Warning: Some i7-6820HKs and i7-6700HQ have Uneven Core Temps due to Uneven Heatsink

Hi guys, I didn't come here since 1 month. So i Have only one question:
Today, the Iunlock solution to solve uneven core temps on I7 6700HQ that consist to bend the one of the three screw is still the best one? There is any risk to do that (if you bend it carefully of course)?
Or anybody has found something else?

Thank you a lot (because i know that i am a typical men who don't read all the thread and ask for something in the middle of people conversation... but i'm not a well english speaker sorry...)

 

Give it a go then and take some temps using hwinfo before and after running prime 95 and let us know about your results. I still think doing so would give wildly differing results depending on how it was being wedged in there but there's only one way to find out!

 

I don't own an Alienware currently :x I'm looking at buying one and just looking for solutions to this one problem on an otherwise perfect machine (for my uses). Thinking of buying one right now to take the measurements of the arm so I can try implementing my idea for a design that clips on it. Maybe someone else that already owns it could give it a shot too, just wanted to put the idea out there.

 

If you don't own one yet than just look for another machine that doesn't have this problem. Why would you want to buy a product that has a flaw such as this just to see if you can fix it. I think the bending of the retention arm seems like a more elegant fix IMO(a fix that is ridiculous that it is needed). Your idea seems like it wouldn't work and I don't see other members trying it as they might be creating even more uneven pressure on the die doing so, not to mention applying a totally unknown amount for pressure which could damage something especially if you bumped the bottom of the laptop that force would transfer directly onto your processor. Also the flex in the bottom of the case would be quite a problem to maintain stable pressure over time.

 

I want the AW because the only other legitimate alternative is the Clevo P650RS, which I can't find without GSYNC. Lack of TB3 isn't great either, and it comes out to be more expensive.

The thing with my idea is that it's easily reversible. If someone tries it and it doesn't work they can just remove the piece of plastic, which I think might be a good idea since bending the retention arm could be iffy warranty-wise. If you slowly increase the thickness of the piece, there shouldn't be any more risk for dangerous pressure than there would be with bending the arm, and I think the double backpanel of the AW could mitigate some of the issues you pointed out. I don't see why this wouldn't warrant trying it out, at least.

 

Buy a product no matter, with a well-known "design" flaws sounds like a terrible idea. A really bad idea!! If the sales massively drop to terrible numbers and same time most part of buyer's return their flawed machines... Maybe something happens from the Dellienware camp. Maybe!!

 

<Delete my post pls>

 

Why not something like the Eurocom Tornado f5 msi barebones or Sky X4E2 (P750DM2-G)? They have TB3, a full desktop processor, but has g sync(not sure why you think that is a bad thing). The people on this forum that have bought these have lots of good things to say about them and eurocom has a pretty decent reputation in these parts. Also don't lock down your bios like alienware does so you can OC easily.

 

Yeah, A much better choice. Clevo can have QC problems on heatsink, but not a design flaw like this tripod heatsink. And nothing beats socket hardware. A unlocked 6700/7700K in laptops is also great if you use your computer to more than gaming. The new 7700K will have 4.2/4.5 GHz stock clock speed. Clock up a bit and run 4.5 GHz on all 4 cores isn't a problem at all

 

Except when manufacturers screw you with EC and LVDS blocking.

 

And Mr. Azor's company doesn't screw you? Crippled bios-Ec, Screwed fan profiles, No manuel fan control app, Screen light bleeds, Flimsy 180W psu Gate, Battery Turbo boost, First gen BGA Echo models throttling mess, Blocking Maxwell upgrade mess, Locked power draw aka Aw18, Black screen problems with previous socket models, Tripod heatsink mess +++. And finally the nail in the coffin... Go Fully BGA!! I think Dellienware have been in the upper part screwing people Earlier times.., maybe the best power house laptops you could buy!!

 

Every company is trying to screw over, I'd rather stay on desktop atm.

 

I'd ideally want some kind of meaningful battery life...

 

Is anyone aware of if there´s an update in the meantime? Funfact: post from AW on Facebook and twitter was on 18th Nov and for my AW15R3 i´ve placed an order on this date. Maybe the items manufactured a little bit later are fixed ? Or is there any user without trouble (shutdown out of the box under load after a few minutes) ?

 

I have seen a screenshot of a Dell rep acknowledging the issue but I have also seen one of the Dell executives claiming 90+ deg temps are normal.

The problem here seems to be a combination of a poorly designed tripod mount heat sink and thermal paste of poor quality. The thing is all those heat sinks have already been manufactured and they are unlikely to write them off. A newly designed heatsink might also require a new mobo layout.

