M4400 heat & noise questions

Hi all,

I'm on my quest to buy a new notebook. Reading some of the posts here and reviews, I have some heat concerns with the Dell M4400.

Keeps the notebook quiet when watching video from HDD? At which load factor kicks the fan in (say, browsing the web, doing stuff in Photoshop, whatsoever)?

So I've seen a report that says it's relatively quiet under office tasks, it can get as loud as a freaking 47db. So I'm not a gamer, but my next NB should be silent/hardly noticible when watching movies and doing medium load tasks.

 

Hi Ernst,

No probs with heat and noise here, the fan does run loud when under heavy load but not too much. Not when playing a dvd anyway. Heat is really good actually, absolutely no problem with just using it on my lap....half of the time i'm probably blocking the air intake but it doesn't seem to run hotter because of it...fan won't speed up either with it.

 

There is a full test/review in German.
at w-w-w.notebookcheck.com. im not allowed to put the link here.

ill translate the important points regarding the fan into english:
Idle, less load: Fan off
less/medium load: fan at 3000rpm: 32 DBa --> Running, but very quiet.
heavy (graphics) load: fan at 5000 rpm: 47DBa --> noisy, but not unnerving.

My personal impression:
3000rpms 32DBa is less than talking or knittering sheets of paper.

5000rpm 47DBa is loud, but the acoustic frequency is not unnervig and whining, its more than a loud whisper... dunno how to describe in fact...

Hope this impressions are okay for you.

 

Thanks for your impressions. I've seen this article before, but I was confused by the numbers for noise emission in comparison to the T500 test.

So does the fan ever kick in a faster mode when you do something like watching XVID, or doing CPU intensive tasks?
Or is it only when gaming (GPU intensive tasks)?
If it stays off or at medium/whisper level when browsing the web, doing some programming tasks, and watching movies from HD, I'm sold.

I currently own an Inspiron 8600 and found that unlike other people I don't perceive this machine as quiet. As I'm typing this the fan is on on low level, not loud and not annoying, but it actually bothers me, and I didn't find any numbers on noise emission to be able to compare it without actually testing it myself.

 

So which was quieter, the T500 or M4400?

I searched for the review but couldn't find it.

 

The T500 is under load definitely quiter, according to the tests measured in dBa at the link he gave and also according to several other sources.

So my question is, if the M4400 is barely audible when watching DVD or doing medium load tasks all the time, or will the fan be kicking in at some time. The reason I ask this stupid question is that I really hate noise while I concentrate on my work or watch a movie on my laptop.

 

I dont use the M4400 for anything but gaming yet, because i havent moved/copied my system from my Thinkpad T60 with Flexview yet.

I wait for my issue with throtteling the FX770M getting fixed before i reinstall the OS and get a clean system with all programms i need.

about the fan:
it starts running after 60 mins idle/office on 3000rpm and only switch to 5k rpm when gaming. i didnt test any other because as i said i use my T60 for DVDs and Photoshop.

Apart from that i dont have any time for testing and stuff, i still owe photos with Flexview/M4400 LED Screen in comparison to another forum im very active in... ill post the link when its done.

 

How is Dell dealing with this? Full replacement?

 

Me and the Mailsupport are sending some Mails, one to dell, one answer per day... really slow if u ask me. I got changing contacts at the dell support, only one hotline mail and no direct contact... in the last mail they told me my system is about to check energy save options and to reset the bios to defaults.

Not a qualified answer if u ask me, but i have no chance to test that hints before todays afternoon...we will see.
I shall run the diagnostics, they want to be sure its not a display problem... but if u read the description on the M4400 owners lounge (which i cant link on this point because ive not written 15 posts yet) its an GPU-Chip/driver/heat issue which obviously can not be fixed by restoring setup defaults!
Just my 2 Cents... im getting a bit unnerved... excuse me if my expressions get a bit more explicit and less diplomatic

 

As far as my experience goes they test the most ridiculous things first before getting to the actual solution.

What is causing the throttling of the GPU? Do you or anyone else have any information on this?

I noticed when playing half-life 2 for the first 30mins - an hour, I get 71FPS which is perfect and then it drops down to 40-68, and 35 occasionally on intensive scenes. This isn't regular?