E6400 overheating throttling

A19 has similar tendencies, after the reboot I opened Outlook, Chrome and had enough time to put one youtube video on and 30secs later my fan kicked into high. That was well over 2 hours ago, now I closed Chrome and left Outlook running, locked my PC as I was going to be away from my desk for a while and have arrived back and the fan is still set on high, blowing happily away, CPU is 38oC (Peak 60oC), GPU 48oC (Peak 49oC), Memory 50oC (Peak 53oC), Chipset 61oC (Peak 67oC), HDD 42oC (Peak 44oC), Fan: High 4812RPM.

This is using the e-dock with a usb keyboard, usb mouse, 2 20" lcd monitors, one set of headphones and a psu all connected to the dock. Ambient temp in the office is 25oC. Airflow around my desk is excellent, as I have faced two vents from the aircon directly at my desk

The behavior of the fan has not really changed for me at all for any of the BIOS versions, but at least I am not having throttling issues yet, but one lady I work with was actually complaining yesterday that her E6400 was "locking up" everyday sometimes once or twice a day, and has been for a while now, so will get her to apply A19 and see if that helps her out at all.

Other then that, no one else out of the other 10 we bought at work have reported having any issues with throttling, and it seems it is just me who is annoyed by the noise from the fan sitting on high all day long, everyone else seems to just ignore it.

 

Please don't confuse the issue. This thread is not about the fans speed or its noise. Its about poor performance in warm environments.

FWIW my E6500 isn't that loud even when the fan is on flat out, and it only goes flat out when I'm really working it.

 

Thanks Bill... are you only concerned with getting the throttlegate crapstorm under control, or are you in a position to help me with my principal issue also?

Here's a screenshot when I am using the internal mic with Skype. A bunch of yellow and red bars (although red out of display range), and absolutely atrocious audio quality. I get audio pops and crackles literally on clicking something with my mouse, be it minimizing/maximizing a window, or even clicking a blank area of the desktop.



Apologies if this is perceived as a thread hijack; I'll whine somewhere else if anyone wants me to.

 

I cover any Dell issue reported online for all platforms. Good idea on hijacking. Sorry all.

I can get with you in private message if you like. Feel free to hit me there.

 

Cool beans, I'm excited. I'm with a "Resolutions Expert" or something now, but he keeps calling when I'm in class! And every time I try XPS Support tries to connect me to him, the phone goes silent for 30 minutes and then hangs up on me. It's happened at least four times.

It's the i7-720QM. Right, about the hijacking: here's our thread. Seemingly, everyone who has tried a PA-4E adapter (120W) has had success in fixing the problem.

~Ibrahim~

 

I've now tested the new E6500 BIOS release A18, released yesterday.

The problem is still there - the system will still throttle at room temperature - it just does it at 4 or 5 degrees C higher than before. It's a tweak - it's not a fix. I've been trying to work with Dell and have had access to test BIOSes - and this is what they had come up with previously.

So some people will find that their system doesn't throttle after installing A18 in situations where it did before and they might think all is well, but the problem is still lurking and may bite them later (and, of course, they'll get no indication when it does).

I'm guessing that the fix for the E6400 (and all the other systems which Dell now admits have this problem) is also just a tweak. That is, the system will probably still throttle itself surreptitiously, somewhere well within its specified operating range - and perhaps, like the E6500, at plain old room temperature - if you try and do some serious work with it. It might fix the problem for some people and they might not ever have the problem again in all the future years they have the system. Or not - and they'll have no indication when it hits them.

Here are my results from testing this afternoon:

Test system:
---------------
Dell Latitude E6500
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, 2.4Ghz
4GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M graphics
E/Port Plus Advanced Port Replicator (Docking Station)
dual Dell E248WFP monitors
Windows XP Service Pack 3

Test software:
CPU stress: Stress Prime 2004 (2 instances, one for each core)
settings: "Small FFTs - stress CPU"
GPU stress: Furmark
settings: "Stability Test", "Xtreme Burning Mode", MSAA: "16X", Window size: "1920x1200"

ambient temperature: 72 deg F


I tested in a nearly identical way to the way I did for my 59-page report

(which is at the following high-speed mirror these days:

http://www.sigmirror.com/files/44490_iweoz/throttlegate.pdf )

Baseline test: BIOS A16:

Throttling began about 4 minutes into the test. Here is a snapshot seconds after the throttling kicked in (only one monitor screen is shown - the other one just had the Furmark window).

