E6400 overheating throttling

I also use I8kFan and my chipset reading is exactly the same as the ACPI temp in HWmonitor (I have sensor index 0 for the chipset) It also seem to be correct when looking at the fan speeds, which I thought was depending on the chipset temps. And what else would the ACPI temp be?

It seems that most people having the Intel version have confirmed that the throttling begins when they stress the chipset to 55C. I was refering to the fact that those who have the Nvidia card have higher temps very often. And they would have a much bigger problem if the throttling at 55c was affecting everyone.

And that is one of my concerns, what triggers the throttling? Is there different triggers (or temp thresholds) depending on model?

 

If Intel GPU user have their northbridge at lower than 55C (those who don't have the issue, and considering that the laptop is not on top of a A/C unit) and Nvidia user have the northbridge act like all the northbridge I saw on desktop computer and go up to in 60's+ range (again considering no problem). This suggests that the northbridge is very different. Or that there is throttling at the northbridge level for Intel GPU users. I don't think the heatsink difference would do such a big difference in temps.

 

Which causes me to wonder...
1) What significant difference allows the northbridge without the X4500MHD to run hotter than one with the X4500MHD? Nvidia users can have their chipset temperatures reach ~65C and over without throttling. If the chipset for Nvidia users were simply X4500MHD-less versions of their Intel counterparts, it should theoretically run cooler.
2) If Dell did decide to set the throttling level for Intel users at 55C, why did they do that when Intel lists the maximum operating temperature as 100C?

 

It seems that progress has been made. JoeB7 over at Dell Community has posted the following:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19247293.aspx?PageIndex=9

Hopefully it will fix the throttle problem and make the fan less aggressive.

 

Yeah. I just saw that. Hopefully Dell fixes it for good this time (and doesn't break something else in the process...).

 

Now that I look at the "Options" page, I see you can set a "sensor index" value to various integers 0-9 and that *changes the readings* for the chipset temp, depending on what integer you choose.

When I played around with this, here's what I got (all measurements are taken when the "sensor 0" reading was 42C)

"sensor index" setting -> actual "chipset" temp. reading
0->42C
1->53C
2->54C
3->52C
4->alternates between 0C and 43C
5->alternates between 0C and 43C
6->alternates between 0C and 42C
7->alternates between 0C and 43C
8->alternates between 0C and 43C
9->alternates between 0C and 42C

My "sensor index" setting happened to be at 3 (set by the software, not me). But when you can adjust a "sensor index" for all temp values (cpu, gpu, memory, chipset) and wind up with different readings for each setting, how can you believe any of the readings? If I've got this straight, I8KfanGUI allows you to choose from several different hats out of which it will pull a different number for you and tell you that's the temperature of the chipset, CPU, GPU or memory. Am I missing something here?

I don't think I have very much faith in I8kfanGUI and I regret using it now to report numbers in two previous posts (here and here - I've editted them with caveats now).

As a matter of fact, now that I look, the CPU and GPU temps being reported by I8KfanGUI aren't right. They're in the neighborhood, but they're off.

Furthermore, checking the documentation, none of the Dell E series Latitude models are on the compatibility list at:
http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

So, unfortunately, it seems to me that I8kfanGUI is not very useful for measuring E6X00 temperatures.

I still don't understand how you jump to the conclusion that the chipset temp must be the ACPI temp.

According to the ACPI spec, the ACPI temp could be the temperature from any sensor in the system, or it could be from a dedicated sensor just for ACPI, or it could be a calculation based on several sensors.

I only recall one person saying that so far (wsx). Are you aware of any others?

 

If you're relying on my reports of chipset temperatures, specifically:

This one

and

This one

Keep in mind that they were based on I8KfanGUI readings which have since turned out to be unreliable (as shown here).

I've corrected those two reports above now to warn folks that I8KfanGUI is not reliable for E6X00 temperature readings.

 

I'd like to urge folks to tread very carefully in this area with their assumptions. We can't even get reliable measurements for chipset temperature, so it's pretty dicey trying to make any presumptions and conclusions regarding that.

CPU and GPU temps are one thing - they can be cross-checked and verified pretty well with manufacturer literature or software tools. Chipset temps are much more murky, it seems to me.

BTW, if you think Everest is reliable with their chipset temp measurements, consider this from:

http://www.lavalys.com/support.php?category=22&lang=en

Q#21: Is it possible to detect temperatures, voltage values and fan status of Dell computers?
A#21: Dell computers use a proprietary sensor chip that is undocumented and so cannot be supported by EVEREST.

 

Whatever, the problem with reading the temperatures, we know that something is triggering the throttling at a threshold which is much too low.

Perhaps the Dell BIOS also has problem with reading the temperature correctly.

John

 

But isnt that what we are trying to figure out? We must know what triggers the throttling and when. How does the ACPI reading look in the intel ones (without the GPU sensor)? The fan is controlled by the chipset temps, does it match the ACPI readings?


tinkerdude: Its well known that I8kfan shows the GPU temp wrong, but that is easy to calibrate in the options (5-8c or something). It is still a good program with useful functions. And its not that hard to figure out where the sensors goes, there arent that many. Compare it with some other program (isnt there temp readings in bios also?).