Magnitude of the 7970m heating problem?

I'm on the verge of ordering an NP9170 from Powernotebooks and when I made that decision a month ago or so, I had done all the forum lurking I thought I needed to.

I come back a couple of days ago (after what I assumed would be the end of the bottleneck of 7970m supplies) and see a swarm of posts and threads about this issue.

So ... what's the rough slice of people suffering from this with an NP9170/170EM? Is it the vocal 1% or pretty much everyone except the lucky few who had their heatsinks/screws/paste aligned and applied correctly? Is that indeed a working remedy or is it just something we're going to have to live with like the early AMD cpus in the 90s?

What are the normal temps of the 7970m on AW's mx17?

I live in the Middle East and although I'm very much opposed to AW's ripoff pricing, I'd rather get ripped off and have a laptop that works as advertised, as opposed to a Sager that runs too hot no matter what DIY I do.

 

Hard to say. People who have problems are always more vocal.

 

I had no issues with heat, and I think there may be a small but vocal group that is having issues, I know of many happy people with a 7970. Additionally, the dell may work as advertised or it may not. Dell has notoriously terrible customer service, in addition to being almost unserviceable at a user level, especially without warranty implications. I personally have had horrible horrible experiences with Dell, their build quality and electronics quality are vastly inferior to the Clevo variants. If you have concerns with heat, I would be inclined to think that this is more of a 7970M issues than a Clevo issue, and as a result you could consider the nvidia options for graphics.

Let me know if I can help with any more information.

 

also not everybody check temps,gpu load etc
many peoples just buy laptop and use it until visible problems

 

The temps appear to be considerably higher than AW machines with the 7970 but all seem to be within the target TPD of the manufacturer. Nobody seems to be having any performance issues related to temps either (enduro is a different matter for some). Most of the high temps seem to come on extreme benchmarking and not actual games too.

I can stay well below 90c on Furmark so I'm not really concerned. I will always look at options to cool things down though.

 

Yes but this is garnering no less than 3 threads on the front page of the Sager/Clevo sub-forum alone, each with hundreds upon hundreds of posts, and it all started very recently. This tells me it's more than just the odd unlucky person.

I haven't seen many posts claiming to be the happy owners of a Sager/Clevo with a 7970m (I mean the 17" 9170) with no overheating issues.

If I order it and it gets delivered to Qatar .. (yes you'll need Google maps) and it turns out to be one of the "unlucky ones" then I'm screwed. You can't even get IC7 without ordering it from the US here.

I'm comfortable with tinkering and tweaking myself, but only when I want to push the system with OCing and overvolting, not to merely keep it from throttling, that's just very VERY bad for Clevo/Sager's reputation.

 

There is no throttling due to heat. By all means get the 680m if you're that concerned.

 

I'm that concerned but not that rich.

 

I agree that it's very hard to ascertain how big the problem is, because those with problems are the ones that tend to be more vocal (as someone has already stated). I just know someone personally who had major problems with thte 7970M and that is what ultimately prompted me to redo my order. Even with the thermal compound paste and a cooler, he was averaging 87-90C, sometimes only after a few minutes of gameplay.

It was annoying that I had to give up other upgrades to afford the 680M, but I'd rather just avoid all these headaches with the more stable and cooler-running card. hopefully AMD releases drivers soon that take care of this for 7970M owners, because it IS still a great card.

 

Neo, those threads may have hundreds of posts, but remember that many of these are people who care too much about their temps, there are people who are never satisfied, not matter how low it gets, I cant's stress enough how important it is to consider the source. We are a legion of laptop hyper-enthusiasts, and any even small issues is going to be quickly blown out of proportion. This is the nature of forums and especially this sub-forum.

I get that the 7970M is running hotter than it should, but reasonably speaking this is unlikely to cause overly serious issues until your in the 90 deg range and over sustained. Dell also runs notoriously hot overall, not just the GPU, and has a history of being prone to heat failure due to poor cooling. It is almost mandatory to run a dell with a cooling pad. By comparison, I don't even own one for my sager. Is that perspective enough for you?