I guess they could change to a better thermal paste and try to mitigate the problem by "bending" the arm to apply more pressure. Supplies need to updated, assembly workers need to be advised. All these takes time.

The thing with MNCs is it's all about cost. Is it cheaper to officially acknowledge the non-critical problem and issue a recall/repair OR continue to sell them and appease the minority who discover the problem?

Apple admitted a manufacturing problem with their MBP GPUs and they're still replacing them for free till now and we're talking about a five year ago product.

Dell? They're probably going to leave you in a ditch when your laptop dies after the warranty period due to excessive heat.

You're paying a premium for a subpar product. Think about it.

 

"Dell? They're probably going to leave you in a ditch when your laptop dies after the warranty period due to excessive heat"
A very good post and description of what will happen in the end!! + Useful info for people. +rep

 

Agreed with your second sentence. I will come back to laptop once there is one that satisfies me.

 

What would you guys suggest as better options if you had to pick something? Seemed like the AW was a perfect laptop for me, but the more posts I see about the thermal issues, the more I'm put off by it.

 

size, need, budget, etc??

 

Look after Socket machines in the Clevo sub threads aka P870DM2/3 - P775DM2/3 - P750DM2 or the nice 15 inches MSI barbones aka Eurocom Tornado F5 socket machine

 

The AW 13r3 seemed like a great size for me, not too bulky and sleek looking (to me). Preferably somethingv <=14". Budget would be at most 2k. Looking for something relatively thinner without being too thin like the Razer Blade or the GS63VR Stealth Pro.

Will take a look at this, thanks!!

 

The clevos are prob too big for you.

 

Then I would look after the Eurocom Tornado F5 socket machine if I was @selvedge @Diversion @Talon and the other owners is happy with the machine. Nice price as well.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nado-f5-owners-and-discussions-lounge.797128/

 

Not every laptop had to be a LGA machine....

LGA fills a weird niche. Anyone needs serious CPU power ust gets a desktop. Anyone just games is probably fine with a 6820hk unless you are chasing 120hz.

 

I know that. You could purchase a cheap Cromebook or you can get a machine for under $900 usd if you don't need the power. Why pay a higher price than unnecessary for SOLDERED hardware? I think @Mr. Fox Would say the same.

 

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Would you eat a delicious looking piece of chocolate cake knowing it had a small amount of feces as one of the ingredients? There can be a zero tolerance policy for this sinful abortion. It has NO PLACE WHATSOEVER in a so-called high performance notebook. I would prefer nothing over BGA... unacceptable garbage. I will not become one of the bottom-feeders that embrace it.

 

Papusan is epic BGA fighter and i only agree with him.
Btw guys like @iunlock @Talon @Diversion @hmscott @Papusan and other MVPs, why you, we as community, just don't start the new brand with all the skills, know how and perfect machine requirements that you collected over those years?.!i know it's not simple ... But this is what is success about, A VISION and will to be better than others.the traditional producers are not interested to give top notch products anymore.they are blinded by super profit and too wide portfolio.
Quality management, poor service quality and TAT- it seems that all well known producers are ignoring the same customer demands and wishes.
The time has come...
If our effort is only about the fails seeking, then we should stop to use the laptops, NONE is perfect.None.in opposite case you are still fine to consume that nicely packed chocolates with small pieces of crap inside, you only will be selecting those which contain 5% and not 20% 30% like others.in the end - you are still eating them...

Sent from mTalk

 

Does anyone know if this issue is limited to Razer Stealth+AW laptops?

 

Quick question. I ordered an alienware 15 with a 6700hq and 1070 from the black Friday sales. What would be acceptable temps for it so I can make sure I (hopefully) don't have an issue. I know there's about a 10 degree differential on some, I'm just wondering what normal temps for the system should be in general.

 

Do not forget to give huge honor to bro @Mr. Fox as well. Everyone should learn / listen what he says about unwanted hardware. His slogan... Vote with your wallets. Do not buy BGA filth!!

There are not enough machines with normal Cpu temperature, which can provide a pointing stick on what is ok temp for these BGA machines. If Dellienware had used desktop processors... Would not a tripod Cpu heatsink seen the light.

 

That's fair. Whenever I get it and get everything updated I'll run some benchmarks and post some numbers.

 

This started out with reports on MSI and Aorus laptops...

 

Hello again all!

So tonight I ended up also undervolting the laptop -175mV (after decreasing it in small amounts until I got good results) and now under 100% Prime95 load for 1 hr I am getting 80c temps. The difference between the cores is still there, but I am not worried about that. Not even close to throttling now.

I am going to leave things as is now. I am happy.

