XPS 15 R2 (L502) Temps Only thread please.....

I was just getting ready to order a L502 when I read about the high temps in the general L502 thread, this has caused me to pause from ordering.

There's a lot of info in that thread though and I think it would be useful to have a Temps only thread for the machine.

If people could post their temps in here that would be useful, but please ALSO POST THE FOLLOWING INFO else your posting won't be of much use as no-one will be able to compare it properly.....

The 4 Core Temps
The GPU Temp
The System Temp

The above for both idle and under load (please state what you've used to put the processors under load, be it a game or a specific burn in/load tool), what software and version number you used to measure the temps and finally whether you've still got the original thermal paste on the CPU's/GPU or whether you've repasted.

I'm sure a lot of people would be interested as people don't want to end up buying what could just become a PITA.

For the record I've got a M1530 and once I got it repasted and calm it never goes over 82c under load and mid 40's idle.

 

Can I suggest test like notebookcheck:

Prime95 + Furmark run together and HWinfo32 (works on 64bit too) to shows temps

These test run until you stop,
I suggest to take a screen-shot while test is still running after 15min to start and post in this thread.

FurMark 1.9

Prime95

HWinfo

 

I'd also like to see the temps everyone is getting. I'd suggest using HWMonitor for temperature readings

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

 

But HWmonitor show CPU throttling?
HWinfo32 can show CPU throttling surely.

 

I loaded up HWinfo32 and did not see any throttling. I am assuming the GREEN next to the cpu speed would go red or something.


Can't attach the image its to big. I uploaded it to my site FURMARK and PRIME95


CPU0: 93
CPU1: 94
CPU2: 94
CPU3: 93
GPU: 90

 

Yes, Green "OK" next CPU core means not Throttling.
In this image you see an example of happen when throttling
(Not is an XPS)

 

Oh sorry, I didn't know it did throttling. That's pretty cool.

Mid 90's seems pretty high for a CPU. 90 for the GPU doesn't seem that bad though.

What are your specs w0ss?

 

2720QM
540M
6GB ram

The CPU was in the mid 80's when I ran only prime95. I did not notice the laptop warm at all on the top(keyboard/palmrest etc).

 

I guess that's not THAT bad then. Even just running prime 95 alone is an extreme condition and it probably wont happen during normal use.

About what temps do you get while playing games?

It's be awesome to see what temps people are getting with new thermal paste.

 

Looks pretty similar to L501x temps that users reported when stress testing with Furmark.
They most likely didn't alter the pitiful heatsink and fan assembly, as well as most likely still employing the same thermal paste application.

 

I have reapplied thermal paste and even did a pin mod years ago. I would like to see how much of an improvement people get with it so I can see if it's worth it.

 

Prime95 & Furmark Benchmark Preset 720
Using SIW for temps:

Core 0: 89
Core 1: 90
Core 2: 88
Core 3: 87
GPU: 87

 

When running Prime95 large FFT's with 8 threads and 3dmark06 my MAX temps are as follows:

System:91
cpu0:88
cpu1:89
cpu2:90
cpu2:88

That's the max temps, the fan seems to ramp up and keep things in the mid 80's and even low 80's or high 70's when just prime95 is running.

Also, you cannot feel these temps on the keyboard. It is surprisingly cool.

 

I think that if people not do the same test then
the results are not comparable.

 

Ya, take them with a grain of salt. I own 3dmark06Pro, already had prime95 and trust HWMonitor and CPUID. I got tired of sifting through the cr@p just to download furmark and the other HW info monitor.

 

I remember when bench testing my paste mods to the L501, 3dmark06 didnt push the system and temps as much as Furmark, Furmark stresses it more than 3dmark.

 

I've run both 3dMark06, Furmark, and played the Crysis 2 demo. The Crysis demo has gotten my gpu as hot as the Furmark test, but it was over a longer period of time too.

 

I read your repaste guide, but after some months in which state is your heatsink?
I posted something with some images in your repaste thread about Liquid metal problems, did you have read?

 

What state is my heatsink in? Who knows, it is at Dell's Houston repair facility, something died on it and the on-site tech couldn't figure it out even after replacing the mobo.
So it will be back this week with stock thermal paste on it. Not sure if I'm gonna bother repasting again as all my energy is in grad school now and I don't game anymore.
Never saw your post, don't spend much time on here anymore, sorry.

