E Series Power Settings

Hi there,

Just wondering what we use in terms of Power Management, whether its part of the OS or its Dell's Control Point Manager, and whether it affects the fans kicking in or not under comparable settings.

I use an M4400 & an E6400, both have the latest BIOS revisions, and both use Vista's native applet, selected to "Balanced".

 

I use a customised version of one of the Dell ControlPoint profiles.

The DCP options are worth looking at if you want to get the maximum time out of your battery but, I think, any of the maximum battery profiles will keep the CPU to its slowest speed thereby minimising the likelihood of the fan coming on.

John

 

Exactly.
However, it seems to be the GPU that makes my fan neurotic, as my CPU idles along below 37 for the most part.

 

nVidia GPU, I presume. The BIOS is set to try to keep it cool to avoid the risk of it degrading. At the moment it is unclear whether the current nVidia GPUs are free of the packaging problem which has caused the previous generation to die so the computer manufacturers are trying to minimise the thermal cycling. One member seems to be having nVidia GPU reliability problems.

John

 

Duly noted.
The heat in my system seems to be more the product of the Quadro GPU though.
Quick question - as far as the E6500 goes - assuming you've fiddled with one - does it's NVidia option still make the fan come on more often than the 4500HD like the E6400?
Or, does the larger heatsink & chassis make up for the NVidia option?
Reason I ask is that I'm on the verge of picking up a couple E6500s next week, and was entertaining the idea that it's NVidia option would dissipate heat a bit more efficiently than the E6400 due to it's larger chassis.

 

I can't help you regarding the E6500.

I suggest you post the question in the E6500 owners' lounge.

John

 

Done posted yesterday, thank you.

 

No - there's only a minimal difference in interior cubic airspace between an E6400 to E6500. The nVidia will still run hot and the fan will run considerably more often at higher speed.

A couple of simple concepts need to be understood.

-A dedicated processor will also run warmer than an IGP due the additional heat produced from it's own processor.

-nVidia GPU's generally pushes it's GPU processor quite hard to obtain the performance spec, like overclocking this produces.

-In notebooks where reliability and thereby adequate cooling is important, like the lattitude series geared towards the corp sector, running the fan to maintain reliability will take priority over being quiet.

When you combine these 3 factors, the end result is a warmer notebook with a fan on highspeed more often and for longer periods than the same model with the Intel onboard IGP regardless of the model and size of the notebook.

In my humblest opinion I would strongly suggest the Intel IGP if you want a quiet, cool notebook with long battery life. I still haven't found anything it can't handle, but I'm not a gamer. At least not on my notebook. Have a PS3 and Xbox360 for that. Your needs may be different.

 

Good observations MiB; for the occasional game, my M4400 does very well.
Out of curiosity - I wonder if the Intel IGP 4500 can play COD5 at low settings - that's all I really indulge in as far as gaming goes.
Offhand, know the TDP of the MV160M & the Quadro 770M/
Thx.

 

The NVS160M has a TDP of 12W. The 770M is 35W.

Use the list at notebookcheck how the Intel 4500MHD (currently #124) compares with low end dedicated GPUs.

My Intel GPU meets my needs fine. For me, a dedicated GPU would be like having a car with a big engine for driving round town.

John