E6400 overheating throttling

Has anyone not experienced this issue? My E6400 is coming in tomorrow, but considering return if this is a serious problem. I will not be using the e-dock. I may be playing some games. I have the 2.4GHz processor, NVIDIA graphics, 4GB RAM

 

Here is my my two cents:

1. It is not exactly a design flaw. There are two issues here. One is that the cooling of GPU/chipset could have been done better. The second is the over-cautious thermal protection within bios. The problem as it stands is this. The bios starts to throttle both the FSB and CPU Clock once the chipset/GPU temp. reaches 55 C(in their latest BIOS - A14). These temp. can go way higher than this from what I have read and still function properly. This is the bios being over-cautious part and can be fixed I think with a bios update. When the system is running at reasonable load, you would notice that the CPU temp is way lower(5 to 10 C) than the rest of the temp(chipset, gpu, DIMM). So, instead of the CPU temp causing the throttle, it is the Chipset/GPU that triggers the slowdown. It is ironic, the over emphasis on cooling the CPU and the lack of the same for the chipset but it is the later that is causing the throttle.

2. The dust part is something the user can handle and should be done periodically. Not sure how severe this is. A number of laptops I have had the to opportunity to service had dust in them. Some of them chronic enough to prevent booting/POST from completing and they are not even Dell. I doubt this the main factor for the current E6400 heating problem.

3. Yes but may have also waited for a fix from Dell rather than going for the T400. The Ctr/Fn switch is for me a major issue! Old habits die hard. Hahah.

4. The part of the world I am from, Lenovo seems to keep a tight leash on the pricing of their machines. Dell always has some sort of deal. I got my E6400 from Outlet for almost half of the same spec-ed retail T400. Easy choice really. Also as a prior owner of a Dell I had first-hand experience of their service and I have to say at the time they were impeccable.( I had 3 year warranty on an Inspiron 8600 and during the coarse of the ownership had replaced Hardisk, Display Panel, Motherboard, Power Supply, etc. This is not to say the machine was falling apart easily. It was just the way I abused it, switched on 24/7, not so gently lugging around college/airports and torrenting almost 24/7. 6 years now and I know it is not worth much but it still runs great!)

5. I hear you there. Refer to my #3. The T-series keyboard has an almost cult-like following. But E6400's backlit keyboard is not far off. Touchpad..no issue here for me.

Conclusion: If you need a machine now and don't mind the Ctr/Fn thingy and have no qualms with T400 pricing, go for it. Else get the E6400 with Nvidia NVS graphics as the heating problem is reportedly more common in the Intel GMA variant.

 

I see you have the NVIDIA gfx. Intel GMA is more prone to this issue. So you stand a good chance of not facing this issue. It is very easy to replicate. Just get some temperature monitoring app(i8kfangui or everest) and load some graphics intensive app. If you go past the 55 C(or even 60 C) mark for the GPU/Chipset and no throttle occurs then you are off the hook.

p.s. Either way, please report your findings here. Interested in finding out if Dell has done something about this.

 

Hi,
I agree - unpack it, put it on the desk. Use Speedfan for temp monitoring (or any other tool that can reed the DELL temp sensors) and let the VISTA Aurora screensaver run - ideally on external monitors with higher resolutions. But I even managed getting it hot and throttled with the internal screen as well. For example, run "FURMARK" for stressing the GPU and "ORTHOS" stressing the CPU at the same time. Now you'll see if it can handle the heat of both components - which in my opinion it should without throttling/downclocking.
Watch the Performance Monitor if the CPU speed gets throttled and see in event monitor under System if you get an Event ID 7, that system firmware has reduced processor speed.

Good luck all.

 

I have the 160 NVS and I can tell you I've never had any overheating issues at all, ever.

 

3) Good question. I may still have gone with the E6400 as I do rarely play games or use any graphics intensive app (main reason I went with the Intel IGP). I just find it really stupid that this machine can't play a game because the CPU is getting throttled.

4) Back-lit keyboard, looks, screen and Dell support (WXGA+ was removed by Lenovo at the time I bought this) are my main reasons.

5) I've got the D620 (which I think has the same keyboard as the D630) and the keyboard on the E6400 definitely feels better to type on. The only complaint I have with this keyboard compared to the older models is it's not too friendly with oily fingers. It's easy to get fingerprints all over the place.

I don't think you'll be having trouble if you use CPU demanding applications as most of our problems here are triggered by the GPU. I had no problems running Orthos for several hours when I was testing for stability after undervolting.

 

Did you know that Levono has an outlet as well?
http://stores.channeladvisor.com/LenovoOutlet/Notebook/

With outlet pricing, I think the price points are fairly close. Leveno's outlet site isn't very good though, because you can't search for laptops by feature (ex. 250G 7200 RPM drive, for example) like you can at the Dell outlet site.

Anyway, is Dell actually proactively addressing this overheating problem (sounds like it's been around for several months)? From the other guys here that posted in the Dell forum, it sounds like instead of addressing the problem, they are censoring forum posts that deal with this issue (according to the posters, anyway). That's really unethical. I mean, censoring posts to suppress faults about your product is really dirty business. And if that's in fact what Dell is doing, they should really be ashamed.

 

I don't think that's the entire story...

 

Actually, I didn't. Thanks for the info. Not sure how their specs/pricing compare to DFO. Their minimalist-config-options retail prices are definitely slightly higher than what Dell.com offers. Both Dell and Lenovo have country specific configuration options for customization but Lenovo's is quite limited.

I agree. I think the truth lies somewhere in between. But Dell's silence on the issue and on that 7 page Dell Community Forum thread sure is deafening.

 

No problem

I'm not so sure, see this thread:
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19247293.aspx

From woood77's post:
"I am having this exact same problem with my E6400. I am using Nvidia."

Yes, probably so. I will say that I've had good luck with Dell support in the past overall, so it's pretty hard to believe they would remove forum posts just to make themselves look good.

One idea I was kicking around was just getting a D630 from the outlet (they are *very* hard to find and get bought very quickly). Surprisingly, the D630's cost as much or more than the E6400's in many cases. The think I like about the D630 is that I know what I'm getting. It's a really solid machine (i.e. the one I have for work) even if the hard drive is too slow, and I'm guessing the overheating nightmare you guys are having is a non-issue with the D630, but I may be wrong on that. I will say that I've never seen mine overheat, that I'm aware of anyway.

Of course, I want the 250 gig 7200 RPM drive, so I'd probably have to buy that separately since most D630's on the outlet (when you can find them) don't come with that.

And I've considered the T400 some more, but as we already discussed, that keyboard thing (FN/CTRL swap) is just a killer. It bothers so many people, yours truly included . One thing I have hated about my Inspiron is that they moved the Home, Page Up, Page Down, etc. keys to the right edge, which I've never really been able to get used to. Keyboard layout is really important, at least to me, and I think it's best if you can have the same layout on all keyboards you use, since it just makes you more productive. There's nothing more annoying than hitting the key you *think* you're hitting only to find that it's a different key altogether.

So anybody got a T400 with an E6400 keyboard layout .

Seriously, what do you guys think about trying to get a refurb'd D630? My gut tells me this is probably not the best move for a computer I'm hoping will last the next 4 years. But I'm just not comfortable buying a computer that's going to overheat if I do anything graphics intense-wise.