Strange GPU temps X205-sli2

Hi everybody.

I recently bought a X205-sli2, and it is a nice rig. I mainly play WoW with my wife, and I have been using the sli2 for the past week. I have been getting excellent frame rates (100+) and I am overall happy with the notebook.

I installed Riva Tuner, and I set it up so it displays the current temp of both GPU cores while I play. I was just curious how hot they got since I never heard the fan ramp up any more than a whisper. They both seem to idle around 60C and hovered around 80C after playing for an hour or so. I looked it up and found out this was normal.

I left the temp displays up, and after about 2 hours, the core labeled GPU0 (the main core I believe) went up to 110-115C! The core labeled GPU1 stayed at 80C like it had been for the last few hours... I shut the game off and the temp reading stayed above 100C I shut the notebook down for a while and then started it up after an hour or so, and all temp readings looked normal again.

The fan speeds stayed the same the entire time. Both CPU and GPU fans are running (but not as fast as I think they probably can run)

I'm not sure what the problem may be, I would think that if one of the cores were getting that hot, then the fan would ramp up faster. I am using it on my desk and all vents and fans are clear of debris and dust. Also, the game was playing fine throughout the entire time I was using it..

This happened last night, and I haven't tried to reproduce the readings. I will play again tonight to see if it does it again.

Any ideas as to why I would get such a high temp reading in just one core?

Thanks,

Tim

 

some notebooks share the one fan for multiple components.

Example:
the Alienware M9700 series had two fans
(1) is to cool the CPU and primary GPU
(2) is to cool the secondary GPU

 

I have the same Temperature problems with my notebook (Europe version SLi X200), but I know its due to dust gathering for mine over the past 6 months, I cleared out my GPU fan fine, just that the CPU vent has a plastic film covering it which I can not get to, to clean out.

My CPU hits the 99C degrees mark when gaming for a few hours. Using HWMonitor to monitor both cores and both GPU.

Over 100C sounds bad, I think you should get it checked up on warranty to find out the problem. But you should try using HWMonitor too, to monitor temps.

 

the X205-sli2 uses the fan on the left to cool the CPU and northbridge, the fan on the right cools both GPU's.

I'm hoping it is a misreading by the program (Riva Tuner) Because why would they both stay at 80C for an hour, then just one rocket up over 100C? I can't really think of any phisical reason that this could happen..

Tim

 

check your vents again and try to use other monitoring programs to confirm.

if its still above 90-100C degrees.... then I recommend for you to check to see if the heatsinks are loose.... since they might need to be re-secured.

 

I will try installing HWMonitor tonight to see if it reports the same thing.


Tim

 

Well, I installed HWMonitor last night after work. I played for about 2 hours and the highest temp on both Riva Tuner and HWM was 85C. I played for another 3-4 hours straight (leaving the game running between breaks), and I got one spike up to 90C but the average was in the low 80's.... so maybe it was just a fluke. I hope so anyway.

I'll still be keeping an eye on it especially with the reposts coming out that a lot of the 8600M GT cards are defective (I read that 2 days after I got this laptop)

Hopefully this notebook will last me as long as my old Dell did..

Tim

 

Update

I took it apart because the temps kept going way higher than normal. It was throwing me off since it seemed to be intermittent, but it was getting more frequent.
I took the GPU heat pipe assembly off of the GPU, and Everything looked normal (besides a TON of thermal grease) I cleaned all the original gunk off the heat plates contacting the GPUs. I applied a nice thin layer of AS5 to them and piled up some more ceramic grease on the Memory chips.

I screwed the plates back on, then decided to pull them off again to make sure there was good contact. I pulled the smaller assembly apart first and it was perfect. I pulled the bigger (main) assembly apart, and only about 1/4 of the AS5 I put on had transferred to the heat sink. So that is why GPU0 was always higher than the other, it was only contacting one edge of the GPU die. I spent probably 30 minutes tweaking and bending the heat sink and checking it until I finally got a perfect fit.

It now idles around 55C and is around 70C-75C when gaming.

I bought this notebook as a "refurb" They obviously didn't fix that problem before sending it out again. Not to happy about the QC of Toshiba, but I am happy I was able to fix it myself. I won't complain too much because for some reason the GPU only overheated once in a while, so that would be easy to miss when testing it out.

Tim

 

They really need to engineer a better cooling system for the two GPUs in the SLI series. My X205 is coming back through UPS with its third set of video cards, a new HD-DVD drive and a new motherboard. What they need to do is make one huge solid heatsink block that sits in between the GPUs. With the system that they use at the moment (2 separate heatsinks) any slight bending of the heatpipes will cause them to hit the bottom of the optical drive, not only heating up the drive to extreme temperatures but also it can lift part of the HS base off of the die at an angle and totally kill your cooling.
I hope that Toshiba fixed mine for good this time and if it breaks again, I want a new notebook (computer lemon law) since it is coming back from repair #2.

-J.B.

 

A plastic film over the vent?
Is it supposed to be that way?
It sounds like something the person who built the laptop forgot to remove.

 

There was a thread about this already, removing it will cause temperatures to increase even more. It was found to be better leaving it in place