Clevo m860tu cooling question (noob)

Hi guys,

I have my m860tu for 2 years now. I've noticed when gaming that my frame rate drops periodically from the cpu/gpu overheating. This has become an annoyance so I decided to try and clear the fan of any dust ect which made no difference. I did notice however that the part of the case that I remove which contains the air intakes has a black plastic on it. See Pic

http://i55.tinypic.com/14mcmly.jpg

Should I remove these in an attempt to improve the cooling or are these there for some sort of anti-dust purpose?

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

MarkH748

 

hi mark.
not a stupid question at all.
it depended where you bought your lappy from as mine is in the uk and didnt have the plastic covers but quite a lot of chat in the past showd american machines still had the black plastic.
think it was reported that its there to help the fan cool other areas of the lappy and a lot of people did remove it.
might be best to wait for someone that has removed it to give their opinion on if it made much difference.

 

Thanks for the reply!

That's interesting. I ordered mine from overclockers in the UK (I'm from Ireland) and it has the plastic on it. Does your FPS drop in games periodically from overheating? My CPU/GPU seem to heat up to around 85-90 degrees C (according to EVEREST) when the game has anyway high detail at all. I suppose since not all of them have the plastic taking it off wouldn't be the end of the world! . Might give it a try tomorrow. If anyone else has any more insight I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

ive never monitored fraps and during game play im not sure what my temps get upto.

this is taken from the nbr cooling centre HERE

 

It could also be the thermal paste getting too old to properly transfer heat or something. You would have to remove the heatsink, remove the old thermal paste and apply a new one (on both the CPU and GPU). If its your first time, just look at some videos on youtube on how to do it (its the way I learned)

 

Thanks for all the replies.

Right well I removed them and it seems much better. There was also some dust clogging the fan but I removed that before and it didn't make as big the difference as there is now. I've noticed now though that the HDD temp is quite high (it was 70 at one point) when games are being played so maybe there was some truth to the plastic being for air circulation to other parts. Still though I'd rather burn out the HDD than the CPU or GPU I guess. I might open her up again and see what I could block in order to get mre air flow to the HDD if I get time.

 

A cooler might help!

 

ohh 70 is not good for the hard drive so the dispersion theory must be true.
63-65 is bad news so 70 will knacker it a lot quicker so make sure you do backups on a regular basis to an external hd
and as rambo said a cooler would be a good idea.

 

Yeah. Its interesting though cause before I took the plastic off the hard drive temperature was pretty much constant. I'll keep ye updated when I get round to having another look at it.

 

Have you installed the Intel Storage Matrix drivers?

 

I have experienced the same issue with HDD heating up, you can read more about it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/532330-m860tu-hdd-cooling.html

In summary, the way the cooling system is designed on the M860TU, no air can reach the hard drive, unless you partially block off the intake fan. This is done either using those black tape covers, or you can also see this if you place the laptop directly on your table. As soon as you free up the intake fan by removing the tape and propping up the laptop, you'll get cooler GPU/CPU temps at the expense of your HDD.

I have solved this problem by getting a Coolermaster Notepal U2 and placing the fans directly under my HDD. I also drilled holes in my backplate under the HDD but I'm not sure whether it makes a difference or not with the cooler.

Here is a summary of my idle/gaming temps in different configurations
No cooler, intake fan blocked: HDD 50/55, GPU 52/82, CPU 48/80
No cooler, free intake fan: HDD 55/62, GPU 50/75, CPU 45/70
Cooler, free intake fan: HDD 40/48, GPU 48/74, CPU 42/70

Note that I'm using a Q9200 CPU overclocked to 3.2GHz here! Your CPU should never exceed 60-65C on this laptop if it is a dual core.

Please tell me your crazy 85C is from an overclocked quad!?! If not your vents must've been really dirty and your thermal compound in horrible condition!

EDIT: Oh, by the way, all these temps are with an external HDMI 2048x1152 monitor plugged in. I noticed that my temps are much lower (especillay the GPU) if I disconnect it and just use the laptop's flatpanel display.

 

now how did i forget that one.
after installing that i had a 3-4c drop in HD temps and mine stays a steady 51c all the time and mine didnt have the plastic covering the vents.

at work now but ill link to the matrix when i get home unless someone else does sooner.

 

edit: whoops. I didn't see page 2! Yeah I'll try of this later on this evening. Thanks guys.

 

dont ask me what it is but some how this bit of software brings your hard drivre temps down

 

intel matrix link HERE

 

Thanks!

Right I wasn't sure which on of those 2 from that link to download so I tried both and both installers closed saying that my PC did not meet the minimum requirements. Hmmm.

 

I had reinstalled my OS recently, and had forgotten to install the ISM. This thread reminded me.

I just installed the ~20MB package, like ten minutes ago.

 

Hmmm that is a pain, I had that occur to me as well before, cant remember exactly how I solved it. I think it had to do with the AHCI setting in the bios, you need to set your bios in "Vista mode". Let me dig back the old thread for you.

 

Wow that was quite a hardcore dig in the vast world of past threads!

I finally found the relevant threads:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...itually-unplayable-due-hd-heat-8662-a-14.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/390749-installing-windows-7-primary-os-8662-a-2.html
Enabling AHCI on Vista Tim Anderson’s ITWriting

According to my own experience you should get a good 5C decrease in HDD temps after installing the matrix manager.

 

Thanks man. I managed to get all of that done and install the drivers (using the IATA88CD). I've finished a gaming session around 90 minutes ago and the HD is at ~65 and staying there and unfortunately still staying there even after the drivers have been installed. Hopefully I'll get round to opening it up tomorrow at some stage and see what I can re-block. If not I better look into getting a cooler. The one you use seems nice so I'll try and get one that can be delivered to Ireland. Thanks again.

 

Any reason you're recommending intel MSM instead of Intel Rapid storage technology (the new version)?

 

didnt know there was a new version out.
is that any better then as mine is still steady at 50c after 2 years.

 

Nice, too bad it doesn't work with Intel Turbo Boost . I am actually using Intel Turbo Boost!

 

I believe there are advantages - it is version 10 now rather than version 8, some changes must have been made

I assume you mean turbo memory...And no, it doesnt, I'm afraid that's EOL and won't be updated.