E6540 Owners Thread

Original was an outlet "new" in November, then an Outlet refurb, another refurb, then finally a brand new machine in December. So this current one isn't early. I better hear something for somebody tomorrow. There's at least 3 people who shouldve contacted me back by now..

 

I got my two on the outlet last month. Sent one back and decided to keep the other.

 

So calling to schedule suddenly went to a call saying the guy would be here in under an hour. Will update once the job is done.

So, they sent out a new motherboard, but not a new heatsink. Apparently the work order said it was backordered, so that could be "good" news? Kind of a pointless repair without the heatsink, but it is their dime.

 

Whoa, the heatsink on backorder raises some real red flags. Let me explain. Back in September (I purchased my unit in late August), I noticed the thermal issues and actually had a service call schedule for a heatsink replacement. Well, after 3 days, I got a phone call from Dell stating that the heatsink was on backorder and they were going to schedule a system replacement. This was back in September! Now, either they are exhausting their heatsink supplies or they aren't producing them because of this fault. If the later is true, they've known about this issue for months now and trying to cover it up with a motherboard replacement and a new pasting job...

Has anybody ever gotten a heatsink replaced?

Please run tests as soon as you can and report back to us! We are all clinging to the edge of our seats lol

Anybody thought about doing something like this? http://therandomlab.blogspot.com/2012/01/laptop-cooling-mod.html

When I get my unit repaired, I am going to request that get a second heatsink. I might see if I can fabricate a better pipe that will utilize the space available. The guy in that thread saw a 10C difference.

Does anybody have a copy of the part numbers used internally at Dell for this notebook? The heatsink is 072XRJ

 

Has anyone tried to test their panel with the method I suggested a few posts back yet? I'm very interested to see whether if this is a common issue or not.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...729032-e6540-owners-thread-7.html#post9536223

 

I think my temps are actually worse now, but of course that is expected since only the board was replaced and I had repasted with AS5 before.

The tech was really friendly and knowledgeable, but admitted he hasn't worked on many of the 6540s, but has worked on at least a thousand of the previous models.

I found it funny that he had noticed the extra slot for the Expresscard and when I mentioned you can't get that without the fingerprint reader and they don't even offer that as an option anymore he was surprised.

 

How did you run Kombuster on the AMD chip? When I choose high performance option in the switchable graphics settings, the application crashes. While on power saving everything works fine (saying it's using the Intel chip).
I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro with the custom drivers from LeekM, because when I installed the from Dell available Windows 7 drivers, the screen keeps on flickering, and had to boot into save mode to delete the drivers again. In that time there where no Windows 8.1 drivers from Dell... Now I'm using Catalyst 13.11, which are reasonably new...

Did some tests myself, using Prime and Kombuster, after then minutes temps where about 90 degrees C, but did not notice any downclocking, after 10 minutes stil got 2,7 GHz running on 4 cores.

My E6540 shipped with A05 BIOS, got mine somewhere in the first days of December 2013. Did not notice any downclocking while playing some games. Fans are spinning, don't really know how fast, but is still reasonably quiet.... Got a "real" game laptop before, which was blowing like mad when playing a game...

 

I can't speak for Kombuster, but since that is just running Furmark I just use that with their builtin stresser.

Here is a screenshot from one of my runs showing things after 32 minutes. The same results now happen after about 5 with the motherboard change.

 

Interesting project, but I'm not going through all that hassle. I'll drive to their HQ in Round Rock and give it back to them before I have to mod my own heatsink to drop temps.

I checked mine out a few days ago. It didn't seem as bad as yours, then again I was looking at it from normal viewing angles.

Repaste and make sure it's at least back to normal. A mobo swap ain't gonna do jack and if that's what they're offering me I'm gonna tell them where to stick it.. About to sell this thing on Craigslist and move on..

You should have to change anything on graphics switching.. Put your power plan on high/ultra and run it. Good for you if you didn't get any throttling!

I had a $3200 Clevo with a 485M when it first came out. I know what you mean about fan noise lol.. Ended up selling it and hopped between my old Inspiron, several XPS's, and now here I am. Long journey, and it's still not over apparently!

 

Anybody considered the possibility of a air gap in between the copper shim and the heat pipe? How does Dell secure those two pieces of material together?

Also, I've used AS5 and MX4 and both had near identical results. I currently have MX4 on now. Any reason why I might try and go back to AS5?