GX640 + Heat

What kind of mods or solutions have you all been able to find?
I dont have a gx640 yet but wouldn't feel comfy gaming at 80c+.

Supposedly this card gets 100c+ in the tiny chassis provided.

For starters I think all owners should have a cooler stand. Would one that pushes cold air or sucks hot be better for this model?
I was considering something like this Ultra U12-40584 Sub Zero X1 Notebook Cooling Station w/ 200mm Fan for 15 or Under Notebooks. at TigerDirect.com

Quiet and pushes a lot of cool air but will it do much? Especially when gaming?

I found threads on here about poking holes in the chassis but I would prefer not to.
is that the only way to get respectable temps?
I need idle: <50c and gaming <80.
What sort of temps can I expect?

 

I found on two of my notebooks with the NC-2000 from zalman I was only getting about a 5C drop average with the cooler.

As far as 80C you do realize you want to own a laptop right? If your comfort is about gaming in your lap well... I dont actually lap game much since I play alot of FPS but I cant say 80C in certain notebook designs will be felt seeing as how the 80C is at the GPU core, the cooling system and the resulting air stream out of the laptop are not on your legs. But the heat does make its way to you. If you want a cooler and decide to lap game with the cooler you wont feel a thing. If the comfort is for the hardware your just screwed and need a desktop with water cooling.

I cant answer for this laptop, but myne drives idle around 29C, CPU 35C, GPU 50C off the cooler. Gaming CPU loaded 100% around 75C and the GPU around 86C with many games. But I see 90's with it in say GRiD. I dont think your gonna see sub 80 with the 5850 in any notebook unless your idea of gaming is counter strike source.

I so wish I had the money to replace this with an MSI or a sager at this point nice 5850 or 5870 setup.

 

I hear ya but if I get this it'll be a refurb and I want it to last for as long as possible.

My main question is whether the cooling pad will help or not.

BTW it wont be on my lap.. I meant for the laptops sake.

 

logically, one that pushes cold air will be more useful even won't drop temp much. this MSI series only has 1 fan, so yes, it should be hotter than those with 2 or 3 designated fans even with good cooling pad..

 

I easily get these temps with the CCC profile technique from this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi...clocking-undervolting-using-ccc-profiles.html. No holes in the chassis. No fuss.

 

But what about playing crysis on the highest settings it can manage? I didnt read the whole thing but looks good for idle. I wish I could make my nvidia card run slower when doing dual monitor as it upclocks for that and there is no second setting for that.

 

Yea if its able to stay sub 80 with crysis on Max then I may just get it.
Cause then with a cooler I'd be solid.

I'm concerned with longevity. How loud are these guys BTW? With low usage?
does it scale well enough to be a good in class laptop?

 

Probably gets hotter than 80 with Crysis on max. I don't play it.

Furmark for ~15 minutes stabilizes at 89C. That's with no cooling whatsoever in a warmish room (20-21C ambient). You could easily play with the fan settings to lower that stable temp (when the fan kicks into highest gear it can push back the heat, so presumably if you kept the fan at that speed it would cool the rig back down considerably). With a separate cooler I don't think you'd have any problems keeping it at <75C.

At least, that's my machine. Others seem to vary.

 

Sure you have the gx640? 1.2" thick?

On my desktop i've set up automatic fan control through evga precision.
Can something similar be done on the laptop?
I'm assuming the fan is controllable.

I'd probably just set it to 100% when I game and throw on some headphones.
This would solve my issues i take it?

 

Lol.

Fans can't be user controlled FYI.

Rest assured though, the fan is not at 50% or whatever when it reaches the higher temps, it's 100%.

 

Ha, yes, GX640. 1.2" thick and only about 6lbs. Also stock thermal paste -- forgot to mention that.

I used to use a fan control program on a previous machine, but haven't looked for one that works with this one. I imagine that it's totally possible, though. (If you get the machine, post what fan control you use.) EDIT: Bearclaw says otherwise above.

You should, however, read at least some of the monstrous GX640 owners' thread, because temp results seem to be rather wide-ranging. There's a lot of fear out there about the cooling on this thing, but at least from my experience, I just don't know what people expect. It's a gaming monster. While it doesn't run as cool as a Sager, it is way cheaper and lighter and more battery efficient. And it doesn't look completely ridiculous.

One thing I can't comment on is longevity. I've used mine every day for the last 6mos as my primary computer (i.e. all the time) with no problems. Will I be able to do this for another two years? Hope so.

 

good for u guys... 20-21C is warmish room. sad to live near the equator where temps are 30+C. =( idle at around 65C. guess i will never be able to overclock

 

...So you don't have long dark winter evenings, when there's nothing to do but fiddle with your system: overclock, tune it, get into gaming...good for you!

 

yeah... =(