 

I can honestly say that unless I see some numbers, under load, of machines running at about mid 80's (either after repasting or newer BIOS) I would think it unlikely I will be ordering one. Heat kills components (more specifically heating and cooling kills components) and while the processor is rated for 100'C three years of cooking and cooling (the kl factor) could cause failures down the line.

I'm disappointed as I thought Dell would have learnt it's lesson after previous problems in this area.

 

I hear what you're saying. Get the 4 year warranty? I had a 15" Dell 9300 P3.2GHz that was overheating after 3 years - they replaced it with a new 9400 dual core 1920x1200 screen 17" free of charge. It took a little fight - but they made good. The 9400 is still going strong even though several components on the MB have physically burned out!

The 4 year extended warranty should give you some piece of mind.

 

I am really looking forward to some i5 temperatures. Especially considering the fact that for gaming with the 540m the upgrade does not make a difference. If the temps turn out te be lower on i5 that would be a very attractive option. Particularly for those of us who do not do any programming or graphical work.

Any i5 owners who would be so kind to check their temps?

 

Yup, agreed. Almost wishing I went with a Thinkpad instead.

 

But I resent having to pay for a four year warranty to address what frankly seems to be a design issue. My desktop machine has a CPU rated for 100'C as well but even under load I can't get it over 65'C. I'd accept mid 80's as within a safe zone but mid 90's is way too high IMHO.

 

You do realize CPUs pretty much never die?

Laptop death is almost NEVER due to CPU failure.

 

What he said !

I'm holding off on buying until I see some i5 temps.

Hopefully I'll be getting the i5-2410m with either the 525m or 540m GPU.

Any thoughts or recommendations ???

 

Alright, here's the screenshot for my dual-core unit.

 

How can I force furmark to run the 540 instead of the intel graphics?

 

How do I run furMark in windowed mode?

 

How you see in that screenshot is exactly how it ran by default for me.

 

Sorry to hear that Would you still recommend this laptop to others? Please let us know what caused the problem if you find out.

 

They replaced the LCD panel, don't know what happened, all is fine now.
Yeah, its a good high performance laptop at a good price. The fan can be annoying at times.

 

very well

Run by default Nvidia card.

For the next tester:
I can suggest to show HWinfo32 window where is located CPU Throttling warning
and Intel turbo boost widget.

 

Sorry for your problem, so they have not changed your motherboard?

 

I don't have crisis core installed.

Playing the games I normally play (Dragon Age, World of Warcraft, etc) the cores are running around 60 degrees C (first core in low 60's, other cores in high 50's).

Idle, all 4 cores are low 50's.

Core i7-2720QM. My laptop rests on one of these http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master...5V4A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1300316002&sr=8-2 and the fans are on.

 

i can suggest to do test with prime95 & Furmark, your temps are very low under load, maybe the load is not so high.
Notebook cooler can't reduce of 30°

 

What battery do you have?? The 6 or 9 cell?? If you have the 9 cell how is it on that cooler you use with the angle of the battery plus the angle of the cooler??

 

I'm using the 6 cell battery (I travel with my laptop, but almost always use it plugged in).

I don't think the 9 cell would be too terrible on the same cooling pad. If worse comes to worse, you could just move the laptop a bit further back so the extra cells hang over the back side and maintain the normal angle. The fans can be moved around wherever you want them so it'd be easy to adjust them based on where your laptop is resting.

As for the stress testing, I agree the processor's probably not getting maxxed out. I just wanted to give an example of temps during more moderate use.

 

Well, I've been outdated on performance notebooks... But don't you think 90ºC is too hot? Isn't it uncomfortable to use and harmful for the hardware?
Or are those temperatures results from non realistic tests?
How are your XPS 15 under light usage and gaming? The fan is quiet most of time?

mine (3 years old Dell Inspiron 1525) is core 2 duo and never seen it above 73ºC... and I've been using it to do some intensive processing tasks.

 

Looks like the Macbook Pro's (Sandy Bridge) are suffering high temps as well?

 

Has anyone following this thread tried undervolting yet?

 

I believe undervolting the Core I series is still a mystery.

 

The reports I've seen suggest that it is so bad with them that they are throttling below the base clock speed. As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem like that's happening with the XPS 15. Though people haven't generally been reporting their clock speeds with their temperatures.

EDIT: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/11/intel-turbo-boost-is-mia-on-new-13-inch-macbook-pro/

 

I wonder if it's an issue with Intel's chips more than a design flaw with the notebooks. Hmmm

 

This actually appears to be "by design" and may not be as big an issue as it appears.

