Clevo W150ER Hot and Loud

Hi all and I hope you are enjoying your weekends.

So basic story, I bought a Laptop secondhand which was originally from PC specialist, It is based on a Clevo W150ER(M?). I have been using it mostly for general browsing and the fan often kicks into max which is quite annoying when playing a video so its cool yet noisy. I damaged my knee so cant sit at a desktop at the moment so decided to use the laptop for more and installed Firefall and again it makes the fan incredibly nosiy and the laptop gets very warm, is this normal? Should I be checking anything? Is my fan / sensor / cooling system broken? One thought I did have was trying to upgrade my BIOS but the main CLevo BIOS thread does mention a W150ERQ model but not a 'non' Q model, as mentioned the bottom of my case suggests i have an W150ERM?! Is it worth trying to upgrade it? Or am I tackling the wrong problem?

Here are the specs:
W150ER
i5 3320m
8GB RAM
650M 1GB
Bios version: 1.00.03
KBC/EC Version 1.00.02

I think my main aim is to make it quieter and ensure I am not damaging it as I wont be affording a new one any time soon!

Look forward to any suggestions

Thanks!

 

I had the same problem with my W170ER clevo, erratic fan and all. I deactivated cpu turbo by putting 99% max cpu usage in power settings tab and the fan was quieter for web browsing and light daily tasks. Cpu turbo can make quick temps peaks which can make the fan kick in for almost nothing.

Also this lap is quieter with a quad core, idles temps are lower for some reason (larger cpu die don't know) and the fan seemed to kick in less often.

If i recall right, i was idling just below 60°C with a dual core (core i3 2310M) and below 50°C with a quad core. Knowing that the fan starts to kick at 60°C if i remember right, you can imagine how loud it is with a dual core on board.

 

There are also bios updates that can improve fan tables. But make sure u know what ur doing before making a bios update.

You should post ur temps to see if there is not another issue cooling wise

 

Same here with P170SM. The fans seem to be really good at keeping things cool but are overly-sensitive. I just have to launch GPU-Z program to set them off to high speed. I can't wait for Prema's BIOS mod to hopefully get some control on fan settings. Even when at idle the fans seem to be too active. CPU/GPU super cool but always a constant noise. Would be great to have a 'silent mode' like my Samsung does when at idle.

EDIT: temps are fine with laptop chassis though, the 17" form factor really helps there.

 

Thanks for the quick replies Kallogan. Intereting about the dual vs quad temps, I have to admit i assumed this dual would be cooler than a quad perhaps the cores in the quads dont scale as high?

I sure can post some temps, Idle, video and in game sound about right? How many samples should i do or is 1 enough on each?

 

not sure how old that model is and how the previous owner done maintenance on it so first thing is to check is your temperatures.
lots of monitoring temperature software in my sig below. download core temps, hwinfo64, gpuz and run the programs and post back your cpu and gpu temps.
you might need to give the fans and vents a clean out with compressed air which will lower the temps slightly as high fan speeds can be caused by a build up of dust.

 

i edited my first post to give you a clue about my personnal experience for dual vs quad temps wise.

 

I got it in November, its an Ivybridge so probably just over a year old I guess. I will get downloading and testing with those tools. However with CPUID HW Monitor which I already have installed it believes I idle at 63c which seems very high although similar to Kallogan's experiance with a dual it seems, perhaps one path i can investigating is swapping to a quad. Certainly on my desktop I never even get to 60c but then i Have a massive heatsink. I have just given the fans a quick clear and sure enough a bit of dust came out so we shall see if that helps a bit.

 

Thanks! I will report back as soon as I have done some testing cycles

EDIT:
OK so here is Idle, these temps look insane actually, btw love ths pic uploader on these forums!:

 

oh and my quad was a I7 2720qm so dual and quad were both Sandy.

Afaic, i'm done with Clevo as they don't give a f... about proper cooling or silence. They tend to put insanely powerfull hardware in their laps with just one fan and shared pipes to cool it. Best recent example is the 13,3" W230ST, 47W quad and 765M with one fan and shared pipes in a small chassis, nice in theory but it must sound like a chopper. And more generally, i'm done with all companies that don't aim at silence and proper cooling when building their laps.

 

TBH If I had known this would sound like a Helicoptor when just trying to catchup on a TV show I wouldnt have bothered either, I was fooled by all the marketing these days into believing laptops were as good as desktops and I feel this is probably not correct in reality.

