Anyone having gpu heating problems on your Precision M4400 when gaming?

I was all set to buy a refurbished Precision m4400 until I started to read about gpu downclocking heating issues that some people have when playing higher end gpu intensive games.

Is this still a problem with this particular notebook (where a lack of sufficient cooling design will force the gpu to downclock when trying to play gpu intensive simulation games)?

Do you recommend this notebook if I plan on using it for gaming 50% of the time? I need to buy a business notebook through my company but do not want to buy this particualr one if I can't game with it. (My other option would be an XPS 1530 with a worse 8600gty gpu option.)

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated to help me decide whether to purchase this m4400 notebook.

Best regards.

 

I played Far Cry* at 1920x1200 at max settings for about an hour before the downclocking forced me to switch to 1680x1050 (windowed), but I was able to play for another 2 hours before the framerate dropped again and became unplayable. Not sure how much this'll help you, but there you go.

*Far Cry, not Far Cry 2, it's the most demanding game I own. I have yet to try WoW or CoD2, the next most demanding games I own, but I expect they'll run fine.

 

You can definitely game with this machine but keep it lifted off the desk surface and don't expect to run Crysis on maxed out settings. From what I have read on here, people seem to be running games ok if they keep the settings reasonable.

 

I've been running Crysis with all settings on high (except shaders and shadows on medium) at 1280x800 without any downclocking. The frame rate's not great (20-25fps) but it's playable and I haven't had any downclocking.

 

I'm doing quite a lot of Far Cry 2...OC @ 600/900/1600 and almost everything in high, gives me 20-25fps....no downclocking under BIOS A02, max temps @ 81...after applying AS5...back of the lappy lifted from desk

Think i should just add that whole thing to my sig...finding myself telling all this quite a lot LOL....weren't the other threads enough info?

 

I've yet to encounter a notebook that is decent at gaming that doesn't benefit greatly from increased ventilation, especially 15.4" form factors.

For those having problems with downclocking, have you all elevated your units for better ventilation? I know, in theory, you would think the makers would certify their their units to run flat, but ah well.

 

Wouldn't a Dell docking station help with this overheating issue? I plan on purchasing the M4400 with one such and hope it'll cool the bottom of the lappy a bit while gaming. Do you think it'll be enough?

 

actually the docking station makes it worse, they do have a "coolslice" available, but it only works under normal load. under high load the passive cooling of the coolslice dosent work, in fact it increases temps.

if you intend to do a lot of gaming, i reckon you should get a cooling pad with a fan

 

Here are temps from my new M4400 (Quad Core) to give you an idea.

HW Monitor shows a 1hr+ burn-in with quad core Super Pi.

Other is Real Time 1.2 which is brutal on GPUs. I've yet to find anything else that scorches a GPU like it does.

With such a tight, small, light package, the temps ramp up rather quickly.

When the temps spike and the fan kicks in, it does a GREAT job of cooling down the M4400 in such a small package. I'm very impressed with the temps once the fan kicks on. Very impressive for both the GPU and CPU imho.

No throttle on the GPU either with the GPU test.

This is with the back elevated ~1-1.5" no cooling slice.

 

bit off topic but, what happened to your m6400 electrosoft?