CPU temp has traditionally been a problem because there was no good way for the processor to respond to heat.

From my understanding of TurboBoost ( http://www.intel.com/technology/turboboost/index.htm), when the processor load gets close to saturated, it ups the clock speed from the base. When it starts getting too hot, it dials back the clock speed to maintain a temperature below top load. But this set temperature is over 90 deg C, so the speed won't limit itself until it hits that temperature.

Also remember that by design, TurboBoost allows the CPU to exceed the TDP (the minimum amount of heat the cooling system needs to dissipate), so when the processor is under full load and below the throttle temperature, it will boost heat output above the TDP, and thus past the cooling system's threshold, resulting in the temperature climbing back up again.

So because the processor will always use the highest possible TurboBoost speed when under full load, and TurboBoost by design can exceed the ability of the cooling system to dissipate heat, it will tend to remain at or just below the maximum allowed temperatures (unless it also exceeds power consumption and current draw limits).

So what matters, then, is that the cooling system is able to allow the processor to always be able to stay at or above the base clock speed. The differentiator, then, is how much extra cooling you can get, which determines how much TurboBoost you can get and for how long.

As someone stated earlier, CPUs are rarely the thing to fail, and if they do, its usually due to extreme overheating, but modern processors shut themselves off, or throttle themselves, well before they get that hot. And as long as the heat is being efficiently siphoned away from the processor and the surrounding components via the heatsink, its possible that these high temperatures are not going to significantly affect the lifespan of the laptop.

So if the case and ambient temperatures aren't too high even under full load even while the CPU is at full load, you've got a pretty good laptop.

Now if all this is true, we should be able to detect it. What we would need to see are:

• Which CPU you have
• Temps at idle (kill processes using CPU time)
• Temps and clock frequencies under full load
• Temps under full load with TurboBoost disabled
• Is there any change when done on AC power vs. battery or with a different power management mode?

EDIT: Another implication of this is that lower-clocked, fewer-core processors might be able to sustain maximum TurboBoost for a longer period of time than the higher-clocked, more-core processors, given that they are using the same cooling system which is limited to the TDP.

 

I'm thinking your right. I believe Turbo Boost 2.0 is the reason why we're seeing such high temperatures. The system runs the cpu temp right up to the limit, then throttles back the speed and voltage to maintain the fastest possible cpu speed without hitting the upper limit.

I noticed this on my cpu, voltage and boost would go up, then the temps would rise into the low 90's and voltage and speed would begin dropping. Mine throttled down to .771 volts and 2.5Ghz until it cooled to the mid-high 80's then it would slowly ramp up again. It seemed to steady out between 2.7Ghz-2.9Ghz around 1.0 volts and 88-90 degrees.

This would also explain why the temps from the dual core that was posted several posts back were also as high as they were, turbo boost was squeezing every last Mhz out of that chip too.

 

Kind of off topic, but does turbo boost equal overclock(speed wise)? Is a 1.7Mhz cpu that gets turbo boosted to 2Mhz the same as a 1.7Mhz overclocked to 2Mhz? Does a cpu OCed to its absolute maximum still have the ability to turbo boost?

 

Ahh, I think you're right DakkonA/ acruxksa. Now that I think about it. It would make sense for turboboost 2.0 to crank it up as long as it stays under acceptable temps (TJunction). I think the temps we're seeing here are just Sandy Bridge being awesome.

Turbo boost IS essentially dynamically overclocking the CPU based on how many cores are stressed, how much they're stressed and their temps. It would be the same as you overclocking it yourself, only a LOT more efficient (you don't need speed.... down clock). The sandy bridge cpus in these laptops can't be overclocked, but the desktop "K" processors can have their multiplier of their min/max overclock changed. So a 3.4GHz base/3.8GHz turbo processor (2600K ) could be overclocked to (let's say...) 4.2GHz base/ 4.6GHz turbo. The CPU will still decide when to overclock itself to 4.6GHz but it might not if it gets too hot or you don't need it.

 

So are there any review sites that do realtime comparisons? Forget the "what the computer should do" but more importantly how does the L701x do against the L702x when running the same programs etc.

I needed to buy at the time the L701x came out and could not wait for SB. The L701x does everything I need but would love to know what was really gained by waiting.

Maybe it is too early to expect comparisons?

P.s. I am not anti SB. I also would have waited if only my previous laptops screen hadn't cracked.

 

I see, thanks for the info