 

As i said dual cores miserably fail temps wise and Ivy probably more than sandy as they tend to consume a little more while idling...I don't know exactly why but it's time to go quad or changing laptop. And if don't want to or can't afford to, you can try to repaste etc...but not sure if it will save the situation.

Edit : Silent notebooks exist

 

ok, on the gpuz can you click sensors middle tab and on gpu temps click it and choose max temp.
on hwinfo64 close the first 2 boxes and on top left click sensors and on the popup warning box click continue. this will give you a much better layout with lots of info.

them temps are looking a little toasty for idle temps. depending on ambient room temps you should be seeing 45-55c idle. imnot sure aout the hgher temps with a dual core compared to a quad though but im no expert.
you might need to repaste the gpu and ccpu with new thermal paste.

 

Thanks, yes Ithought they were high too for idle. I do have spare thermal paste somewhere that I use on my desktop so I can do a reseat. As for dual vs quad I have no idea either so I will do some additional googling around that and could look into an i7 although i suspect thats going to cost me quite a bit!

Here is an updated Idle taken after a small stint of Firefall,

 

Thing is I can probably afford an i7 in a few months but if its £200 towards a newer laptop for example this perhaps its not money well spent. I just dont know.

 

Andanother during a game

 

Load temps are not that bad really. A repaste should lower them a bit.

 

Ok will repast and report back, what about the bios update idea? Any value in it?

 

If the bios specifically addresses fan speeds then it will change the fan profile.

 

well i reseated and repasted the CPU and repasted the GPU. Whoever had put it on in the first place had absolutely caked it which might have been the issue. I will see how it goes after a day or two.

 

That seems to have made a big difference vmistery. Success?

 

Factory paste jobs use too much since its better than not having enough.

 

thats much better temps.

a word of warning on your link to the msi.
there has been reports that they are not user upgradable and will void warranty even by taking the base off.
i followed this up a few months ago as a member came on reporting that his supplier would not even let him remove the base to clean the fans out. he had to rma it back to them. this is pathetic on a gaming laptop.
this was in america and confirmed by xoticpc who were not the supplier. they said if bought from them then general cleanup inside will not void warranty with them but any seal broken on cpu/gpu/hdd would be void by msi.
so check with the supplier first.

i would seriously think about a clevo instead as they are fully usable upgradable http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/652403-clevo-resellers-european-union-v1.html#uking

 

It certainly does have better temps, a poor factory job. Still got the annoying on / off cycle from the fan when doing something like watching a video but I wil just have to deal I guess. Looking at the 740m benchmarks as well it looks like it could actually worse than the 650m so I will ignore the MSI and only GDDR3??! I will email PC specialist (original vendor) and see if they have a bios that deals with the issue as mine appears to be an early version. As for a new laptop I will hold off probably till next year so I can spend a decent sum on it as at the moment I don't really have the cash. Certainly I prefer to have customer upgradable unit just like on my desktop. Thanks again for your tip tho, don't think I've ever seen such a big temp drop just by applying new paste (although I've only ever done desktops before)!

 

Mostly, still got the on off fan spikes but far far better.

 

good luck with pcs. think other members have tried before after theve bought a second hand laptop and they would only deal with the original purchaser. things might have changed though but ive never dealt with them and never will.

 

Any reason why you don't deal with them? I don't particularly have any opinion of them as I have never dealt with them. If I don't get anywhere is it worth me asking around here if anyone's got one? That bios thread as I mentioned earlier mentions a very similar model but not a 100% match.

 

years ago members would ask advise on where to buy clevos in the uk. i would give them the supplier i used but pcs was slightly cheaper so they went with them in the end. 14-15 months later i would read unhappy reports of hardware failure and they werent covered by warranty by pcs as their basic warranty is crap even though it says 3 years its not. its 3 years labour,1 year parts and 1 month courier. so after the first year any cpu/gpu/hdd/ram failure wont be covered and after the first month of purchase any rma would be covered by the customer.
my supplier covers everything for a full 2 years.

there are a couple of members on here that do supply modded bios so keep an eye out for their threads.

 

Ah yes I know what you mean. Well you get what you pay for. They didn't do a good job with the thermal paste on mine it seems.

I will keep a look out for bios posts, I had a hunt but nobody talking about mine specifically.

Thx again, can't believe I didn't re paste sooner. Would have on a desktop!