E6400 overheating throttling

I know I'll get bashed until smithereens for the following comments.. but that is an Intel graphic solution for you. It's not designed to do anything fancy. Play videos, maybe an HD video here and there, run Aero, surf the web, type text. If you do anything fancier, even multiple displays.. it will work, but not very well as you can see for yourself.

 

Personally I blame nVidia because the GPU debacle of 2 - 3 years back has resulted in Dell applying very conservative thermal rules to all its products. The underlying problem in this case is that the Northbridge (which includes the Intel GPU) is cooled by an extension of the heatsink connected to the chip by a thermal pad. All Dell can do is to replace the thermal pad.

I assume that you are running a newish BIOS because at around A20 Dell changed the thermal rules to include more fan speeds. This fixed the throttling for many people.

And the other fix that you can try for yourself is to undervolt the CPU. See the undervolting guide. By reducing the heat created by the CPU then the cooling system willl run a bit cooler and the likelihood of throttling is reduced.

John

 

guys, a month ago I've got the latest bios, and done the undervolting scheme but that doesn't help. the fact is that this will happen even with just a skype video call, mozilla, and excel open if the room is a bit warm, so to respond to
i just need goodbytes that is no intensive video app.

at this point i just need to nail down a procedure to throw at dell's face.

 

Contact Dell for a motherboard + heatsink replacement. This helped many.
(Be sure to restore your underclock to default before Dell has the system).

 

Thanks for sending me your ThrottleStop log file Sir Punk. For big log files it is easiest to upload them to MediaFire or similar and then you can post a link here so other users can see the throttling.

Your CPU core temperature was nowhere near the Intel designed thermal throttling point so there was no reason for your laptop to be throttling so badly. Running at a performance level that is 26% of its Intel rated speed is pathetic.

As posted earlier in this thread, the previous generation Latitude D830 with a very similar GPU and CPU had no problem running Prime95 + Furmark for half an hour or longer without a hint of throttling so there's no reason why your laptop shouldn't be able to run that load too.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6382811-post552.html

Contact Dell for some replacement parts and when they are done, run that same test and it's likely that your laptop will still be throttling. Post a log file after they fix it all up so we can compare before and after.

GoodBytes: There's nothing wrong with an under powered Intel GPU not being able to perform as fast as an Nvidia GPU. There is something seriously wrong though if that GPU or any GPU causes the CPU to throttle to 26% of its rated speed. There's no need to create excuses for a poorly designed product.

 

well you Thanks uncle, tomorrow I am going to call and try to persuade them to send my computer back to them. And then we'll see if this time they will replace something. But at this point I am already convinced to sell this latitude and probably by a T410s. I will post updates as soon as I have some.

At this point I am wondering if it makes sense to go through this, since I expect to run into the same problem even if they replaced the motherboard.
And why there stress test did not make the machine throttle?

 

Nononono.. sorry I was not clear.
I mean to restore the system downclock to normal, BEFORE sending the board to Dell. 'cause if Dell finds out, they will charge him a motherboard as it goes "outside the warranty" (Dell considered it as an overclock).

 

If Dell's stress test is playing a game of Solitaire then I can understand why your laptop was not throttling. It might be able to handle that but it sure can't handle any sort of serious load.

Maybe the monitoring software that Dell is using is completely inadequate to correctly report this problem. That would help explain why they have been building one throttling laptop model after another for the last 2 years.

Send Dell tinkerdude's very well written ThrottleGate pdf report that I sent you and ask them to explain why the Latitude E6000 series can throttle down to a small fraction of its rated speed. Let them know that the latest bios did not fix this issue.

At this point, I think you are wasting your time. You might as well dump your laptop on ebay for a loss and if there is still some warranty left, have that transferred over to the new owner so maybe they can waste endless time trying to get Dell to admit to this well known problem and to try to get them to fix it.

This problem and dealing with Dell is way too frustrating for most people to go through. It's obvious that Dell counts on frustrating users so most of them finally give up on getting their laptop fixed. You can swap as many parts as you want but that's not going to fix a poorly designed product.

If you don't want to take a loss then run ThrottleStop. Click on the Turn On button so it shows that ThrottleStop is enabled. Put a check mark in the Clock Modulation box and make sure that is set to 100.0%.

Put a check mark in the Set Multiplier box and set that as high as it can go which is 9.0 for a P8400. Reduce the voltage ID a little. I have my T8100 set to 1.050 volts and I can run both cores at 2.3 GHz with that much voltage so your P8400 should be very similar. Do some Prime95 testing, 1 thread and 2 threads of Small FFts, to make sure your laptop is stable.

This isn't a fix for a badly designed laptop but most users find this greatly helps the problem. Let me know how you make out.

 

You can also control the throttling using RMClock: Select Use Throttling (ODCM) in your power profile and the select the 100% value. This worked for me when the early E6400 BIOSes thought that my E6400 couldn't run properly from a 65W PSU.

John

 

so a quick update. dell is going to replace my LCD and the bottom. but as far as the overheating, First they told me to revert the bios to A 18, but that wasn't in the download page, so I called them back and told them that A 18 is not available, and they tell me to use A 19, then I run the same test with Furmark and prime but same thing. So I called back and they tell me they're not going to replace the motherboard because that's not going to do anything and apparently they're working on a fix but they didn't give me any specific date. At this point my latitude is on sale at least I hope to get some of the money back, fortunately I bought this from the outlet so it was only about $550. I'm not sure if they're really developing a fix or not I don't think the lady knew anything about it she told me it was being done in Ireland. I will let you know if there are any news.