Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

kowalski · 2009-05-19 22:25:14

Hi folks,

this not exactly an issue but more of a curiosity. I have arch i686 running nicely on an Dell XPS M1530 but am somewhat anxious about the temperature development. When "idling" in terms of having some basic applications open (using gnome) the core temp is between 50 °C and 57 °C, when running 3d programs (e.g. Urban Terror) the core temperature easily reaches 90 °C. This is not only annoying since the base unit of course gets hot as well but a bit alarming.
Therefore I was curious what development of heat other people experience and maybe if they are using the latest BIOS version (A09) which supposedly improved the termal control stuff ("Added enhancement for thermal control.").

Cheers.

jwcxz · 2009-05-20 00:04:10

I have an M1330 and regularly see CPU temps ranging between the low 30s (when underclocking the frequency to 1GHz) to perhaps the mid 70s. However, the fans usually do well enough to prevent the processor from running at 70C for more than 30 seconds. When playing games, it typically stays in the low 60s and when idling at the nominal clock speed, I typically see low 40s.

90C is something to worry about if that is indeed an accurate temperature. Laptops need good cooling environments if you plan to play games on them, so I'd recommend purchasing a cooling pad (the processor on the M1330 is right underneath the touchpad; I think it's the same for the M1530). Also, when I'm gaming, I typically put the computer in front of an open window to let the cool air flow between the laptop and the cooling pad.

Also I'd recommend setting up frequency scaling because running a laptop processor at its full speed is really unnecessary (especially on a very lightweight environment). As a result, you'll reduce heat output and (as well as power consumption for better battery life).

kowalski · 2009-05-20 09:57:49

Apparently I was a bit vacantly when I wrote the post.
I do use cpu scaling (cpufreq) set to conservative governor (so the cpus run at 800 Mhz) furthermore I actually don't play many games on the machine but the cpu temp also reaches the named values when running numeric calculation using matlab. Also I'm using Nvidia's PowerMizer feature so the gpu is usually at 179 MHz GPU clock. The stated temperature readings are acquired from lm-sensors so I'm tending to believe they are sufficiently accurate.

Are you running BIOS version A09?

dmidecode -s bios-version

Oh, do you think reducing the core voltage might bring some relief?

By the way, the CPU & GPU on the M1530 are located beneath the keyboard.

Right now the cpu is at 54 °C :-)

Last edited by kowalski (2009-05-20 11:19:23)

jwcxz · 2009-05-20 11:02:25

I'm running BIOS version A12. And yes, my CPU will get pretty hot when using math software or rendering graphics, but never climbs past 70C under those circumstances.

I didn't know that you could change the core voltage on a Dell Laptop. I thought that Dell locked their BIOS down heavily; there's definitely no option for it in my BIOS configuration screen. At any rate, I would imagine that Dell would have already adjusted the core voltage to be just high enough for running the processor at its nominal speed. But then again, Dell is Dell and that's only pure speculation on my part... You could always give it a try; if you can lower the core voltage without destabilizing the voltage, you would definitely dissipate far less heat.

IIRC, you can also get the GPU temp with the nVidia configuration utility. What are you seeing for temps there?

lgolebio · 2009-05-22 10:59:04

After I bought thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5) and cleaned the CPU and FAN from the original one (used by DELL) my temp. never reaches 75°C

kowalski · 2009-05-22 11:15:35

Well I have to admit that I did not check if the m1530 is capable of decreasing the cpu voltage I kind of assumed it since with my last notebook (Centrino M) I was able to tinker with the voltage settings. But I can second that there is no voltage option in the BIOS. Maybe I will do some research about the voltage scalability on my machine.

To answer your question: the gpu temp is 64 °C running in PowerMizer Performance Level 0 (169 Mhz / 100 Mhz) and the cpu at 50 °C.
I did some googling on this topic and found out that numerous people are encountering high temperature development which is said to be caused by the GPU (!). Supposedly Nvidia was shipping faulty graphic modules, in my case that's the GeForce 8600M GT. With the latest BIOS update from DELL this issue is not actually fixed but they try to increase the lifetime by letting the fans kick in earlier. As for me this is not a solution for the problem they just try to keep the whole machine running until warranty is expired. I'm afraid that this will work with me since I need the notebook for my studies ...

Last edited by kowalski (2009-05-26 11:51:42)

craig c · 2009-05-29 01:12:16

I've had the same thoughts about the gpu temps and core temps with my M1530. For the last 3 days i've been using SpeedFan to have a look at what temperatures they're running on and (from reading hundreds of threads on what problems people are having) seen that they're not incredibly high. My gpu fluctuates between 57-67 degrees and the cores from 43-56 whilst idling (the fan kicks in at the highest temps) (i.e running bittorrent and not much else). Also i took out alot of running programs from task manager so they can't continuously run for no reason. so my cpu usage is constantly around 13% and physical memory around 40%. I've got the Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.10GHz, 3gb ram ,8600gt graph card 256mb, 220gb harddrive (5400rpm?). so its about mid-range in the whole m1530 laptops and they are the readings i get. I've got an up-to-date BIOS (A09). I haven't over/underclocked it or undervolted it solely because i can't be bothered with downloading the software and dell won't let you get into the BIOS to make it easy -.- . I still don't get the huge vaiations in temperatures between peoples m1530's, excluding the fact of having a little bit of different hardware (alot of it is similar). It seems people are just taking guesses saying its to do with dust build-up (i've made sure i don't have any build-up) or faulty gpu's etc. i just dunno butt even so, i think i'm in the clear. but kowalski, that 90 degrees is something to worry about i think, have you tried undervolting it and how did that work out if you did? have you gotten some canned air and made sure there is no dust on the heatsinks etc?

EDIT - downloaded BIOS A12 with similar effects, seems i'm the odd one out

Last edited by craig c (2009-06-05 13:23:04)

kowalski · 2009-06-07 16:46:04

Sorry for not answering lately.

I dissembled the back cover of the laptop were GPU and CPU are located and tried to clean the fan and the fan's opening to the back and actually got rid of some dust that was stuck in the space between fan and outlet (of whatever this is called). That did help, the maximum temperatur encountered lately running Matlab or Urban Terror was somewhere around 72 °C.
That indeed was a good hint, I will do this somewhat frequently in future. Thanks for your opinions and all :-)

craig: What about BIOS A12? The most recent version I know about is:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloa … eid=267480
Could it be that A12 is a bios version for the M1330?

craig c · 2009-06-19 16:23:57

Thre is a BIOS A12 out for m1530 (http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/1530_A12.EXE) and it didn't work for me, for some odd reason it didn't allow me to recharge and the fan was generally kicking in later and not as fast so i reverted back to A09. I've been on forums about the A12 version and it seems theres alot of mixed reviews about it, so it could work for you. For the meantime i just made a cheap laptop stand from an old fridge and stuck a fan under it, does the job very nicely max temps are under 40 degrees running Gears of War

Arch Linux

#1 2009-05-19 22:25:14

Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#2 2009-05-20 00:04:10

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#3 2009-05-20 09:57:49

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#4 2009-05-20 11:02:25

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#5 2009-05-22 10:59:04

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#6 2009-05-22 11:15:35

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#7 2009-05-29 01:12:16

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#8 2009-06-07 16:46:04

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

#9 2009-06-19 16:23:57

Re: Temperature development on Dell XPS M1530

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