Also, $500 for a warranty that sager charges $149 for is insane.

 

there is a guy with 680 and he have higher temps than 7970 guys
I bed its cooling problem,fan not alignet to radiator and we must fix this with tape

 

Have you considered the 675M?

 

There are a few people who have bad problems (95+ C). I don't really see a problem for most though. The full speed fans don't kick in until the low 90s, and most people max out before that point. Unless Clevo/Sager really screwed up, it was clearly designed to withstand these temperatures.

Like smokinokie, I'll also look at things to cool it down because there is no reason why I shouldn't. Yes, I'd be happier with lower temperatures, but there really isn't a problem from what I see.

That being said, the Alienware does stay a good bit cooler. From what I've seen, the average max temp is around 70-80 for most people. In the Clevos, it is around 80-90.

 

I take your point, but as someone who has milked the last of his Acer Aspire with a 7900GS vga card dry for the past 5 years, it seems to me insane that with my 5-year old Acer, with the 7900GS fan broken (doesn't work at all) I can do moderate gaming (nothing intense, SC2 low settings) with the temp maybe reaching 80 celsius max, and with a brand new 7970m which uses less power, comes in a -supposedly- better designed case meant for performance, and a fan working, a little mis-alignment can cause temps to hover around 90 celsius.

 

1- You have a laptop identical to the one I'm getting, what's your story on the temps front?

2- Don't mean to be rude but I'm aware of the other cards out there and I'd like the 7970m for obvious reasons, unless I determine in the next few days through this thread that it is indeed not just the vocal 1% in which case I'll opt for another brand, not another card, because the 7970m is the right price at the right performance and it seems that AW and others aren't suffering heat issues.

On a side-note, from the size of the GPU intake alone as it shows on another thread in this section (the cooling solutions DIY thread), the thing must be getting hot. I can't believe that you have a top-end card with an intake with a little more than an inch's diameter. If I get the Sager I'm definitely making that intake bigger with a little DIY.

 

There's a key point missing in your statement: "temps to hover around 90 celsius for some people". These machines have almost desktop grade hardware in them, the fact that they can keep it that cool is a miracle in and of itself. Clevo's cooling is still better than Dells, and I can assure you that these issues will be looked after if they are indeed issues.

EDIT: Actually the intake is more like 2.5 Inches. The Alienwares are actually having just as many issues with heat with these cards, just FYI, these cards do run a bit hotter than they should. To me it seems like your leaning towards Alienware already, and I wish you the best of luck, but you can not go wrong with Clevo. I hope the grossly inflated price and failure rate of their mobo's/hinges/whatever (from personal experience I might add) is worth it compared to some moderately high GPU temps. I am aware that this makes me sound like a fanboy, but I can't seem to stress enough how inferior a product/company dell is. My experiences with them would make me chose doing business with Eurocon or before considering them. If you have further questions on this edit, PM me.

 

Maverick, agreed on all fronts! From my own personal experiences, I refuse to ever purchase a Dell product ever again.

 

Temps are completely within the range of operation for the 7970M. Clevo cooling is awesome, with a bit of changes it's awesome.

A few threads and hundreds of posts. Yet all the threads have the same few whining and the same few who refuse to contact their Clevo dealer to get it resolved and the same few who post hundreds of times.

Spoiler

 

Neo, I'd post my own results, but I'm in the process of switching my cards with sager (not for heat issues, i need a vBios update for my card to work with my 8150) So I can't really confirm the results above, but I have seen a lot of similar results and then a few 90's due to poor pasting, defects etc.

