E6400 overheating throttling

I was referring to which type of laptop cooler he was planning to buy. It was mentioned in the original thread. The docking station (which would have to be positioned on the laptop cooler) would block fans of the laptop cooler.

 

I've "fixed" the issue on my setup.

System Specs:

Inspiron 6400
Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz
4GB Dual Channel RAM, post-factory installed by me
Radeon x1400
Windows 7 RTM 32-bit (same problems on Vista)


I'd like to note that on Vista, I had lots of problems with hooking up more than one USB drive - things would slow down HORRIBLY past 2 USB drives, or with a hub, I'm talking from 32mb/s reads to 5mb/s reads. Windows 7 fixed that. Same problem on my Toshiba laptop with Vista. Anyway.

My system would throttle down to 200MHz (!!!!) and stay there. Ridiculous! The fan wouldn't even spin up. Sigh.

1) I got RMClock and i8kfanGUI.

In Advanced Settings of RMClock, I enabled extended throttling (this is so it will control the "throttling" which is where HLT instructions are issued. The issue was so severe for me my system would go down to 200Mhz even if clocking was forced to 1.83GHz. Sigh). I set it to allow 1.33 and 1.83 ghz for clock speed. This is because with the fan on high, temp will drop LIKE A ROCK from 80C to 70C in like a second with it downclocked just that little bit.

In the profile setting, I set "use throttling" and checked the "100%" box, and the "11.0x" (max) for P-state. Then under management, used that profile, and checked the 11.0x and the 1.33ghz ones. TM1 and TM2 are off.

In i8kfangui, I set it to up my fan speed at 57C and always have it on low. Yeah the fan is a bit annoying but its a lot less annoying than forced down-throttle to 200MHz. I also have a desk fan nearby. My laptop is on a mesh metal document holder thingy for good airflow under it in an 80F-ish room. Under (very) heavy load it now stays at 1.83GHz with temps around 80F. GPU, memory etc. all report acceptable temperatures. The max operating temp on my T5600 is 100C, with runaway starting at 125C, so I'm not worried about running it at 80. Thank heavens for RMClock and i8kfangui.

 

Thanks for your answer, but this thread is about the Dell Latitude E6400, not the Inspiron 6400. Though, the same utilities apply to our problem.

 

Hi,
hopefully we might receive a beta of the new BIOS with corrected thermal tables till end of August. So far the workaround with RMClock works fine. Hopefully the fans will not run all the time when docked after that update, too.
Rgds, JB

 

I ended up getting an Enermax Aeolus laptop cooler. The black brushed aluminum finish matches the E6400 perfectly. The large 25cm fan is silent and I can report that after 3 days use at my home office, the notebook has not throttled down once and the internal fan shuts off from time to time depending on load. It ran continuous and throttled easily before.

I look forward to a bios update that will help this problem but the laptop cooler helped ALOT.

 

Just to add another data point, my E6500 has these specs:

P8600
2gb Ram
160gb 7200rpm HD
160M Nvidia

Doing a spinning-globe in Google Earth along with Orthos stress testing my CPU, I was able to get these temps:

GPU: 76
Core 0: 69
Core 1: 73
THM_ : 79

and did not have any slowdown. I checked this by watching Vista's "Reliability and Performance Monitor" and the CPU did not dip below 100% Maximum Frequency.

In addition, looking at Vista's Event Viewer under Administrative Events I do not appear to have any Event IDs of 7.

I just purchased my computer from the outlet four days ago.

 

Well, those temperatures wouldn't be high enough to trigger throttling on my E6500 unless it was docked. If you can sustain the GPU and CPU temps above 80C (as measured by SpeedFan or something just as accurate) while undocked and still not experience throttling, then I'll be convinced your system doesn't have the problem (or at least doesn't have it as bad).

If you're up to it, you might check out my 56-page report on the throttling issue, particularly on page 46 which illustrates throttling under test for an undocked E6500. BTW, testing in a toasty room - say 29-32C (85-90F) will make it much easier to reach the necessary temperatures. Max rated ambient temperature for the E6500 is 35C/95F (for the E6400, it's 40C/104F).

On another note, for those of you keeping score at home, I had given up on talking to Dell at all:

But I did subsequently get a call from the "Executive Escalation Team" at Dell's "Resolution Expert Center" in Round Rock, TX. I got an actual person who gave me their actual name and email and even an actual phone number (!), who said she would "take ownership of the problem" and work with me "until we get a resolution". I'm not entirely clear on the mechanics of how and why it was finally escalated, but there you have it. I'll do everything I can to help them on this, but I'm still skeptical. One promising sign is that she arranged for a total exchange immediately (dock and system) so she could personally test and reproduce the problem down there in Round Rock. (The replacement E6500 has the same throttling problem with no discernible difference).

It shall become clear in the next few days whether this will be a serious attempt to address this problem or just another dead end at Dell. Last I heard from her, she had received my system and was going to start testing. She made mention that others were also working on the problem, but I didn't get details on that yet. This was around noon last Thursday (it's now Sunday evening). And so we shall see what there is to see.

Unless Dell finally takes this seriously and comes clean, I'm planning to produce another report to follow up the 56-pager I already posted. The new one will include tests on the new replacement E6500 that was built for me as an exchange and will include details on three new facets of this problem:

1. If the ambient temperature is high enough (say 30C), the system can fully throttle itself *spontaneously* without even having to start any application (this is while docked with dual monitors). Fully throttled means the equivalent of about 100MHz, making the system utterly useless.

2. The NVIDIA GPU can *also* be throttled as well. It doesn't always happen, but the GPU's internal clocks can be cut dramaticlally (typically to less than half the normal frequencies).

3. Of all the temperatures that can be tested and monitored, there is one that correlates more than any other with throttling - the temperature of the air coming out the fan exhaust. For a docked system, the threshold is roughly in the low 50s Celsius. For an undocked system, the threshold is roughly in the low 60s Celsius. This is measuring just barely inside one of the grill slots at center bottom edge of the (large) exhaust port. There are a few caveats to this, and it's certainly not a perfectly precise litmus test, but it does define a fairly narrow neighborhood for when throttling will predictably happen. I've found this to be true for BOTH E6500's I've tested - my original system (now at Dell REC - Resolution Expert Center, Round Rock) and the system they sent me to replace it. Again, there are many more details/qualifications regarding this, which would be spelled out in the report.

 

Hey tinkerdude!:

Thanks for keeping us informed. I am anxious to see what might happen next. Hopefully this whole mess will be resolved in the end with a simple BIOS update. Thank you for your tenacity on this issue.

 

Couldn't have said it better than "idq000". Appreciate your effort at keeping us informed and sharing your experience, Thinkerdude!. Thumbs up.

 

I didn't read the whole thread, but I read enough to understand this is a similar problem I had with my previous E6400. Dell replaced my motherboard and heatsink and the problem persisted (??). The first system would very easily reach 100 ºC on the GPU with games or 3D applications. At that point the GPU would throttle.

The problem was fixed when I got a new system. It's quite hard to get it to 80ºC now (have to game for two hours for that to happen).