 

Yop so I will place again an order for same AW15R3 config as i had once i´ve get charged. If this machine won´t turn automatically off while gaming i will give it a try with repasting and carefully little undervolting about to see if those changes will take effect (24/7 rockstable machine required).

Hopefully looking forward there´s any news about "problem solved" for the current manufactured machines.

Regards,
aVa

 

UPDATE: ALIENWARE 17R4 (GTX 1080)

Hello all,

So what an evening...Wow... All I can say is wow... Stupid Dell almost gave us an heart attack.

@DeeX, @richiec77 and I spent the better half of the evening and into the wee hours (3-4am) of the morning messing with the new AW GTX 1080.

Here are the findings...(well we already knew this but just putting it out there.)

- Same heat sink as the 1070, but with three larger heat pipes. Good.

- However, it has the same single arm on the north side of the CPU plate. Not good.

- The uneven core temps due to the tri-retarded design on the CPU side of the heat sink still exist. Sad...

- However, I have a fix that will address this issue, separate but in conjunction to the arm mod.

---

At first we were getting power limited on PL2 being capped at 45w on the 6820HK. WTHeck right? Well after spending hours running through a bunch of things, we finally broke past the power limit and everything is fine now. Close call. I was about to scrap it and kick AW to the curb with a not so friendly letter, because we had initially thought that Dell went shady on the power to compensate for the 1080 and borked the power delivery.

Well we're glad that is not the case....The CPU power limit is unlocked and the GPU is looking nice at scratching 180W.

The issue now are the thermals as it is running hot on Dell's toilet paper.

Will be repasting later today and then running some benches.

Stay tuned for more....

 

Have any of you come across this shim mod? Isn't this the simple answer to an uneven heatsink instead of all this nonsense about a billion re-pastes, ****ing with the arm pin etc?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/5dod26/my_alienware_17_r4_experience_temps_and_methods/

 

I wonder when all of these returns will hit the outlet....

 

I've already tried it. It works for a little bit, but the tension on the arms start to give out so you'd have to use a very thin shim. The problem is, once you use a shim you'll always have to use one unless you reseat the arms tension back to where it was stock.

 

The fix u are talking about... is it just for the 17r4 or for all new aw since they all got a similar design for the heatsink?

Another thing: How do u guys remove the lm from the heatsink? I always have something remain on the copper.. or at least u can see that there was liquid Metal because there is a dark square on the heatsink.
I've tried everything from aceton to vinegar and still cant get it off completly.

 

The fix is for both the 17R4 and 15R3 and you can use a light finishing pad to scrub off the stain.

 

nice any "eta" for the fix?

english isnt my motherlanguage so i dont know what a light finishing pad is i've googled it and found this:

http://www.chemicalguys.com/Hex_Logic_Ultra_Light_Finishing_Pad_5_5_Inch_p/bufx_107hex5.htm

is it something like that?

 

It will be posted soon in the several threads related to the new AW's in general. I've ran through my final phase of tests last night to confirm a few things before making it public.

As for the finishing pads, you can use a fine grit sand paper or some finishing pads, which is basically like a hard sponge.

 

What shim did you use? surely a 0.1 or 0.3mm shim won't cause the arms to lose tension... Did you tighten the single screw very tight? The way I see it is either A) loosen the double screws to allow a uniform gap which is then 'sealed' with a shim and thick paste (ICD) or B) keep the double screws as they are and use the shim to fill the wedge on the single screw side and make sure the single screw is tightened all the way. I'm not convinced that straightening the arm will make any difference because there's not enough force diagonally down on the single screw side

The real problem here is everyone's system appears to be different. For you, lapping the heatsink might be fine, for someone else it might be adding a shim or two, straightening the tension arm, tightening the screws, balancing out with the GPU etc.

I haven't seen any convincing 'fixes' to this yet, it's all conjecture

 

Actually no, it's not all conjecture. I've tested the shim and used 0.1mm size, which was the thinnest size that I know of. It is true that if using a shim to use traditional paste as there seemed to be some pump out when using LM, as expected.

To correct you, bending of the tension arm does help. The point here is that it is better than nothing. Is it a 100% fix that will even your temps out 100%? Obviously not. However, it did bring my temps closer together significantly.

I've been also testing a fix to work in conjunction with the bending of the tension arm and there has been some interesting discoveries, which will be posted soon.

Of course everyone's system will be different. There has never been any claims through what I've shared where I have indicated that every system is the same. We're already aware of this.

What system do you have?

 

Not sure if my post came off right, apologies if you felt I was singling you out or attacking you which wasn't the intention. I think, like all others here, we're quite grateful you and others like you are taking the time to try to contribute to figuring out this issue.

