E6520 Owner's Thread

Unfortunately, so far i know, it is not possible to boot Windows directly from expresscard or use the expresscard SSD for Windows Ready Boost.
First is due to need of initiation or loading of drivers for the expresscard. Some people succeeded to load some Linux systems though.
Second is not possible, because Windows sees the expresscard SSD as it`s own drive, not external one and therefore won`t use it for Ready Boost.
Something like that.

Otherwise many people would benefit from easy to plug in bootable SSDs....

 

Anyway...what is with Ivy Bridge support for E6520?
I red this:

So we have to annoy the Dell engineers to release a bios update to be possible to upgrade to Ivy Bridge?

 

Actually, that was released quite a while ago, but for some reason the Dell site keeps reporting a current date..... don't know why

 

Huh, that seems dumb. If the BIOS can natively recognize flash drives for booting, then why in the world can't they recognize expresscard, miniPCIe slots for booting? Just seems.....silly.
Guess it's time to look into rewiring that eSATA port to an internal SSD drive.... Hrrrmmmm

 

Great.. got it. Thx

So next issue I noticed first days of first use.. laptop seems to become very hot on the left side near the exhaust. Even in pretty regular windows work. Then especially when playing a game, even for like 10 minutes.
Played some diablo3 and used speedfan to look at some temps. CPU cores are at round 75 degrees celcius, and GPU at almost 80 degrees..
This seems very high for just early in game sessions but also high degrees just when computer been off for a while, then started up to write this forum post, CPU is at around 58 degrees. Energy scheme is at high performance just to get the fans going..

 

Yep, if you look earlier in this thread you'll see I report the exact same situation. idle CPU mid-high 50's & GPU mid 40's. Stress (gaming) ramps those right up to 70-80oC ranges...

Some people have been applying AS (arctic silver/ceramique) to bring temps down, though reapplications appear necessary every few months...

 

Hi

I did read bunch of these pages like a week ago and probably forgot bunch plus missed a lot because of high colume of content (and Im no forum guru).
How much are these AS improving temps? Im actually thinking of getting a chillmat that will have 2 fans. Hopefully this will solve the heat problem.

And cool that ur playing games too. Are you maybe playing Diablo3 as well? Im very curious to know if people can play this game with a decent FPS.. Its basically unplayable here for some reason.. 10-20 fps (20 is ok but not getting it that often).. I have latest drivers for everything I think.. Still not sure if I have something wrong though so would be nice to compare with anyone.

cheers

 

Some have reported drops of 10oC - again for a few months.
I only play DDO, LOTRo, DA, ME2 and they all played just fine. Don't play Diablo, so can't comment

 

Idle-surfing:
CPU 50-55°C, peaks up to 60°C, GPU 40-43°C, keyboard cool -- little bit warm, fan noise nearly not present
Flash gaming:
CPU 55-60°C GPU 45°C keyboard cool-little bit warm, fan noise nearly not present
3D gaming: approx CPU 80°C GPU 60°C, will test more precise later

Measured with Speedfan, always working with "balanced" windows power profile.
CPU temp is the 1 CPU core (core 0) temp, the second core temp (core 1) is 5°C lower.

 

So, here's another question for y'all - Does anyone know where we can get a key-contoured keyboard protector?

Not just the flat sheet, but the kind that is actually contoured for all the keys? I've come to realize that I am messy around my keyboard, and it keeps getting quite dirty...and stuff falls in...and, well, I'd like to lay something over my keyboard to prevent this....