DV6T Build Quality

Hey guys, I recently sold my Alienware and after looking around during Spring Break for a laptop for school, decided to get the dv6tse I believe, with the following specs:
15.6"
1080p 1920x1080
i5-2430m
6GB RAM
750GB HDD 5400rpm
1GB ATI 6770m

for about $665 refurb off of eBay. The specs seemed really nice for the price and I also looked at the reviews overall, but had a couple questions that I couldn't really find solid answers to:

1.How is the build quality of the laptop?
2.Does it function well; I've known a couple HP laptops that have gotten hot enough to cook eggs on.

Also, are there any simple mods I can do to keep the cooling running well?
I've had some experience pasting GPU in the M15x, so is that something I should look into for this computer as well? Thanks for the help!

 

I would not be too worried about it getting too hot. It is generally the quad's that get very hot due to the fact that the i7's are 45 watt TDP vs i5's 35 Watt TDP. My GPU hits 75 C at the hottest and that with a healthy 20% OC. Though I have seen my i7 hit 95 C on one core before I dont think you will see that problem with an i5. The build quality is superb if you take good care of it and I dont think you will need to re-paste unless you see something like 85+ Celsius on the GPU. these laptops are not user friendly when it comes to taking them apart. There is a cooling mod thread around here somewhere concerning the AMD version of this laptop but it is very elaborate and it only really serves a purpose to help the AMD version OC the CPU to like 2.9 GHz over the stock 1.4 or w/e. have fun

 

My CPU and PALM REST gets pretty hot as well unfortunately :/ That said the 6770m tends to OC pretty damn well. I can run 850/1000 on stock voltage and could probably go a bit higher, but what is the point besides a couple of more FPS?

That said my GPU has NEVER gone over 80c and my CPU hit into the 90's before I got a laptop cooler, now it never ventures out of the low 80's, and that is when turbo boost is on and performance mode on coolsense.

Depending on the game you can run coolsense on "coolest" which disables turbo boost which is actually fine for most games and lowers the CPU temps by 10c+ degrees. The current DV6 IS a nice laptop. That said I still wish I went with a desktop/full comp/ instead.

Just curious, WHY did you sell your M15x?

 

I just plan on running BF3 without OC, so if that won't heat the laptop up too much then I should be good. I'll be receiving the laptop within 1 or 2 days so I can post updates.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

 

Your in for a good surprise. My Dv6 with a sandy bridge i7 and 2 gig 6770m OC'ed can muster 40-60 FPS with all set to low and AA off on BF3. Of course this is at 1080p. If I play at 720 p then I can run medium/high. This is with the most recent drivers. not sure what FPS will result with your i5 but the GPU is certainly the bottleneck in either case so I think you'll see that same FPS as me if you OC.

 

I've also heard from a friend with the same laptop that the GW2 un-optimized beta ran pretty damn well despite being kinda CPU bound.

For me, quake live runs amazingly well hehe

 

@juggar, I got the i5 since i7 processor would've cost an extra 200 bucks, and I don't think an i7 brings that much of a performance boost over i5 in the majority of games...not 100% sure though. I do plan on getting GW2, so hopefully that won't be an issue.

How are temps for you when you game? BF3 (was this where you got 75C?), GW2, and Quake?

@BrokenSocial, sold the M15x since I'm in college and I wanted a bit of portability - some of my classes are having 60 slide lectures every day and I'd rather view them on a laptop rather than print them out. Even 6 pages to a slide that's a lot of paper >.< I'm willing to trade a bit of gaming power for portability, eventually I'll get a PC haha

 

I have a 2720qm in a DV6 and it runs a bit too hot and loud for my liking. The stock 2630qm that came standard ran even hotter.

The cooling in this notebook is inadequate in my opinion. Unless you have noise isolating headphones, the whining will drive you and anyone nearby nuts. I'm thinking of trading in and replacing the 2720qm cpu for a i5 and use my Asus G53 for cpu heavy tasks. I do like the DV6 form factor and design a lot.

 

I play BF3 mostly and it will get to 75-76 C OC'ed. and it seems that it always gets that hot whenever I play any game. Even age of empires online will do it. but anyway maybe your laptop wont run loud because you will certainly have less heat output because of the CPU. I agree that for the most part you wont have to worry about your CPU because 99% of the games you'll play will be GPU bottle-necked.

 

Received the laptop today and so far it's working nicely a few questions though; if I set the BIOS to fixed graphics, can I change that again using CCC while on the desktop - configure switchable graphics?

Also, just to make sure, but my left side of the laptop is warm while the right side is ice cold - are your laptops like that as well?