Thinking about a Clevo M860TU... Owners Opinions?

How's the heat on the laptop? I keep reading contrasting opinions on it.

Also, I had an idea to save a lot of battery, but I need someone to try it. Has anyone looked into using Rivatuner to shut off maybe 4/5 of the pipelines on their graphics card (maybe a 9800m GT, or whatever you have)? I'm hoping it will result in a large power and heat improvement.

According to my understanding, the difference between 8 and 9 series stream processors are their number, and speed. I don't see how it could cause any harm to simply shut 80% of them down, and still have a usable machine (effectively turning a 9800m GT into a 9300m or 9400m). Of course, you're still running the GPU memory bus, and other components of the video card, but maybe there's a way to tweak those, also? I'm just brainstorming, am I onto something?

I was just contemplating this, and if it's possible, there's no reason why you couldn't temporarily disable some stream processors, reboot your M860TU, and turn it into a nice, much cooler, more energy-efficient machine for a time.

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

As of time, there are no heating issues with the M860TU... no CPU or GPU heating issues.

There are many threads about this subject... all resulting with the same answer.

Even the new revision has support for quad-core CPUs and a faster videocard with no thermal issues.

 

What about the heating on the right palmrest I hear about? Is that solved yet?

 

that heat is not internally dangerous from temp measurements.

that area of the right palm rest is mainly the chipset and its heatsink, turbo memory, wi-fi card.

 

Not really an issue. Its not the entire palm rest just the right side of the track pad and a little bit of the palm rest.

If you want you can undervolt your GPU, except you will have to flash your BIOS which will void your warranty if anything goes wrong. Not really worth it to be honest and it won't give you a significant amount of additional battery life.

 

I've scanned through reviews, and I see a reoccurring problem with hard drive idle temps, as well as the hardware getting uncomfortably hot on portions of the underside of the M860TU. As a desktop rig builder, 50C on anything idle is scary, especially hard drives, and I happened to see a particularly unflattering benchmark with the video card at mid-80C and CPU in the 50C range (if I remember correctly).

Now, as a demanding user, I like to have computer systems that have a little more heat tolerance for when the dust bunnies settle in. Sometimes I don't dust my system for 12 months. Scary, aint it?

Question for M860TU users: Also, could I push the CPU and GPU to full load for days at a time at 35C (95F) ambient WITHOUT a notebook cooler? I may actually intend to do this with a Geforce 260m and some CUDA particle interaction simulation stuff.

Have there been silent revisions to the M860TU design since it was released? I've searched these forums, and it doesn't sound like Clevo has made any changes to their M860TU design since it came out about Q3 08.

Anyways, what I'm getting to is that it doesn't sound like the M860TU with a high-end Nvidia mobile chip (like the 260m) is a standalone, run the GPU and CPU at full load for days and forget it machine like my desktop (well.... most of the time ). This is what I'm looking for. I want to be able to forget about the hardware, bluescreens, and heat issues, like I would with an Asus netbook or something.

So, is the M860TU for me?

EDIT: these threads: (1) (a recent review) and (2) make me feel a little better about the M860TU. It seems as if they have been getting progressively better with heat.

Random question: what is the "power brick", and how do you know if yours will come with a fan?

 

hi undefeatedone and welcome.
firstly no one will be able to give you a defo answer on the heat issues with the 260m as they are not out yet and still on pre order.

not mentioned above yet but have you thought about the silent mode to save battery and it automatically downclocks as well so keeps the heat down as well.not sure if this is good for long term use though.

thanks for waking up my mini heat survey (no.2 above). looking at some of them temps a couple are a little worrying but you have to remember this is a worldwide forum and some people live in a tropical climate while some of us freeze in the uk and this defo has an affect on some of the readings.

my HD reaches 61c when im defragging. this is because the clevo brain doesnt see defrag as a heavy duty task so keeps the fan low. all other times im on 51-52c max after heavy use.
65c is when you will get damage caused to HDs and i think weve only heard of 1 or 2 like this but they turned out to be faulty hard drives.

the power brick got its name from almost being the size of a brick. and you wont know if your getting a fan in it till it arrives or you ask your supplier first. mine has no fan and has had no problems at all. yes it gets quite hot but it is powering quite a beast.

