Copper Mod Options/Substitutes?

I've recently had one of my D620's fail on me due to overheating GPU, and now that I've given it to a family member, I've been thinking about what I could do to help the issue, as she watches quite a bit of TV shows on YouTube and GPU temperatures shoot up to 170F or so even with the back of the laptop jacked up. My D630 hovers around 150F just doing office-type work.

I'm a little wary of the copper mod since it's not easy to find the pieces, and it rusts/tarnishes easily. I have a spare heatsink somewhere in my spare parts stash, and I was wondering if it would be possible to bend the GPU arm down a bit and use grease between it and the GPU? Has anybody tried anything creative to help reduce temperatures?

 

I'm also interested to see what's possible. As I've still warranty on my M1730 the possibilities are limited.

I've still a D610 running and maxed it with an Intel M780 2.26GHz. Cause it was running hotter I had to remove the grating in front of the fan. It seems to run a little cooler this way.

 

Hmm, how does that affect dust accumulation? That's not an option for the D620/D630 since it's one-piece, but I'm surprised it made that much of a difference.

 

The fan doesn't run so often at max as before. I'm not worried about dust. I take apart all notebooks at a regular basis to clean dust bunnies all the time.

I own also a D830 and it's not an option to do something like this too. Also build in one piece.

 

What about just using i8kfangui and constantly running the fan at low speed?

Bending the GPU "arm" of the heatsink would probably work if done right, but you've got to make sure that the height difference is perfect and that the "pad" of the arm is perfectly flat. One of those easier said than done sort of things if you ask me.

Then there's also more generic solutions like laptop coolers, etc...

 

You could also check to see if your airflow is low due to dust buildup on the heatsink fins. It would require pulling off the heatsink. Another thing you might check, is to see if Dell still has available the replacement heatsink for that machine. If so it would come fitted with a new thermal pad.

Also Commander Wolf is right, trying running I8Kfan

 

Thanks for the input, guys!

I8kfangui doesn't work with Windows 7 x64. I set an agressive schedule for my old D620, which is running Windows 7 x86, as a temporary fix until I think of something better (the system that is with a family member).

Yup, that's my main concern. I guess I could work with the spare that I have and see if I can get it right, but the spare has no thermal pads, so I'll have to do it again to mine. I guess it's just for "proof of concept" first.

Laptop coolers is out of the question as they don't do much (have borrowed a few and tested) and also wouldn't work with the docking station and monitor stand that I use.

There's no dust inside the system, it's spotless since I swapped out the fan and had to remove everything, so I did a thorough cleaning. I've gotten a new heatsink from Dell for my D620, and new thermal pads didn't make much of a difference. Thermal pads pretty bad when it comes to heat transfer, right?

I probably would've given the copper mod a shot as it seems easier, but there doesn't seem to be any US sellers, and the price is pretty high for just a piece of copper. Are there any in the US?

 

You're right it doesn't work with a 64 bit OS.

The only thing I can think of is your fan might be a problem. Have you checked to see if the fan is blowing strong air? The thermal pads are sufficient to cool down the GPU. Something tells me it's fan related because with a new heatsink and the inside nice and clean your temps should not be that high.

The only other thing I can think of is that the heatsink might not be fully flush against the CPU or GPU. It happened to me when I took apart my Vostro 1500, I thought I put everything together correctly and my temps shot up to 80c. Took it apart again, reseated the heatsink and that solved the problem.

Oh one other thing was there a thermal paste on the heatsink for the CPU or do you use thermal paste?

Edit: another thing you could try is reducing the CPU max output in your power plan.

 

Even with the Nvidia GPU issue? I thought the stock cooling system wasn't adequate enough for that? I'm still on my original motherboard (D630's lived a pretty easy life until recently), so I want to keep temperatures low to prevent failure, and thus, refurbished motherboards.

I have not replaced the fan yet, but it seems to be working fine. Dell thinks it's also the fan and will be sending one out to me. Funny thing here is that I moved the fan from my D620 over to my D630 because the D630 fan is from a different OEM and is louder. If the fan was the problem, well, then I've successfully taken the problem with me. However, the D620 (with my D630 fan) is still very warm.

I'm still using the thermal grease that came with the heatsink on my D630, so maybe some Arctic Silver 5 could help. I will probably end up swapping out the fan and putting new grease in next month.

 

The stock cooling system is fine as long as the system isn't pushed beyond what it was designed for i.e. overclocking and such. If your temps are much higher than what you remember them to be when you first got it, indicates there's a problem.

Keep in mind that the cooling system is integrated. If heat isn't pushed out the exhaust vent it backs up and basically overheats everything. That's what I found when I worked on my Vostro's cooling issues. The reason I and Dell suggested a possible cooling fan issue is because you've done everything else. The only other link to that is the sensor on the mobo not telling the fan it needs to come on or increase in speed as the temps go up.

Have you checked your BIOS to see if your CPU supports power throttling? If it's not enabled or somehow got switched off your CPU could be running in max power consumption mode.

Another suggestion might be to undervolt/underclock the laptop.

 

The temperatures haven't increased since when I got it, it's always been pretty warm. I'm running similar temperatures to my D620, which eventually had a GPU failure after daily use around 125F CPU and 150F GPU.

The fan does come on properly, it's almost always running at slow speed. It would go to high speed around 175F GPU, but operating temperatures are still too high for comfort even with the latest BIOS.

SpeedStep is enabled. Undervolting isn't an option, RMClock doesn't have a signed driver.

What I'm really afraid of is the refurbished motherboards that will come as a result of a GPU failure and not GPU failure itself.

 

Why is under volting not an option? RM Clock works fine for me in Windows 7 x64 and the T7500 responds very well to under volting. At full load you can reduce your CPU core temperature by up to 20C so it is well worth looking into further. If you can't get RM Clock working for you then you can also try using ThrottleStop. A couple of mouse clicks and you're done.

 

I downloaded the latest version off the web and it had an issue loading the driver upon running it. My CPU temperatures are OK though, usually around 108F. It's just the GPU that is heating up to 140F to 150F.

 

Signed 64 bit drivers for RM Clock are available at the bottom of the first post in the under volting thread. Reducing CPU heat helps reduce GPU heat in most laptops.

 

Cool, just got it to work. My CPU temperature is usually in the low 100's, and when I get to apply Arctic Silver 5 grease, it should be able to help some more. But since my CPU temperature isn't particularily high to begin with, I have doubts that the CPU temperature will be able to do much about the heat from the GPU. I'm not too worried about the CPU, just more about the GPU and the thermal pad on it.