M17 R1 Heat issues (Xfire 4850)

Having some issues in BFBC2 and some benchmarks designed to stress graphics cards. Basically the cards heat up to 100C and start thermal faulting, (IE shutting down for a split second which causes excessive flickering and/or black screens) Newest ATI drivers seem to help considerably, and fixed a lot of non-heat related issues I was having with games, however the heat issue in BFBC2 remains.

I replaced the dried up and very chalky thermal paste that was on it since the laptop was manufactured, and made sure that the heatsinks were making proper contact with the RAM and GPUs, this helped them dissipate heat much better, but it still struggles to cool the chips with extended gaming sessions. I have also removed the dust screen underneath the fan intake for the GPUs, which helped airflow a LOT, but it STILL does not provide the cooling needed.

I still have this unit under warranty, (assuming I didnt void it by replacing heat grease and removing the dust filters)

Does anyone else have these issues with their 4850s and BC2 with recent drivers? Also FurMark, (a benchmark/Prime95-like utility for graphics cards) can make the cards overheat and stutter.

Should I try sending the unit back to alienware? Any other modifications that you think would work? Driver/BIOS tweaks?


Full specs:

QX9300
8gb 800mhz
2x4850 1gb
240gb OCZ Vertex II
750gb Seagate 7200rpm
4x Sony Optiarc BDROM
1920x1200 screen (Gloss)

 

Try forcing BC2 into DX 9 rather then DX 10, I bet you'll hardly notice the difference, and watch your card pull a lower temp. You go to the Documents, BFBC2, Settings, and then change the "DxVersion=auto" to "DxVersion=9"

 

what kind of heat issue are you seeing

are your cards overclocked?


btw you can disassemble your alienware laptop completly as long as you don't damage anything the warranty is still in operation

 

I know this is fairly obvious but did you check the copper fins for dust build-up and the fan for dust build up

 

Yes cleaned _everything_ no dust intake whatsoever. (Laptop was given to me in basically brand-new condition)

Cards are not overclocked whatsoever, according to the previous owner he never did either.

darkloki: Will give it a shot when I get home and let you know how that works. I would still really like to figure out/fix the temperature issue as I'm sure other games will eventually have this issue as well, I just put BC2 up there because I think it stresses the cards out more than most of the other games I play, (probably the only one that effectively uses crossfire and the full potential of the cards)

 

what temperature are you hittingthat makes you think you have a heat issue

 

at exactly 100C the cards go into what I think is some kind of thermal protection, where they start stuttering, will lose sync and start flickering with black bands on the screen. It seems pretty consistant.

 

i had this issue only when i oveclocked my gpu to 4870 speed and uped the Voltage

maybe you could try hwinfo
i also had issue with over heating on the memory chip and had to change the termal pads because they where cooked

 

Checked the thermal pads when I replaced the thermal grease, they were in very good condition, all appeared to be making proper contact and I re-centered two over the RAM chips.

HWinfo from CPU-Z is where I'm getting my temp information. It only picks up one of the 4850s, FurMark picks up both but they stay pretty close to the same. @100C they start faulting and throttling down.

 

what grease are you using and how did you spread it?

did you clean the surface with (heatsink and gpu die) with alcool befor aplying new grease?

what driver are you runing

 

AS5, it's spread well, and chip/heatsink were properly cleaned before application.

Latest ATI driver, whatever the ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver downloads, supposedly 11.1

 

11.1 that's fine

and maybe your AS5 is not fully setteled yet

maybe the spread you used is the reason
take a look here
YouTube - How Thermal Compound Spreads

 

The coat is good, the video shows aincient P4's with alum heatspreaders on it...the CPU and VPUs in this laptop do not have them...

I'm pretty familiar with thermal coupling and heatsink design. I understand how to properly apply thermal conductive medium. I'm asking these questions in the hope that someone else has also had these issues and knows a quick-fix or a possible cause that I can investigate further.

 

Biggest problem is 4850's are rare and it seems to me that your laptop doesn't adequately cool the cards well because I think USMC has the same system with 9800 GT's and he overheated one card, and I had to sell him a spare card to get it replaced.

 

no one has 9800 in the m17 the m17 only accept 3870 and 4850 and it's well capable of cooling the 4850

if you are sure you have a properly spreaded TIM and AS5 is right then ethier your fan is gone wrong or your heat pipe is defective the cards in them sefs are preatty overheat safe

 

I'm beginning to think one of the heatpipes may have sprung a leak and is not conducting properly. I think I will get a heatpipe assembly from ebay and test it out.

 

Can that even happen? I wasn't even aware that could happen, I thought as long as you made contact you were good.

 

Some have a vapor in them, some have a substance that looks like soggy bubblegum when cool, turns into a fluid when hot. Vapor ones leak easily as they're under a little pressure and a hairline crack can slowly cause a leak over time, negating the purpose of having the thing. A mostly-empty copper tube by itself doesnt conduct heat very well.

 

During a test period today I managed to get the cards running above 100C without thermal faulting. Not sure what I did, (had flashed to the custom OCZ bios posted by another user, and then back) but they seem to be running just fine now, all be it a bit hot...

 

what bios z.29 or the kizwan version

and you flashed back to what bios?

 

The zfactor .29

back to B14

 

Hello

The laptop is very good at cooling them. I have an m17 with 4850's in sli in them. With the bottom cover mod and some arctic cooling MX3 they idle at 49-50c and under load never pass 90c

 

Mine have started behaving again. I removed the mesh under the GPU fans and they are running a LOT cooler. I am not sure what changed really...

 

the mesh limit severely the air flow there where a couple project to mod it

 

I didnt cut any plastic, just removed the (cloth?) meshing over the fan intakes.

 

yes it has a real impact you can also remove the back pannel duting long gaming session

 

Had the same issue when taking apart my m17 and putting it together the first time i did so , i have 1 gpu (3870) and had the same exact symptoms , and guess what , there was a brush hair between the gpu and heat sink . discovered it after 4 times disassembling

 

Hi Marshall,
what voltage do you use for the x9100 @ stock clock and at 3,61Ghz?
What bios do you use and how do you overclock - multiplier or fsb?