Sensible cooling for P775dm2-g / gtx 970m

Hi all,

I'm new here, I hope this is the right place to ask for advice on this. I just ordered a BTO X Book 17CL79 which is based on the Clevo P775dm2-g (BTO is the Dutch Clevo importer). I was enticed by the desktop CPU but I won't actually be using it for gaming at all. Reading some reviews and threads on here it seems a lot of people have to jump through hoops to keep the CPU and GPU temps low enough. It has me worried a little and I wanted to describe my use case here and ask for advice (should have done that before but oh well).

So first in a nutshell:
P775DM2-G
GTX 970M
FHD IPS screen, I think the "regular" 75Hz
i7 6700 (non K)
256GB PCIe Samsung 950 Pro
16GB RAM (I think I picked Crucial but it doesn't really matter for my question)

Use case:
90 percent audio production. 5 percent administration, 5 percent Photoshop/Lightroom/Vegas Pro.

I don't really care about the video card at all except that it's nice that it has a bunch of outputs to run multiple monitors when I get the chance. In music production, everything runs on the CPU. As I've been shifting my work more and more towards mobile production I was enticed by the big screen and desktop CPU. I had a P150HM before and it served me well but the video card died. Since my priorities shifted a little and it got a little long in the tooth I decided to step it up a notch.

So for who is not aware, the way audio production affects CPU use is roughly as follows - when you start a new project, pretty much no CPU is used. When you do live recording of software instruments, usually one core will do most of the heavy lifting. Usually you don't get above 10 percent with a single instrument and a current CPU though. While your project is progressing, you add instruments and effects, adding more and more strain to the CPU. Ultimately, how complex your project can get is largely determined by the speed of your CPU. Honestly most of the time I get a new computer by the time the newer fx/instruments clog the CPU too much.

So anyway, in the end while you're working, the CPU could be up to like 60 or 70 percent on all cores/threads continuously. For a few hours perhaps. I believe this situation is different from gaming where most of the time there are bursts of 100 percent but also some (almost) idle time, which is why I'm explaining.

I don't expect to be doing anything stressing the GPU at all.

Given this scenario, does anyone have any advice on what I can do to limit extreme temperatures?

My worries:
- I've read that the Samsung PCIe drives can throttle badly when hot. Can I do anything to mitigate this? I've read about thermal pads but I've never applied any and wouldn't know which to get.
- I've read about repasting, I guess I could do this to the CPU but I have no expertise on this. I was hoping the 65W non K would get less hot, but if it doesn't, what do I repaste with? Delidding seems a bit beyond my expertise (plus warranty voiding). I also read undervolting helps but can I even undervolt a non-K 6700? How?

Maybe I'm flipping out over nothing and my CPU will never get above 70C since I'm not gaming at all. But I would love some pointers on what I can do if it does run hot.

 

It wont run hot, when the GPU is not in use the CPU can borrow the GPU side cooling and it will be fine.

Get the 960 pro SSDs if you are worried about thermal throttle (it requires many GB (without any gaps) of sequential transfers)

 

Hi and thanks for replying. That's at least reassuring to hear!

The 960 wasn't an option, I haven't looked third party yet. Are they significantly better?

I only plan to run OS and apps from it really. Was hoping mainly for snappy response on boot and starting apps. I have a 500GB 850 EVO for samples that I plan to put in and a 1TB 7200RPM data drive.

 

Then go ahead and don't worry about throttle, it will never happen on loads like that

 

CPU wise the system should be fine. I use the 6700K in my P775DM3's and run them all day encoding video files with the CPU running at 100% @4GHZ and have no problems with overheating.
What I have done though is remove the control centre that ships with the laptops and put on the older version ending in .50. This removes the XTU (overclocking software) which seems to cause issues with misreporting temps and causes the fans to go all over the place.

 

Cool, that's a good tip, thanks.
Does that mean your fans are constantly running at max? I don't mind a little noise to trade for performance but I'd also be a little bummed if it was a constant hoover sound during average music production.

 

Mine don't run at max whilst encoding as long as I have the older Control software on.

 

Great, I'm starting to look forward to delivery again

 

Where I'm from the 'hoover (aka Dutch vacuum from a Juno) sound was something to strive for back in the day lol.
The 6700k is fine for heavy audio productions without breaking much of a sweat with a ton of VSTs going (0 underruns on the lowest buffer settings) . You're all good

 

Haha I actually own an Alpha Juno 2!