And here is a snapshot six minutes later after the system throttled itself down to less than 5% capacity. You'll see that even the GPU was throttled for a short time (as revealed by RivaTuner) while the CPU throttling was ramping up. This GPU throttling doesn't always occur (in fact, I'd call it relatively rare), but when it does, it slashes the GPU clocks by about half, compounding the situation.

exhaust port air temp at throttling: 53.4C
(exhaust port air temp is the measurement that correlates with throttling better than any other measurement I've come across. I measure it at the bottom center of the port with a thermocouple probe connected to a multimeter).

Now, same system, same setup, same ambient temp, same everything - but using BIOS A18:

Throttling began about 9 1/2 minutes into the test (instead of 4). Here is a snapshot seconds after throttling kicked in. The CPU and GPU temps are definitely higher, but still way below their rated maximums (which are around or over 100C).

And here is a snapshot 2 minutes later. Throttling doesn't wind up being as severe, but it still knocked the system down to less than 30% of processing capacity. Recovery from throttling is definitely quicker than before. That is, when you stop what you're doing and let it cool down, it will start ramping the CPU back up sooner (but at the same 30-second incremental pace as before).

Exhaust port air temp at throttling: 58.4C (vs 53.4 for the A16 test, for a difference of 5 degrees C). This is what I'm referring to when I say throttling occurs at 4 or 5 degrees C higher than before (later tests of A18 showed throttling trigger at a little less than 58.4C)

So the bottom line is that throttling isn't as bad as before, but it will still happen. Keep in mind that since it's nearly winter, my test ambient temp was only 72F. Higher ambient temperatures has a HUGE effect on throttling. Throttling will still occur at roughly the same exhaust port air temp trigger point, but since the surrounding air is so much warmer, it gets to that trigger point much easier and quicker. Throttling would be much worse at, say, summertime temps of 80F or 85F, let alone at the system's maximum rated operating ambient temperature of 95F.


If you hadn't heard, both slashdot.org and engadget.com have picked this story up in the past couple days. It would stand to reason that this provoked yesterday's BIOS release.

slashdot:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/...t-Turning-22GHz-CPU-Into-100MHz-CPU?art_pos=1

engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/...e6500-overheating-and-underclockin/2#comments

I have been in constant contact with Dell trying to get this thing fixed for real, dating back to June 24th, with no luck. For whatever reason, they have apparently decided they won't really fix this thing. It's clear that they know what the problem is and how to fix it. They fixed it a little bit with this BIOS release. Now if only they would fix it all the way. Dell suggests (via their "chief blogger") that this throttling mess was a deliberate design decision on their part. See:

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...009/12/02/dell-on-laptops-and-throttling.aspx

Good call, Dell 8-P

Randall Cotton (AKA tinkerdude)

PS: here's the list of affected systems as per the "chief blogger":

* Latitude E4200
* Latitude E4300
* Latitude E5400
* Latitude E5500
* Latitude E6400
* Latitude E6500
* Latitude E6400 ATG
* Latitude E6400 XFR
* Dell Precision M2400
* Dell Precision M4400
* Dell Precision M6400

 

My point being I am on the very CUSP of having this issue, but I understand how my posts can confuse the issue, although the fix for this will affect us all. So I will not post anymore about my issue until I start to hit the throttling problem.

 

I think it is a deliberate design, and I doubt that its exclusive to Dell. It stands to reason that the hotter they let the machine run the more warranty and reliability issues the machines will have. There has to come a point where the thermal tables have high enough values that the machine has acceptable performance for all realistic use cases, but can still protect itself when things go wrong, such as being left on in a bag or hot car.

I'm in Brisbane, Australia and its a bit cool the last couple of days but its meant to get back into the mid-30s (C) next week so I'll see how it goes on A18 then during 'realistic use cases'.

As I mentioned in my comment on the Dell blog I think that Windows or Dell DPC should pop up a notification when the machine first starts thermal throttling so the user knows whats going on.

 

Once again, sorry to hijack the thread but Alienware M15x also has throttling issues: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=439546. The GPU is dropping down to throttled clocks whenever there is concurrent stress placed on the video card and intel i7 chip. This even happens when the GPU is manually underclocked, as long as the CPU is under load, the GPU throttles! Dell, what is going on here?

 

I don't want to discuss this in too much detail and distract from the primary issue here, but I'm observing this same behavior with the Fn keys even before the latest BIOS. My graph looks about the same, running BIOS A16 on a E6500. (About to try A18.)

Bill B and others - please refer to http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=341918 ("Dell Latitude DPC Latency Issues"). Actually, this discussion could and should continue there. It is already a top Google search result, and already has over 17,000 views. Testing with this tool should be a requirement before Dell releases any new drivers or BIOS updates.