 

I believe you could run big tasks for an extended period of time, since when the cooling system is running, there's not a big heat problem. But some people get higher HDD temps when gaming, while I don't, so I don't know about the hard drive but other components like CPU and GPU should be OK. Also, I don't think it would be the best thing to do with a laptop. I mean, I don't know if it's good for cooling system to always be running. In that case, a desktop is always safer.

 

Hello undefeatedone
I just got mine on Monday. I have not completely switched over from my old laptop but I can already tell that this machine is by far the best I have found (with my 15.4 needs). The heat to the right of the touchpad is warm but not at all an issue.

I decided to put the unit to the test overnight. I loaded up HW Monitor and queued up about 8 hours of intensive video work before going to bed. I just woke up and checked the process a few moments ago (before logging on to this site) and the complete process finished in about 5 hours. The max temps are listed as: core0 - 53c core1 57c / vid - 55 / HDD - 62

I have to admit that I'm impressed...though that doesn’t mean I won't install a M260 once given the opportunity.

 

congrats. WebRender on your new beast.
the max temp for your HD is a little worrying (only a little).
i know thats a max temp and only peaks at that but i wonder how close it stays at that temp for.
65c is when damage can be caused to hard drives so its worth keeping an eye on it.
have you downloaded HW Monitor and HD Tune as these are always worth having them loaded.

 

That about the max temp for my HDD.
Honestly the fan in the power brick is one of the highlights of the computer.
My friends were dumbfounded when they saw it XD and fussed over the brick more than the computer.... until they saw my 3dmark score ;D

 

This was with HW Monitor. I'll look into HD Tune. This was by far the longest...hardest test I have put this beast through. There was also no cooler involved...you've scared me into ordering that today.

I still have to say that overall the cooling system on this laptop a way better than any I have seen to date.

 

sorry if i scared you its alway better to be safe than sorry.
if your hd was running at that temp continuously then it could slightly shorten its life but now and again should be ok.

 

Only the spot where the hard drive is gets hot.

Also I dont know what you mean about pushing the CPU / GPU to full load at days at a time with an ambient temperature of 35C, because your temperatures will be higher than that. Without a notebook cooler, your CPU will be 52C max and your GPU will be 70C max on full load. I highly recommend a cooler though because it not only lowers your temperatures but also the speed your laptop fan has to run at.

The M865TU will be released soon which features design changes only and support for quad-core CPUs.

There is no problem running this notebook on full load for days on end. Ive had long gaming sessions and the temperatures are always the same when I exit.

Don't have to worry about heat like an asus netbook? (i hope you meant netbook and not notebook, because lol if not).

 

He means if the room temp is 35C

 

thats a hot room temperature....

I have no idea, id assume this laptop would be fine in that.

The cooling in this laptop is excellent, it would honestly be the last thing I would worry about.

 

I live in the tropics and I can tell you that the laptop doesn't getting seriously hot. If it does then there is most likely a problem with that laptop and it should be sent back in.

Since August this laptop has been proving itself to be a great asset to me.

 

You plan on getting the 260M? Were you planning on buying the card alone or refunding your laptop for full credit and ordering the np8662 version?

Anyways just fyi, my max temps for playing L4D for 2.5 hrs with high settings:
CPU both @ 70C
GPU @ 79C
HDD @ 57C

When I took my headphones off right after I got done playing L4D, the fan was SUPER loud lol. I plan on getting a refund and preorder the newer version for the gpu

 

thats way too hot

 

temps seem fine to me.

CPU is good, GPU is really good, HDD is warm but safely under 60-65C

 

I am totally fine with my system as a whole and the t9800 has plenty of power for me so I see no reason to hastle trying to go a NP8662 route. I will want the new video card...that's a must.

I have to admit that I am looking for HD temp advise though.

This is starting to concern me a bit. I logged into my MMO of choice on both of my systems. Temp wise the sager was overall the cooler (with a ton more power) however the one exeception was the HD. Once again I popped into the 61/63 range. So that looks to be a common range during intense usage. The rest of the system temps were awesome.

 

Why doesn't my palmrest seem to get warm like so many others report? Mine was one of the first off the line, so I don't have any tweaks or anything.

 

perhaps it's the HD speed? You're running at 5400 and I'm running at 7200. Maybe 5400 is cooler option for this unit.

(not that I really know..I'm just guessing)

 

Do you have the Intel 5300 Wi-Fi card?

 

mine doesnt get warm as well and ive got the 7200 and 5300 wi fi.