Managing HD3650 temperatures in FL90

Hi everybody,

I successfully replaced my good-as-dead 8600GT with a HD3650 DDR3. However, temperatures are a bit high. Idling, I get around 60 degree, when watching a video from hard disk I get around mid sixties, but gaming I think is not possible yet, as I am close to 100 degrees - I don't want that.

So here's what I did (not) so far.

I got some thermal paste from a local computer store - I bet its not the best, just really standard stuff, works for CPU and GPU according to package. What would be the best to get?

I did not really know how much to apply, so I covered only a very thin layer, is that enough?

The old thermal paste is still on there, I think I should have removed (scrapping okay?) that, right?

I used the old thermal pads of my 8600GT. The 8600GT had memory chips facing up and down, so there were also thermal pads on top and bottom. The HD3650 only had memory chips facing to the top. Should I remove the other thermal pads. I figured they would not harm, do they?

What else could I do to get temps down? Undervolting the GPU as far as I read, but that would need a vBIOS flash, right?

I'd be happy to compile your answers in a quick tutorial, plus some more that comes up, as I am sure others that are not too familiar with replacing GPUs trip over the very same issues.

Looking forward to any help!
Cheers

I moved the HowTo over to this thread

 

Hello, I have a FL90 laptop and HD3650 DDR3. Temps in idle is arround 55ºC and gaming up to 99ºC max.

Use thermal pads of my old 8600 and Artic Silver 5 for GPU core.

EDIT: I overclocked my card to HD3670 clocks.

Bye

 

Thanks Juan!

I am not sure at what clocks my card is running, I have to check with the appropriate tools when I get home. I was just happy to get it running yesterday.

I am planning to compile the information from the huge hd3650 thread into this thread for a quick reference. I hope to get some information together from that thread by tonight.

 

Use MX-2 or MX-3 (or AS5 but its harder to apply so dont bother) - fresh thermal pads can't hurt but you could just reuse the old once. However, important is that you clean the heatsink thoroughly of old thermal paste and don't apply too much of the new thermal past.

Next step: Undervolt the card to from 1.1V to 1.0V. If you want you can run it at stock clocks (600/700) or at Mobility Radeon HD 3670 clocks (680/800), I run mine at 688/850 @ 1.0V. Temps should not go beyond 83°C. To undervolt use Radeon Bios Editor. Always leave boot settings as they are and you hardly can go wrong.

Also download the newest ATI mobile drivers from ATI, if you cannot use them, download the desktop drivers and use Mobility Modder.

Most importantly:

You definitelly have to modify the heat sink. Your temps are a clear sign that the heat sink does not make perfect contact. Just dremel about 2-4mm away and everything will be fine.

 

Thanks Daniel for your help, it's very much appreciated!

I ordered MX-2 today, yepp.

.I will go with the old ones for now.

.Okay, sure will do. Arctic Silver ArctiClean coming with my termal paste order.

Uiiii, I will skip that for now. Hopefully my order will arrive here by tomorrow. I will try termal paste and heat-sink cleaning first. One step after the other, this is all new to me, hehe. I might have a follow-up question once I get to this. But thanks for the info.

At the AMD site I was not able to get drivers. Looks like WinXP is not supported by AMD, but all others are, even Linux. Well, I got the modded drivers from hardwareheaven already yesterday.

They worked, but I wonder why hardwareheaven has only ATI Catalyst 8.12 drivers, while there are ATI Catalyst 10.7 drivers out there. Is 10.7. for desktops only, or is hardwareheaven out of date? I got the 8.12's btw from hardwareheaven. Should I try with 10.7's?

Okay, I will try, although I have no dremel. I will work something out. However, I am not sure where to "dremel"? Can you be more specific? I could provide some pictures by tomorrow if that helps ..?

Thanks again for your help, Daniel!

 

As for the dremeling part. You can also just use an ordinary rasp, that's what I did. Here is what you have to modify:

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5003/06052009212.jpg
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8615/06052009211.jpg

Undervolting is easy, but we can worry about this later. However, it does reduce heat considerably, so that it runs cooler with oc and 1.0V than with stock clocks and 1.1V.

 

Thanks Daniel! I will repost here as soon as I finished reapplying thermal paste and having a look on the heat sink. If I am lucky, thermal paste and cleaning agent will arrive here tomorrow. I'll see.

I will update the 1st post gradually, in the hope it will help someone.

Obviously I am not done with it (I drafted an outline if missing things), but if anybody feels like something is missing, tell me, I'll add it.

Cheers

 

Okay, thermal paste and remover are here - already cleaned the heat sink and the card of old paste, doing heat sink modification as I write.

One question more. I had to remove the heat sink of the CPU. Do I need to clean the CPU heat sink of old termal paste (and reapply new one then), too, if I took the heat sink of?

Thanks a lot for your help!

EDIT: Nevermind the CPU termal paste question, I guess it would be better, but I skip that for now ... heat sink is done, screwing it together for a short temp test ...

EDIT2: Okay, after my test, I am around 20° lower ... more details will follow, and I will update my first post maybe later or tomorrow.

