Video Guide: Changing thermal paste(AS5) on Studio XPS 1645

[GogolMogol]

One more quick question, guys:
What are the average temps for a stable lead under gaming for example (what are you getting)?
I am getting about 80-82 on my CPU and up to 81 on GPU after repasting with liquid pro after a few hours of mid-settings gaming.
What temps are considered to be low enough/high/too high for a i7 xps under a load? Thanks

[orenzai]

Hi all, just a assessment by you people to confirm if its gpu throttling.

Model: 1645 i7-720
Age of laptop: 1 year
CPU idle temp: 70c +-
GPU idle temp: 68c +-
GPU & CPU temp when on mid-setting NFS Hot Pursuit: 80c-87c
Adapter: 130w

CPU NOT throttled after doing some tests on the multiplier monitoring. It was on x15-x17 when playing the game

Here's where I'm not quite sure. Since day one, my computer crashes randomly with fuzzy screen and diff colors. I have to restart and it says that it suffered from a fatal error. It has been a year. Doesnt crash when doing graphic intensive stuff. Only normal stuff such as watching videos and stuff.

I reformatted the whole PC (including deleting the recovery partition) yesterday. So far, it has crash BUT when I was starting up Hot Pursuit just now, my whole PC shut itself down. This has happened numerous times BEFORE I did the reformat too.

When I'm in a race in NFS, my fps drops significantly and stuttering. This, is where I suspect, like everyone else here, is a GPU throttling issue.

What I'm unsure of is whether or not my crashing and BSODs previously is related to this GPU heat issue, or something more? This is because whenever they crashed, i wasnt doing anything graphic intensive. Just playing videos etc.

Nevertheless, I'm buying a AS5 to change the thermal paste to end at LEAST half of the problem with my XPS.

Your kind opinions are very much appreciated.

orenzai

UPDATE: I just downgraded my BIOS from A013 to A09 and true enough, my GPU throttling was gone. When I fire up NFS now, my GPU temp hit 90c +- and it doesnt get THAT laggy at 1920x1080. Turned on Fraps and managed to clock a 15fps constant. That, to me is still not good enough. :S Is this still GPU throttling?

[GogolMogol]

orenzai
Looks like your PC shut down after the temps reached certain extremely high values. I strongly recommend you to do something, in case you want to keep your laptop alive for a while, imo.
I think that ~84 C is a red line before throttling comes in, temps above are more likely to be critical for a laptop hardware.
My suggestions: repaste, clean the fans (heatsink), remove dust filters, buy a laptop cooling pad.

[GogolMogol]

Also your idle temps are VERY high, maybe the fan/heatsink are too dirty to draw the heat off.

[orenzai]

orenzai
Looks like your PC shut down after the temps reached certain extremely high values. I strongly recommend you to do something, in case you want to keep your laptop alive for a while, imo.
I think that ~84 C is a red line before throttling comes in, temps above are more likely to be critical for a laptop hardware.
My suggestions: repaste, clean the fans (heatsink), remove dust filters, buy a laptop cooling pad.

Also your idle temps are VERY high, maybe the fan/heatsink are too dirty to draw the heat off.

OK I just replaced my thermal paste with MX-4 for my GPU and CPU. Indeed, Dell did a very sloppy job in applying them. There were tonnes of excess thermal paste overflowing from the chip. I also cleaned the very dirty heat sink.

Yes, I've noticed an improvement in temperature. Approx 5-10c decrease during idle and also a 5c decrease during load.

Here are my stats of when I'm playing NFS:HP. It's fps improved by approx. 5fps after changing the thermal paste. What I was wondering is that is my 1645 supposed to only get 20+fps while playing a 1 year old game? It seems to be under-performing.

Please have a look to see if its normal. Thanks very much for helping.

[GogolMogol]

don't know about the game, depending on the video settings you have set (try other 3d games). I suggest you to disable any anisotropic filtering and AA settings. Also things like dynamic shadows (which you won't generally notice while gamplay), etc.

Temps are better, but still kinda high.
Reapply the paste again, do it right now, apply as little as possible (as on the video) and make sure to clean the heatsink well (use 99% alcohol and a brush). Removing the dust filter will also do a good job in temp drop.

[orenzai]

Ok I'll reapply the paste to see if I can yeild better results. By the way, the fps log on my previous post is with all details settings OFF incuding antistropic. Only thing is that it's running on 1920x1080. I'm currently finding for Black Ops to do a benchmark on that game as suggested.

If all goes well, what range of temps should I be getting for my CPU and GPU? Also, now that I've downgraded it to A09, the GPU managed to go beyond 84c (suggesting that throttling is absent), should I upgrade it back to A13? Or just let it go hotter w/o throttling?

GogolMogol, we can contact through email if I'm kinda spamming this thread. I just wanna solve the problems and play a decent game

Thanks
Orenzai

[GogolMogol]

orenzai
You can find email address in my profile, I think this is not off the topic, some users might find this helpful.

I am on A13 right now.

That is weird with NFS, I don't have it, can you install a game based on a HL2 source engine: half-life 2 series, team fortress 2, left4dead 1-2, portal 1-2, cs:source, etc. Team fortress 2 is a free game on steam btw. Install it and we will be able to compare performance Team Fortress 2 on Steam
My laptop can run any source engine game on 1080p max settings, max shaders with x4 samples AA and anisotropic filtering. The fps are 40+ without any overclocking. There is a video stress test feature in any source engine game.

Also I played resident evil 5, far cry 2 - 1080p and every settings on max (without AA), amnesia on 1080p everything max and + filtering.

[orenzai]

Wow, I'm pretty sure there IS something wrong with my system. I just reapplied the paste. Re-run NFS and got temps of about 77 and below during full load. My idle is still hovering around 50-55. FPS was 25 and even on 1280x720, I only manage to get about 33FPS.

I installed COD Black Ops. At full res w/o filters, I only got 20FPS++ this will be fine except for the fact that the FPS drops to 5 whenever it changes scenes and when I run. I remember seeing my friend play on his studio 16 without any noticable lag.

Oh and I upgraded it back to A13. I suppose that because GPU throttling starts at 84c, now that thermal paste is changed and temps don go beyond 80+ so its ok.

What could be the problem Bear in mind that this a fresh install too.

Thanks

[andrew9]

And did you test it in 3DMark 2006?

Maybe it's not the best benchmark but with simmilar configuration it can be good to compare the results.


And about the dust filters - is it possible to put them back after removing? (I'm asking because I'm thinking about changing XPS 1645 for L702x in future).