Thanks for the heads up, I feel lots better!

 

The built in sabre Hi-Fi DAC will also pair with a nice set of headphones if you want to preview any work

 

If it can drive my 250Ohms DT990 Pro to a decent level that would be nice. But mostly I will be using it with my RME Fireface UCX interface.

 

It auto detects and adjusts accordingly to the resistance of the devices plugged in

 

Nice! Just to be sure, at what kind of CPU/GPU core temps should I consider taking action?

 

When the CPU/GPU starts temperature throttling around the high 80s for GPU and 90s for CPU.

 

Hi all, back with an update.

It turns out the notebook I ordered wasn't available anymore so instead of a 775-DM2-G with a 970M they gave me a 771-DM-G with a 980M. The faster videocard is completely irrelevant to me but the other option was to pay extra for a 1060/70/80 to get the 775 which seemed even more senseless.

I've done a little testing and I would like to have more control over fan behavior - the "custom mode" from the control center doesn't actually seem to do anything. The system seems to be happy to let the CPU go as high as 71 in some cases (HWMon during Prime 95 small test) without spinning up the fans much. While it's nice that it's that quiet I would prefer to keep the max below 65 or so. Or at least that seems sensible to me. I've already tried some rough undervolting using XTU and alternatively ThrottleStop, I find it hard to see any clear results though. HWMon does show that I've undervolted but the Clevo "CPU Memory OC" panel doesn't really show any difference in voltages during idle. Is this only supposed to show during load?

Because most disturbingly, during Prime 95 my max core speed drops to about 2.9GHz for all cores and the voltages dip a lot. Even if I use Fn+1 to go to max fans (in which case the temperatures remain stable around 48C).

It seems like there's something going on on the BIOS level but there are no options there that I can set, it's pretty limited.

Any advice? I haven't exactly run into any real life problems yet but it's a bit dumb to buy such a high end laptop with a desktop CPU if it throttles itself automatically when it gets under load, even when the temps are way down.

 

65C is not a required target for the CPU and running in the 70s will not significantly impact the life of the system.

 

Ok, so basically the fan management is doing fine and I don't need to touch it at all? I guess it just runs a little hotter than my previous system. Thanks for the heads up.
Any idea on the throttling? I found a Sager review of this laptop that said it does that when all cores are used?!?

 

It's normal intel behaviour, prime95 is an extremely stressful benchmark so the chip will hit the programmed TDP at a lower clock/voltage than say games would.

 

Yeah, these desktop CPUs get hot in laptops. You could try undervolting and/or underclocking the CPU to get your temps lower.

 

I already undervolted by 120mV. It doesn't run hot when idle and the cooling seems to get it under control, it's just kicking in a little later than I thought it would. But apparently that's ok. I'd rather not underclock, I'm already annoyed it does that by itself when all cores are in use. On the whole it's still a pretty fast system though, the PCIe 950 Pro kicks butt!

 

It's the way intel guarantees heatsink designers know what to expect.

They could lock it to worst case in all scenarios but then gaming frequencies would be much lower.

 

Right so this is common in all Intel desktop CPUs and I just haven't noticed before because I wasn't measuring? I thought it was something unique to the laptop.

A different but related question - does anyone know if there is a PremaMod BIOS for the P771-DM1-G? I don't see it on his site. I sent him a message but the guy must be super busy and constantly barraged with questions like that. I also seem to have JUST missed the donation thread for him, but I can still send some on his site if there's a BIOS available for my model.

 

Yes the desktop chips do the same though they have a higher TDP so they don't tend to slow down so much.

The DM series mod BIOS never got a public release.

 

Hi, thanks and sorry to keep bothering you but I thought this was a desktop chip so I don't really understand your comment.

As for the mod BIOS not getting a public release, does that mean it never got past "beta stage" or something? Or just that it wasn't made freely available but l could buy it somewhere?

 

It means the files are only shared with retail partners.

Intel XTU will tell you throttle reasons if you have it running with the test for the CPU. Raise the limit that is causing the throttle to raise the clocks.

 

Hi! Right, well that's a shame, I had no idea and there is no Prema Partner in The Netherlands. I sent him a message but I think he's really busy. Hopefully I can still get my hands on one.

I'll look in XTU, it's definitely not temperature though. I've been using Throttlestop instead since XTU seems to be getting a bad rep here. Thanks for all your help!

 

I'll make a new thread since the topic has changed so much...