M860TU Fan

Just received my "evaluation" M860TU from Novatech. Was having a quick check around it and it seems that the main fan in the botton seems to have some kind of plastic screen behind the fan vent which is stopping air from getting through. I have looked at some pictures of other M860TU's and the fan is clearly visible through the vent. Is this supposed to be like this or is it a fault of some kind?

Also, CPU-Z is telling me the processor is running at 1.6gHz all the time (silent mode or non silent mode) but then when I run Super Pi it comes out with 1m 11s which is too quick for that speed. Is this a problem with CPU-Z or is it actually the computer?

Thanks

 

Hi Henry
long time no see. how ya doing.
so how did you manage an evluation m860tu?

there was quite a lot of talk a couple of months ago about plastic being near to the fan and im not sure if someone was actually going to remove it as they said they were getting high temps.
how are your temperatures when using HW Monitor

what spec system have you got and what os. if its running an old bios then it could be giving false readings on the ram but im not sure about the processor.

are you set to high performance in your power plan.

 

Heya

Doing good thanks! Doing a forum review of the X70 for the techpond and novatech forum which will probably end up over here aswell... hopefully will also be getting a nexus in the next week or two for some head to head comparisons with the X70!

Specs are:

Intel P9500 Centrino 2 Mobile
2GB DDR3 Memory
320GB hard drive
DVD writer
Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS 512MB DDR3 Graphics
Vista HP 32bit

Don't think it is an old BIOS because it was part of the latest batch which apparantly arrived at Novatech last week sometime from Clevo.

Hmmm just opened up CPUZ again now and it seems to be flicking between 1600mHz and 2530 Mhz so i guess its just some sort of power saving feature. Power plan is set to High performance though

How do i know when its in silent mode or not?

 

The "M" button to the left of the powerbutton is the silent mode button. You know its in silent mode when it runs dead silent (close to). When you press the "M" you see an icon on the top left corner saying "silent mode" or "normal mode."

 

Oh yeh... I see what you mean about the fan but no icon... i know what the icons should be like because i get them for volume and things on my M570RU but none on this one

 

Do you have the Hotkey icon in tray? Did you install it ?

 

Don't remove the plastic tape! I have that tape under my laptop too and my temps are lower than the average temps I see in this forum. I read somewhere that it helps reduce the HDD temp. My HDD temps are between 43-47c the highest was 52c.

I have a Hitachi 320GB 5400RPM btw.

 

can anyone confirm what that plastic tape is for?

 

Ahh thats good... I wasn't planning to remove anything as it isn't actually my laptop. Just found a stuck pixel aswell which makes me glad it isn't mine...

I'll do some HDD temp benchmarks when i get around to doing the review

 

It seems like the tape is for directing air flow around the chassis better - I guess they put too many holes in the bottom of this laptop initially I don't have the tape anywhere and mine runs fine (cooler, HD was warmish in heatwave conditions without a cooler).

I don't have the hotkey program installed, as it's buggy and has memory leaks and I don't like resident programs that are not absolutely necessary running. I installed CPUID's Hardware Monitor (small standalone) and I have a shortcut to that placed on my start menu and use that to check whether I'm in silent mode or not (if I forget). My GPU temps are very consistent between silent and normal mode, with 50-51C in silent and 60-61C in normal, so if it's one range or another I know what mode it's in. Obviously listening for the fan being on also works but this is faster.

 

Hi Henry,

Looking forward to your review mate; can't come soon enough. I ordered my x70 on the 4th (Dec) and am told they are waiting on P9500 processors. I was originally told 3-4 business days, so am a little miffed seeing as this seems to be the standard processor for a lot of their high end models. Was considering cancelling and going with the cheaper OverClockers config ... opinions anyone?

 

It depends on what you'll use the notebook for; most games will rely heavily on the GPU. If you're playing multiple videos at the same time or doing graphics work, then you should hold out for the P9500 (and if you are doing the latter, you should probably get another notebook with a quadro).

 

I see no real difference with the quadro and the geforce for video editing. If any at all. Withe a p9500 processor and the geforce graphics card that comes with this system, you'll be doing your development work in no time.