E6540 Owners Thread

I'd be interested to see how that turns out. Have you done any tests without the bottom cover on at all?

A few of the other models (other brands) I had looked at (even dual fan/heatsink models) also have the same throttling issue with the graphics. It seems these Haswell models just aren't performing like they should.

 

This was done a couple of pages back, there was a 10*C drop in temps. The vents on the base are not directly placed underneath the fan, effectively starving it of air.

The E6510 had a vent right underneath the fan as seen here:
http://imgur.com/qsgkiyJ

I know this is a very minor issue but is anyone else having thier display bezel slighly warped? My one bulges out slightly by the Dell logo. Apart from the heat issues (and maybe bad panel quality) I really do love this laptop; overall good build quality and I applaud Dell for sticking with a traditional keyboard and touchpad combination.

 

Why they didn't vent over that fan makes absolutely no sense. It's a staggering oversight.

 

Probably a cost saving to avoid having to do major retooling from the E6530 base which had the same vent layout. Should we try people higher up in Dell to see if they can change something?

 

hi, i just got a new laptop yesterday, i have done a 30 minute stress test with prime95, temps reached 90 and settled, no throttling but at the time i was not stressing the GPU, so that maybe the reason.

im thinking of repasting, and drilling some holes under the fan anyone can confirm doing so will help cool the laptop

 

Crud, just found a dead pixel.

Anyway, is this the best HDD caddy around? It looks very nice, but a bit on the expensive side.

 

"Best" sure, but as you mentioned it is expensive. With the cooling issues the machine already has I wouldn't see the point spending so much more for aluminum when you can get a full plastic kit with the faceplate on ebay for about $15. I had thought about that one, but just ends up getting a cheaper generic model

Try something like Furmark with the cpu burner running.

After a second repaste mine is doing a little "better" - it actually took about 2 minutes to hit 90c from cold. 5 minutes to hit 96 and start throttling.

Of course as it throttles the temps drop. After 40 minutes my speed is still at 1700-1900mhz so an improvement over previous tests. Temps running at 82 and gpu at 80.

 

thanks will download now and try. im done with the re pasting, seem 5-7 degrees lower now. so about 85.
it was running at about 80 degrees, and i removed the back cover while still loading prime95, the dropped from 80s to 60s. it seems the back cover is the big problem, i will do more tests once i download furmark if i confirm the problem is with the cover i will drill 3-4 holes under the fan and see if i get any improvement,

ive done the furmark test, + prime95 + wmp 1080p video + youtube 1080p video all running at the same time got to 90. i even tried to suffocate the by closing the rear vent with a cloth for a minute worst i got was 93degrees,
i then removed the back cover and and a few minutes later CPU temp dropped from 90 to 65. the gpu however does not have as big a gap dropping from 75 to 67...
so 20 degrees from removing the back cover..
makes me feel a better about buying the laptop.

so ill put the drill on charge tonight and tomorrow will drill a few holes.

im not sure how many or how big i will make them. i have to think about it..

 

So with all of that you have 0 throttling? I'm running mine now without the back cover and still hitting 90 in under 10 minutes and throttling starts to kick in. No change in gpu temps either - still runs around 80.

Flipping the laptop up so the back isn't covered at all and temps drop to around 70 and 65 for the gpu. So if the thing could just hover in the air all would be fine. I find it interesting that the heat gets retained along the heatpipes much more than on the actual heatsinks. There is over a 10c difference in a matter of inches on the gpu side

 

it wasn't a long test(10-15mins), maybe if i had waited 10 more minutes, i would have reached 95 and it would start throttling..
don't forget i am using a new laptop and the heatsink is new and clean making it more effective. if it had a months dust in it im sure i would have throttled much faster.. it didnt matter to me too much after i realized the problem was cover design and not the heat sink / fan, so i stopped the test..