dv5t heat question

I'm considering buying the HP dv5t with the 9200 GPU. I don't really game much. Will I have the same heating issues that I read about on these boards so often? It sounds like they mostly relate to a) intense gaming; b) use of the 9600 card .

Thanks.

 

So, take this as a single data point, which is not necessarily statistically significant

I have a new dv5t with the 9600m (see sig below for details). (I spent a lot of time trying to decide between the 9200 & 9600; the 9200 in fact consumes a bit less power at peak than the 9600, if my memory serves me right).

I've spent a couple of hours running moderately stressful exercises (disk defragmentation; Futuremark PCMark & 3DMark 'free' editions; game demos; burning recovery DVD's) while reading CPU/GPU temperatures with HWMonitor, and backing out HD temperature with a HD monitoring utility.

The laptop has its rear end elevated by about 3/4".

The left palm rest (CPU/GPU under there) gets warm to the touch (like a child with fever). You can hear the fan (but then, my laptop is in a bookcase shelf, which resonates). But the hottest the CPU cores got (and the CPU is routinely hotter than the GPU, according to HWMonitor) is 76 C. There's plenty of headroom there (I think the CPU core can get all the way to 95 or 100 C safely). The GPU got to about 71 C, and the hard disk to 48 C (not too sure about that, as I was making some assumptions about the reporting software).

In routine use, the CPU rarely goes past 72 C, and the GPU seems to top out at 65 C.

I'm pretty comfortable with these numbers.

I intend to stop by an office supply store soon, and set a calendar reminder to blow out dustbunnies once a month!!!! I have (had?) a Dell Inspiron 5100 (anyone want one cheap? ). After a year, it started to randomly shut down. Then, Dell released a BIOS upgrade, which showed thermal issues. I then looked under the Dell, and the fan & heat sink were full of dustbunnies!

My lesson (from one datapoint, anyway...) Beware the dustbunnies!

 

Two follow-ups to your response, hdt:

1) what is a dustbunny?

2) What are avg. temps? The absolute numbers themselves don't mean much to me b/c I have nothing to benchmark them against. For example, what is the Studio 15 or the Inspriron 1525 or a similar midrange laptop?

Thanks!

 

Dustbunny, a.k.a. "dust bunny." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bunny (and don't get grossed out at the picture!!!)

Avg temperatures seem to run 50 C for the CPU cores and 48 C or so on the GPU. I have no idea what the Studio 15 or the Inspiron do on temperature, sorry. I can tell you that technically, I'm pretty comfortable with this range of temperatures on the HP's.