Precision M6700 Idle temperature

Hi everyone,

My Precision m6700 is nearly two years old, and I've noticed that the fan spins up quite often.

Speedfan tells me that all the cores are running at about 65 degrees when I'm simply browsing the net.

What is a decent idle temperature? I prefer the machine to run quietly, so no fan noise would be ideal.

Would now be a good time to give the machine a clean? I have some Akasa thermal compound, would this be OK for the CPU? Do I need to buy any thermal pads?

Thank you for your help

James

 

Cleaning it would be good, but the fan spin up temp is pretty high on the M6700 to begin with, to avoid fan noise.

 

If you don't want to go too deep to avoid damaging the components, just remove the two fan and clean the fans /heatsinks.

P

 

What is the fan spin up temp for he m6700?
I would guess that, if the fan spins up after such a simple task then it must show that the thermal paste needs replacing?

James

Can I remove the headsink at this depth? I'm wondering if 2 years is a good time to give add some more thermal paste.

 

My fans seem to rev up at ~70 degrees, if you've spent two years without removing dust, it is high time you do so, there must be a fair amount of it in there by now.

My firepro is usually what triggers the fans for me rather than the CPU, dual monitors is enough to get it spinning periodically due to the extra GPU load (it doesn't clock down as much as when on a single display).

 

You don't really need to remove the heatsink to "clean" them, just blow compressed air through them.

The m6700 fans can be removed right after remove the back panel if I remembered correctly.

Properly done new paste are always welcomed, especially if it is stock.

 

Clean out the heatsinks after removing both fans.
I clean it about once or twice a year.
Compressed air isn't really required, just use a small brush to remove any dust that's built up on both heatsinks, and it should be fine, then screw both fans back in place.

 

Nope, that's about it. And that's with mine in an A/C environment, and sitting on a Cool Master. Which doesn't appear to make much of a difference under normal operation conditions. However, it may indeed reduce the temp.(but not by much i.e., 2-3 degrees) under maximum load.

As for dust, the amount and type of dust depends on the environment. An A/C office vs a home workshop, or worse, outdoors. Mine sits in A/C environments for the majority of the time so as a result, has very little dust when I open it.

If there's a lot of dust accumulating regularly on the outside, there will certainly be a greater accumulation of dust on the inside.as well. I just used a travel tooth brush and a damp cloth to remove the small amount of dust in my system.

 

Hi there,

I couldn't see your CPU model, I think it will mater a great deal if you are looking to compare idle temperatures.

Mine is 3840QM and idles at 44-50 when browsing and doing light work, have seen the cores at 39 when left alone

e.g. right now with only notebookreview and 2-3 tabs in Chromium I am looking at conky and temps are 50 43 48 42.

My GPU is k3000m which idles also in the area of 46-50, 49 atm.

When under load my CPU will run between 65-75, and the GPU between 60-65. The highest temps I have seen were 85 for CPU and 70 for GPU.

e.g. running Left 4 Dead 2 and launching a massive rocket in Kerbal SP, 6 youtube documentaries running and having a couple of LibreOffice documents open across the Workspaces I am looking at CPU @ 68 59 57 57 and GPU @ 60. Fans are running on medium, I would guess around 3000rpm if I remember correctly that they rev at 4000-4200rpm

I am pretty sure there is little if any dust on my fans and the last repaste was 5 months ago with AS5.

2 years is a long time, and all the others are right to point to you that it is service time. The paste that Dell applies is more often than not utter crap. Mine came dried up and the repaste gave me 5-7 degrees.

Hope that helps

 

My GPU is the Quadro 3000m too.

This has been a really helpful discussion, thanks very much everyone I'm going to pop open my laptop and give it a clean / refresh the paste.

My laptop is still within the warranty period, but I don't think I can count on Dell to address the issue properly.

The Dell Precision is a great machine, but as a comparison, my wife's Macbook still purrs like a kitten. I think Dell could learn a lot from Apple's cooling systems / build quality

James