 

Hi,

I did a short test.

Running a video in VLC it was running at 50°/51°, that is about 10° to 15° degree cooler. Playing ArmA 1 I hit the maximum at 83° (10 minutes play time). So I am about 15° cooler there, too.

Yet, I have a new question.

I use ATI Tray Tools to capture temps, as well as memory and gpu clocks.

GPU max is 297 during game play, while idling its down to 54,84 or 148,50.

Memory is at 346,50 during load, 198,00 when idling.

These numbers are rather low, aren't they?

Besides other things, ATI Tray Tools System Information plots this:

Code:

Clock Information            
BIOS VPU                      300,00
Current VPU                   54,84
BIOS MEM                      405,00
Current MEM                   198,00
                             
______________________________
Overdrive                    
Adapter                       0
Supported                     Yes
Type                          PowerPlay
Level 0 : GPU/MEM/VDDC        110,00/400,00/0,900
Level 1 : GPU/MEM/VDDC        300,00/400,00/0,900
Level 2 : GPU/MEM/VDDC        600,00/700,00/1,100

I know I need to flash my vbios to get these numbers straight, also, if I decide to undervolt it. Do the clocks make sense, or should I "correct" them?

Thanks every one!

 

You can download Furmark and run it in window mode and check ATI Tray Tools System Information at the same time, it should show a clock of 600/700. If you tab out of ArmA the GPU will downclock itself in an instance. The card has that clocked stored in the bios.

Also you do not need to remove the CPU heatsink, I did it the first time, but then I just left it on.

Good thing about undervolting is, that you can overclock the card to 688/850 sustain the same max temp.

 

Hi Daniel,

ATI Tray Tools let me plot the clocks on screen in a graph, plus I can export the graph to file.

I am positive that the clock speeds are as I wrote in my previous post, being 297(GPU)/346,50(MEM) under load. It also shows the max values, and they are exactly these stated above.

See the plot (the upload went wrong, but you should be able to see the important stuff). The first half was ploted while gaming.

What's wrong here !?!? Any clue?

 

I don't trust that tool too much. Please download HWiNFO to verify. Also test Furmark in window mode and check the clocks again. ATI Tray Tools also indicated that your GPU has the max clocks in the bios, so it should not be a bios problem. I also would recommend you to use Windows 7 or Vista as XP makes little sense with newer hardware.

 

Hi Daniel,

okay, I will try the tools you mentioned later today. I will report back then.

Once more, thanks for helping and investing your precious time!

 

Okay, I tried the tools you mentioned.

FurMark (1.8.2, latest) crashes when I hit the GO button. I also tried 1.8.0 with the same result.

I also got HWiNFO32, but the clocks of the gpu or memory stay the same when playing Armed Assault in window mode. ATI Tray Tools still show 297 and 346,50 respecively.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

Hey there. I got yet another concern. I got an unresolved device in the hardware manager, saying it is a high definition audio device. I found out it's the sound device of my new hd3650 (since when do gfx card have audio support !?!?!).

I could not really find drivers for that. I wouldn't mind that too much, but looks like I can't plug in headphones or external speakers. If I do, sound is still played by the internal speakers.

I browsed to any setting I would know of, but couldn't find anything to get 'external' sound going ... any advice?

I tried reinstalling drivers, even reinstalling WinXP SP3.

I will try Win7 later today, or does anyone of you know how to resolve this issue (WinXP SP3).

Thanks & Cheers

 

Okay,

I got Window 7 running. All device but one are being resolved correctly in the hardware manager (I only had to manually install drivers for the card reader). I believe the only missing driver is the smart battery.

However, I still can't get any sound from headphones (always internal speakers) and I can't seem to get a signal to the external monitor either. I got my keyboard fixed, but hitting Fn + F3 will get me nowhere - external screen remains black, getting no power. When I try to stretch my desktop to the external monitor by Windows Display properties or ATI Control Center, I don't succeed either - the latter two seem to at least get power on the externam monitor, as the power light stop to blink but is on permanently. The external monitor is in perfect shape, I tested it with my netbook. Any ideas?

I will try benchmarking later with Fumark and HWinfo later today. Or do you have any better suggestions, benchmark-tool-wise, for Window 7?

Cheers

 

Hi,

okay, I installed the lastest Catalyst Drivers and was able to run FurMark 1.8.2. plus HWinfo.

Again, the clocks shown in HWInfo were the same as I reported before.

However, AMD GPU Tool reports 594 from the core and 693 from the memory. Looks like this would be okay, right?

But, I still can't get external audio nor external video going. As far as I know, plenty went from the 8600M GT to the HD3650. Did no one face similaar problems?

I got this behaviour in both WinXP SP3 Pro and in Win7 Pro. I really don#t know why. Can anyone help me out here, too?

Thanks!

 

Core clocks are alright, seems you have the exact same version of the card that I had, since mine also had 594/693 which is why I wanted to flash a different vbios if only to get 600/700, it just looks better.

As for the other problems, see your other thread.

 

Okay, thanks! This os good news.

I will try overclocking/undervolting next week (I am away from home for a few days).

Cheers