 

I'll point you to one of my threads. This should ease your mind a bit. :]
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/673687-if-youre-worried-about-buying-7970-a-12.html

 

well all i can say is that i had an alienware m17x r4 which had lots of issues (such as bad cpu cooling, trouble with the soundblaster recon 3di not showing up in windows when starting the pc, the blu-ray drive made sounds all the time because the internal chipset resets it - which they claim is normal and in the end the laptop wouldn't even show a screen anymore - so i didn't even get into the bios. All in all a miserable piece of sh*t mainboard i would say) which is why i gave it back and got a p170em, but on the alienware the 7970m ran stock in furmark @68°C - i overclocked it to 1020MHz//1560MHz on the GDDR5 -the slider in that msi thingy didn't even go any further and then i had 74°C in Furmark (of course like after about 10 minutes or so. However the Alienware had 3 Heatpipes directly on the GPU and none on the VRAMS.

The P170EM is wayyyyyyy worse in that regard - I've already tried pulling the metal holders out so they apply more pressure - that didn't help so i reapplied Prolimatech PK1 to the GPU, but that hasn't changed much either - just that it doesn't heat up as quickly but still quick. From idling around 35°C it heats up to 81°C in exactly 60 seconds, and reaches 90°C in less than 2 minutes. The maximum is around 96°C (after 8 minutes) - even though the fan is going crazy. I don't even dare to consider overclocking...

Problem is i really don't know what to do about it - on the alienware it was way easier to apply pressure to the gpu. I seriously need a fix

 

First off, Furmark is not representative of gaming, and stresses the GPU well beyond what you would get from gaming. Just monitor the temps when you are gaming. You shouldn't care about a fuzzy doughnut.

You don't what to do? I do. GO PLAY YOUR GAMES!

 

Well ... so far 53% of the vote goes for the temps being high. Is 90s too high though? I mean will it shorten the lifespan of the card or cause throttling under heavy gaming or is it within the allowed parameters?

Contrary to popular belief I actually DON'T want an AW but I'm so shocked that whoever it is doing the assembly of 9170 clevos doesn't know to pay special attention to the heatsinks/pasting in a gaming laptop. Just plain stupid if you ask me, it's like selling an F1 car with "slight" issues in the transmission.

 

Hmm. Don't know what to say.

Just play games.. you buy laptops to play games.. Not just to bench..

90'c is within the acceptable range for the 7970m.

 

I've seen a bunch of people say that, is it actually sourced from AMD or so? The only two laptops that we know of that offer the card is the AW mx17 and the Clevo, and the AWs run 10-15 celsius cooler, and so do -apparently- some half of those with the 7970m on the P170EM, with the other half running into the 90s, so how can you say it's within acceptable range?

Yes I realize it won't explode but it'll definitely shorten the life of the card and place a serious constraint on OCing and when you buy high-end component you reserve the right to get cherry-picked components that can be stressed and tinkered with.

 

On average, after 2-3 hours of gaming I hit between 75c-89c. If the fan gets loud it throttles down almost instantly.

My Furmark tests hit as high as 93c before the fan takes it back to the 89/90c range.. But what game even runs that hot? GTA4 probably, I've hit 91c testing that. I hit a high of 89c while playing the Witcher 2.

Regardless, temps could always improve. So, I'm about to try re-pasting myself.

 

I don't understand why this 7970M heat issue has exploded recently.

These temperatures are perfectly usable and video cards are meant to take it.

My 9600GT goes up to around 85-90 while playing video games, and I have used it almost every day to play intensive video games for almost 4 years. It can still play most new games at medium to low settings at 1280x1024 and I still use it every day to play games in my Steam library.

Quit worrying about the longevity of your card running at normal temperatures and go play games on it for 3+ years.

 

Well spoken! Why spend time looking at temps when that time could be spent gaming. If your FPS is fine and the computer isnt shutting down, then its time to go pew pew.

 

Mine is quite cool.. especially for stock paste and no temp mods. The highest I got mine to was an 8-9 min run in Furmark, where it hovered at 80C for the last 5 mins of the test (this was in a 70F house).

Playing LoL makes it stay around 62C, more intense games sit at about 72C. I'm extremely happy with this machine. I like it more than I liked my previous Sager when I got it, and that was a LOT back then. This thing is incredible.

