HowTo: Latitude E6400 (and similar) Performance + Cooling Guide

I saw this too. When I tried the northbridge mod, it did nothing, so I reverted to the thermal pad.

I am also experiencing higher than before temps on the northbridge. More efficient heat dissipation from the CPU has to have something to do with it, but I can't help but thinking it's something more. Perhaps the solid shim (vs the spongy thermal pad) is slightly tilting the cooling assembly, so we get worse contact on the NB? I have no idea. I haven't had any serious problems with my northbridge (highest I ever got is 85 or so, and that only very briefly), with typical temps in the high 50s or 60s.

Which should we torture with high temps more? GPU or northbridge?

As I said before, do at your own risk!

 

On second thought, my copper mod took place at the same time as my CPU replacement from a 35W to a 44W. My significant northbridge temp increases probably have even more to do with this than the increased heat dissipation from the graphics card.

 

I actually thought it was a very natural explanation that the overall temp in the heatsink is raised if there is a better contact with all the components (and then evens out the other temps a bit) Well, my copper mod is removed for now and Im just pleased that my fan is mostly off when idling. How does your fan behave now?. I will try the copper mod again when i have some more time. (and need the better cooling of the GPU)

EDIT: And the CPU throttling issue doesnt seem to concern those with Nvidia GPU, atleast some of us have ACPI temps over 80C without any throttling. So im quite clear that that isnt a problem anyway.

 

NOTE TO ALL M4400 USERS:

The heatsink on a M4400 is two-part: one pipe to the CPU and one pipe to the GPU. Both are copper-finished--you don't need a copper shim to cool off the GPU. However, the chipset chip still has a thermal pad that could possibly accept a shim.

My results:

Seeing as the M4400 doesn't really need a copper mod, I just applied thermal paste and prayed I didn't fry my laptop. After cleaning the heatsink, CPU, and GPU, I applied OCZ freeze to the chips, mounted the heatsink back, and turned back on the computer. Initial temps were GPU-62*, CPU-55*...very disappointing. However, after 30 minutes of stress testing the CPU and GPU together, the temps suddenly dropped ~10. Now my idle is 32* on the CPU and 49* on the GPU--not a great drop, but at least slightly cooler.

 

Can't believe I'm just now stumbling across this. Cool thread. I've got a few questions for you, OP.

-- What kind of battery life do you get with the X9100 processor, NVS 160M graphics, and 9-cell battery for simple tasks like surfing and listening to music? I realize it'll be a good chunk less than integrated graphics and a P-series CPU, I just want to know how much less.
-- Where did you buy your X9100 and how much did you end up having to spend?


Thanks!

 

kudos to the OP for taking the time to write such guide. But all the mod part is a bit pointless IMO. Why would you wanna void the warranty when most e6400 users have a 3 year warranty? I might do it when the laptop is out of warranty, then yes, it is useful since you got nothing to lose, perhaps.
Also, swapping the whole motherboard is not cost effective at all.

 

Swapping the board could be less expensive than you think. Buy the most bare-bones E6400 possible off of Dell Outlet with the board you want, swap the board into your machine, put your machine's (presumably still-working) board into the barebones machine you just purchased, and sell that machine to recoup some of the cost. You'll probably lose a few bucks but it won't be horribly expensive or anything.

 

I put arctic silver 5 on the on the GPU and chip set while still using the pad. Was this really dumb? My temp for the GPU is 60 as I type with the ambient 12.

If I wanted to replace the thermal pad, which one should I get?

 

Well, it wouldn't really help. The Arctic Silver conducts heat better than the heat pad; it doesn't actually dissipate it. Basically what you did was you added another layer for the heat to go through to get to the copper and fan, which dissipates the heat, thereby theoretically actually making it worse.
I'm not sure where you can buy new thermal pads, but you can buy copper to do the copper mod at onlinemetals.com

Sorry that I didn't respond to your post earlier. I didn't see that you had made a post here. Anyway,
Battery Life: Well, it's actually not too bad. My X9100 is undervolted, so that definitely helps. I also have redundant hardware turned off (Firewire port, expresscard, smartcard, contactless smartcard). I'd say that without any optimization on my part, I could get about 4 hours of surfing and listening to music, maybe 4:15. If I'm on a plane, though, I can turn off the wifi, turn down screen brightness, lock the CPU to lowest frequency, and turn on all of that ControlPoint powersaving stuff and pull 6:30-7 hours just word processing.
X9100: I originally bought a Q9100 off of ebay for $325. When that failed to work, I exchanged it with the seller for $25 more for an X9100, so that's $350. It's an ES/QS, so that's why it was so cheap. I've had no problems with it though. Anyway, I sold my old T9600 on Amazon for $350, which turned out to be about $320 after fees. So, it cost me $30 for the upgrade.
In hindsight, I'd still pay $30 for the 1 second decrease in boot times, but when people ask if they should upgrade from a T9600 to a T9900 for $200 while buying their computer, my answer is no. (Unless money is no object, in which case, why are they even asking?)

I was just putting out all the possible options. It's less of a recommendation to even think about doing it than it is acknowledging that it is, indeed, possible.

 

I took the AS off. It only affected the chipset. I bought some 1.5mm pads. We'll see how it works. I hope Dell doesn't notice the extra AS on the chipset and GPU.