D630 Owners Thread

Its no better with the Nvidia video. Flash, any way you have it, requires a lot of host CPU to decode. At least the X3100, at idle, uses considerably less power than the Quadros. Which is why I switched away from the Nvidia in my 'main' laptop.

Having said that, I visit my grandmother in the nursing home, wire my D830 with the X3100 to her 42" LCD-LED 1080p TV using a VGA cable, and spend literally hours watching 1080p Youtube stuff with her. The laptop and power brick get wickedly hot, but other than that....

 

Dell D630 Copper Mod - YouTube

I made this video that explains my experiences and my Info I found on the D630. pay special attention to when I explain about the different heatsink revisions..

I was so happy to find they had a better, more efficient heatsink revision.

 

ha1o2surfer,

Thanks for posting your vid. I had a couple questions about your mod: did you add an additional 1.4mm copper shim onto the DT785 heatsink? Where did you end up buying your shim? Did you just use thermal grease or an adhesive to keep the shim in place + grease? Did you have to reflow the GPU or did you do the mod as a precaution against high temps?

Thanks again for the info & sorry for all the questions. I need to reflow the gpu, (barring that, get a reball) and am thinking the copper shim would help the longevity of the fix better than the thermal tape.

 

Great video!!! I have a question for you as well. I have three D630's, all of which use the Intel graphics and not Nvidia. Should I still get that same heatsink? Or is your mod specific to Nvidia?

 

It's unnecessary for models with integrated graphics since the southbridge does not need cooling.

If the laptops are running a bit warm, you can replace the thermal grease.

 

Yes I added an additional 1.4MM copper shim that I bought from eBay from a random buyer. There are other sizes, which I believe are 1.8 and 1.4MM. You can use the 1.8 but I found it to be too big and the angle too great so it will cause the pipe to bend resulting in a non flush mount on the GPU surface.

I used Artic Silver for both the GPU and the CPU in that video. I ran Intel Burn in test for 72 Hours as well as some Fur mark (which I don't recommend) The GPU was not re-flowed, and I do not know when it was built but it did have the older heatsink model which leads me to think it could have failed if it was pushed before this mod.

 

Exactly what Robin24k said. This mod is only for the D6xx or D8xx with an nVidia video card. If you have an Intel card you are safer than us with the nVidia card

 

Just found this thread when searching for info on SATA speeds on the D630. Some great info here.

I've just installed a SSD (Crucial M4 128 GB) and can't believe how quick the laptop is now. I also found a couple of brand new genuine Dell batteries (made in Japan) and with the SSD can get well over 3 hours battery life!

If you do install a SSD make sure you install the latest SATA driver from the Intel website. Much faster than the generic Win 7 driver.

Will look on eBay for a media bay HDD now.

 

Sometime this week, I'm supposed to be getting a D630 surplus from $WORK. Based on the service tag, it appears to have shipped with the 1390 wireless adapter. I'd like to swap in a spare 4965AGN adapter and was wondering if the D630 is pre-wired for three antenna leads or only two.

Thanks... JR

 

Yes, all D630's are equipped with three WLAN antennae.