 

i think its because people want to overclock more thats why.

 

I have question to those peoples with lower temps.Can You open panel and check how gpu fan is alignment to radiator?

 

HSF Album for 8150 and 9170

I really think this is not as big an issue as people are making it out to be. The HS may be "misaligned" but it is also bigger than the exaust port of the fan, so it's irrelevant.

 

My heatsink with the 6970M was aligned pretty flush with the fan and vents, yet my temperatures were about 20C higher than the temps I am getting with my 7970M while gaming.

The heatsink with my 7970M isn't flush with the fan exhaust, probably 5mm off maybe, and my temps have been amazing. I've not had to FN+1 my fans once, temps never rise above 70C while gaming, and even a burn-in test with FurMark only brings it up to 81C.

I'm not sure why some people experience high temperatures with similar systems as another who have lower temperatures, but at the end of the day, these cards were designed to operate hot regardless so I don't see what the big deal is.

95C+ at stock clocks gaming, yeah maybe it is time to get concerned a bit, but 90C and below I don't understand why people are stressing.

 

I only go to ridiculous temps after running furmark or something like that.

otherwise i never break above 80 C

 

Same here the most I have ever seen was 87C, but it was because I was trying to make it hit 90C by running several benches and I never could. I can play Skyrim or any other game for hours and it stays right around 75-78C.

 

I can second, third, or fourth the comment(s) about people never being satisfied. One model may be a super cool 60 degrees, and a new fancy one 75-85, but unless the laptop is burning a hole in your britches (which they might, watch your junk, fellas), the temps are perfectly within range for the card. These cards seem to draw a fair amount of power, and will naturally get a bit warm, but it isn't hurting anything but you, so get some extra cooling and some thick shorts, and call it a day.

Just my cents. I have similar issues with my desktop, even with liquid cooling I'm never satisifed with temps, even if they're 30+ degrees below average, I just learned to stop complaining.

 

Notice the GPU fan is off? Yeah it doesn't always run for me. It's off occasionally.

 

I've literally had no issues.

 

That's awesome. Glad to see someone is enjoying their 7970M! Finished playing some BF3 and found someone to play Co-Op Portal 2 last night, having fun here too.

 

hmm i wonder what everyone ambient household temp are that have such low operating temp range.

 

70F, ~21C.

 

Unfortunately the OP is getting it shipped to Qatar, the temps this week are between 41c and 44c high, around 33c for the low. Considerably higher temps than most users.

 

The least of my problems would be my GPU throttling if I my immediate "habitat" was actually that hot

Everything is air-conditioned so at home/work temp can be anything between 20-25 Celsius. Downside is the saturation of indoor air with dust and other micro-particles. Air-blowing should be done fairly frequently.

After talking to several people I trust on this issue, my initial fright was possibly uncalled for. There does seem to be some discrepancy between 7970m temps on an NP9170 #1 and an NP9170 #2, and I don't care how many fellow forum goers might feel we should "stop complaining" that shouldn't be the case. There are always individual differences based on how lucky you are, but I never saw more than a 2-3 Celsius difference for identical machines.

However, even those with temps in the higher range, performance doesn't suffer nor does the computer hang/BSOD/throttle.

When that is the case, it's Enduro/driver issues.

Also, it does seem like more care to final assembly of the cooling components and engineering of the chassis could have been paid, but nothing major.

I'm planning on creating an airtight plastic funnel to point all the 60F/16C output of my 28 000 BTU AC right into the laptop case, and see how far I can OC it

 

I have yet to hear anyone post temps outside of acceptable ranges, YES even 98C is an acceptable range. There are high end laptops by other manufactures that see such temps and they will all tell you those ranges are within the allowed parameters of the card.

 

Just out of curiousity, as it stands who apart from AW and clevo/sager has the 7970m in the line-up? I heard some stuff about the Samsung 7 series but they don't have the 7970m in their line-up yet.

So which "other manufacturers" are you talking about?