What I meant by my post was that, after reading through 60 odd pages of this, it doesn't appear that there is a clear way forward. Right now there's about four different ideas about how to adjust tension and literally every single opinion under the sun about which paste to use and yet no verifiable results - there's posts where people are literally swearing by a particular paste and yet they have no results to post wth? There's others suggesting to lap the heatsink but I'm extremely sceptical that this would make any difference as I can't believe the 17 R4's heatsinks are worse than a heatsink made 10-15 years ago when lapping would actually make a noticeable difference.

You did mention there was a recent set of discoveries so I'll be waiting for that to see if it sheds any more light but right now it just seems like 60 pages of chasing our tails.

I have a 4 day old 17 R4 which appears to have about ~15C differential between the cores. I did try to 'bend' the arm which still has a 90 degree step but is now angled diagonally down toward the die. It didn't seem to make any difference at all in my case. I'm more inclined to try the shim method as I suspect this will, or at least in theory should, alleviate the issue but unfortunately the only shims I can find at 1.0mm and 0.5mm so I've had to order from Amazon US and that'll take two weeks to get here. I think I'll have likely returned the laptop by then and just moved on. First time with an AW, probably the last tbh

 

It´s pretty hard to read that customers need to fix their > 2k bugs gaming laptops by themself. Awesome i mean that´s not the way it should work, usually the machines have to run rockstable out of the box (incl. good thermal paste and matching heatsinks on GPU and CPU die´s). Pressing thumbs you´ll reach goal with a fine machine (but for me the price isn´t worth it so i expect a near perfect machine from dellienware)

By the way, i´ve recognized my AW15R3 - the left Fan vent´s out the hot air on the left side - maybe anyone can check how it´s on your´s? I remember a video which claims they will suck air right/left side and blow out on the back side?

Regards,
aVa

 

I experienced the same thing with my AW15R3 before I returned it. There was a corresponding difference in the air flow out the back as a result. Seems like the left fan manages to draw more air from the bottom of the unit compared to the right fan.

 

This is true

 

Awesome stuff @iunlock

Reduce Alienware 15R3 / 17R4 temperatures by 30 degrees!

 

@iunlock

Hello iunlock

So I ordered a 17 R4 a few weeks back following a post I made on here to ask if the 17 R4 had issues and was told no it's mainly the 15's. I'm due to receive this laptop this Friday and I'm quite worried now given all that I've read on these forums

There is some discrepancy however about the information that is being posted so I was hoping to take this opportunity to clarify where things stand and what I can do before it arrives to get everything ready in the event that I decide to keep it.

As someone who has never built a computer or laptop or repasted it's all new to me. I have a friend who runs a computer shop whom I'm sure can assist but I genuinely don't know how much experience he has with this and I suspect not much. With that in mind, I have some basic questions which I hope you will indulge me with:

1. Does pasting with liquid metal mean I will have to open up the laptop and repaste it every few months? I love the temps you're achieving with it which I imagine means the fans hardly ever turn on or do so infrequently.

2. I noticed you applied the LM to both the heatsink and the chips. I always read that one shouldn't do both as it creates too much paste/too thick a layer that actually prevents what it's supposed to do. Is there a reason you didn't just use a pea drop and let the heatsink spread it?

3. What would be the temp differences between using something like Kryonaut and the Liquid metal? I'm trying to determine if it makes much of a difference for someone who doesn't overclock and just lets the system do it's thing. I will be playing games at QHD with a 1070 and my only concern is fan noise so I'm happy to leave the system alone and not overclock if it means temps are low and fans don't have to come on much.

4. Is there a risk to the system by putting that electrical tape stuff over the board/heatsinks? won't it trap heat and fry the circuits underneath?

5. How did you physically bend the screw pin tension arm? Plyer? can you post a video or guide as to how you did that because I don't fully understand it. If you just pushed it upwards then the screw shouldn't really be able to fit in the hole anymore as it will be out of alignment?

6. Are you able to post a guide as to how to use the shims? I don't understand this at all. Do you wedge it or something?

7. I didn't understand your point about the heatsink lip being steeper than it should be (towards the end of that video)?

8. The only thermal pads I can find/buy in the UK seems to be these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=thermal+cooling+pad&rh=i:aps,k:thermal+cooling+pad

Can you please recommend what I should buy and how do I work with them? Do I cut them to size? I noticed in your repaste guide you mention some pads are 0.5mm and some are 1.0mm. Is that still the case?

That's it for now I think. If I can have answers to this I can forward to my friend who runs the computer shop and ask if this is something he can help with otherwise I don't think I have a chance to do this myself

Thank you!