures.



That is extremely hot in my opinion, and I can feel its effect on my hands and the area surrounding the laptop/myself. More than that, when I play WoW (or CS:S, or any game), the game runs extremely choppy. I mean it goes from 60 FPS or so to +/- 10 FPS and then ~25 FPS and then keeps jumping around. Finally, it settles down for a bit at a constant rate (I would rather, at this point, prefer a constant 30 FPS than jumping all around) but then the process starts up again. This is very irritating and detrimental to my playing.

I notice that sometimes I literally pick up the laptop and hold it so that either the back or the bottom (at an angle) is facing the desk fan's air flow. As I watch the screen, I actually see everything flowing smoothly again on the screen in WoW. Yesterday, for the first time, I actually saw my FPS at 80+ and I have never seen it past 60 before. Like I said, I could care less about getting 80 FPS than actually getting a constant frame rate but I know my 8600M GT can pull the FPS on this thing. I am even using low settings and have done other optimization things (this is not a lag issue by the way).

Here is a screenshot of the laptop as soon as I turned it on today morning and logged in after it had been off for the entire night.



I have been researching either getting thermal paste or a cooler. I don't have a screwdriver that can open the small screws on the M1530 and don't know if I can get one of those immediately either so thermal paste may be out of the question. I think I am going to call Dell though and ask for a guy to be sent out to add thermal paste.

My question is are there any M1530 owners who have bought a cooler (not Do-It-Yourself) and that has actually worked? I have researched some and came across the Zalman NC2000 thread which seems optimistic, but it was nearly 2 years ago so I wanted to know current opinions on that, or other coolers. I read about things like the vent placement (the fan is on the top right of the underside of the M1530, from a turned-over point of view) affecting cooler performance.

An interesting thing to note is this laptop is roughly a year old, but it is a brand new replacement (not refurbished as I argued about this) from last March when my previous M1530's (originally bought in July/August 2008) hard drive failed. The heating issues were also prevalent on that one. I just don't like all this heat and I know it will destroy something eventually, if it's not doing it already.

Any comments from fellow M1530 owners on your experience and what you did to solve the problem? What about other laptop owners that have had similar issues?

 

From what I've read the NVIDIA 8-series start progressively heating up more and more before eventually failing. But WoW is a highly CPU dependent game so it's going to stress the CPU quite a bit. You could try a cooling pad like the NZXT Cryo.

 

Are the heatsinks and fans clean and unclogged? If they are, then...

Get in touch with Dell Support as soon as possible, if your Warranty is still valid and has not expired yet, they may send you a replacement or at least replace the defective graphics card in your machine.

Any temperatures above 90 C are indeed, dangerous and slowly degrade the card itself and anything around it that is sustaining the residue heat.

Do not open the laptop and just send it as-is if prompted to, the issue lies within the graphics card.

 

Have you cleaned your vents and fans yet? If not, dust may be your problem. However, if the high temperatures persist, contact Dell Support. Replacing the thermal paste is also an option and may be a faster solution, especially if the old thermal paste is already rendered ineffective.

 

My warranty is still valid for another 3 years or so.

I have not opened up the laptop because I don't have the proper screwdrivers (I did try).

I see a little bit of dust from the back left vent but it doesn't seem like that much. I see a bit of dust on the fan as well when I look at the vent on the underside of the laptop - top right corner where the fan opening is.

I guess the solution then is to continue to replace the 8600M GT every few months when temperatures start acting up? That seems awfully expensive on their part and a burden on mine, not including the fact that if that keeps up, the laptop will eventually fail and be useless sometime after the warranty expires.

I really don't want another new/refurbished M1530 at this point...

Would it be wise to ask Dell Support to:
A) Replace 8600M GT with a new one
B) Even if they decline to replace 8600M GT, send technician solely to reapply thermal paste and clean from inside


This next option may be pushing it, but I'm on my 2nd M1530 now (and 3rd 8600M GT if they replace), so who knows... what about getting an exchange/replacement in the form of a M1730, perhaps a low-end one?

 

1. Undervolt your CPU using the undervolting guide....

forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

2. Blow out ur fans with compressed air...to remove dust.

3. Get a notebook cooling pad like zaltman NC2000.

4. Try this riva tuner tweak... it will ensure your GPU downclocks properly... and also undervolts GPU in a way.

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

Try these 4 points and i garuntee ur temps will drop my 10-20C for CPU and GPU...

 

If you have never blown the dust out of your notebook before, and it was running cooler originally, then dust is most likely the problem. An external visual inspection won't show the dust, as the problem is the dust collecting on the heatsink vents that are in the path of the airflow that the fan provides.

While opening up your notebook is almost always helpful when blowing out dust (because it makes it easier to reach the necessary parts), just blowing things out in reverse (blowing compressed air into the usual "out" vent) will often help immensely. Make sure you do this outside, or somewhere else with good ventilation, and don't put your face/head too close to the usual intake vent; chances are good a big cloud of dust will come flying out.

The usual recommendation is to blow out your vents about once every 1-2 months.

 

Well I tried to blow the dust out of my notebook without actually opening up (I can't without the proper screwdriver) but it hasn't really helped. I think when I call Dell Support to send a guy, I will ask them to also have him clean it if he can...

A) Replace 8600M GT
B) Re-apply thermal paste to heatsink / other sources of heat where possible
C) Clean out the fan and surrounding areas

Thanks guys

 

If you can, try to watch over his shoulder as he works so you can see what the problem might actually have been, so you can come back to us and tell us how it goes. I'm sure many of us would love to know for next time so we can improve our advice.

 

Will do, thanks for all the help and I'll report in after the maintenance.