General Hardware

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

JAM47 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:12:32 GMT

@JoeB7

I created my Dell community account just so I could say, "thanks" to you and others in this thread. I have two E6400's (new Dec 2008) running Vista 64 bit (now Windows 7) with 4 GB and Intel Duo Core 2's at 2.53 ghz. Earlier in May/June 2009 I too noticed both systems getting very "viscous" (slow like molasses). For a long time I blamed Vista then Norton then myself for buying the darn things. Finally found this thread, read every entry and thanks to the many contributors realized it was the temps all along. I now keep the lids open, keep the room overhead fan blowing down and routinely vacuum out the internal fan to get the dust out. Cleaning out the dust gave me two "new" machines that run as expected and I'm happy and much relieved. Except that this next summer I may have overheating issues to deal with again.

But, a big THANKS to you and the other contributors for leading me to the necessary steps to keep my machines running sharp.

BTW Windows 7 works!

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

donyacdp — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:40:29 GMT

My story is sad but true...had a D620 which ran so hot that it WARPED the laptop! They sent me a refurb'd E6400 (after 5 months of run-around). The video was bad. They replaced with a new E6400 (after 8 months back and forth) and it worked GREAT until about a month ago. System will be flying then come to a screeching halt, started getting memory errors, blue screens, ran diagnostics (supposedly no issues). Monday morning at 7:30 a.m., I got to the office tried to power it up...DEAD AS A DOORNAIL. Popped the components out, reseated them, ran diagnostics, will not recognize the hard drive (tried replacing), and the diagnostics say all is well, won't recognize the memory (intermittent). Pretty sure the entire motherboard, hard drive, everything is fried. Guess what? Still getting the run-around and have a full warranty on this "brand new system"! Donya

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

paulmon — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:29:51 GMT

Add me to the "me too" list - I'm on my second mother board. DELL technical support doesn't seem to have any way of tracking what is obviously a wide spread problem. My computer is more or less useless, I can make the CPU throttle with just a few flash videos. Rebooted 4 times today! Calling Dell again tomorrow to complain. *sigh*

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

Madavidson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:28:14 GMT

Hey ever body I just spoke with Antony from dell tech support and he told me that there's going to be a new BIOS update within a week that will directly address the temp tables in the e6500's

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

Snoopy_007 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:48:59 GMT

Hi,

could it be possible to upload this A18?

what drives me crazy, when in docking the E6400 slows down all the time to 800MHz what i´m seeing

do nothing yet and have this temps, NVIDIA-Graphics, is that normal temps, when i work, GPU and Chipset over 70degrees Celsius

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

JoeB7 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:52:13 GMT

I've received A18 today and have just finished testing it. Maxed out core and GPU usage. Max temp cores was 51/60°C, GPU 56 and RAM/CHIPSET 58. No downclocking.

Unfortunately still the fan starts too early and never goes off when E6400 is docked. GPU (which always triggered the fan on/1/2/3/highest) is in IDLE 43°C/46°C where 45 is the trigger for 3000 rpms and 42°C would be zero rpms again.

I'd say A18 is pretty much T11 in terms of thermal table and fan behaviour. A18 is scheduled for early November, I was told.

Screenshots:

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

ivka57 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:04:23 GMT

Joe,

is this T11 BIOS the same, as A17 recently released? if yes, then it didn't resolved the problem for me - anyhow it wasn't expected, as no changes to thermal tables are in this version of BIOS.

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

JoeB7 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:43:17 GMT

@ankaro: Strange, in my case it really solved the throttling using T11 BIOS. Sorry to hear in your's not. Maybe your temps really raise that high that the cores must throttle itself and a new heatsink is necessary? I've heard that some heatsinks for our E6400 were of poor quality. Anyhow, sorry again and good luck with other options.

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

ankaro — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:19:45 GMT

Hi JoeB,

tried the T11, too. I can confirm that fan has at least one more step between minimum and full speed.

I think it also helped concerning the flash videos.

But there are some problems left.

I sometimes use a game called "Urban Terror". Its Quake based. Though I uses my Dell 99% for work, I have to admit I sometimes play this game. It's the only one installed on my Latitude... :)

As it is a very old game, it even works with the Intel GPU. But, I have the problem, when playing for 5 Minutes, the system throttles and game only goes on with maximum 5 fps (frames per second). Using RMClock, this Error doesn't appear. To make this clear, I don't use RMClock to overclock. Everything is within the regular CPU specifications, RMClock just prevents the CPU from downclocking and throttling.

T11 didn't solve this problem. So I think it's better than all the BIOS before but it doesn't fix everything...

Haven't tried to convert some videos in Adobe Premiere, yet. Think the Problem there will still be existent....

Regards

Alex

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

JoeB7 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:00:42 GMT

My DELL contact that supplied me with the pre release T11 BIOS confirmed, that the thermal table is NOT updated in that release A17. It is scheduled for somewhere in November, but he'll put some pressure on it for an earlier release.

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

CyrusB — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:51:49 GMT

GDay,

A beta BIOS was tested by a few people and they report great results:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5372470&postcount=320

A17 was just released, and some report good results, others report no change. But A17 apparently does not include any changes to the thermal tables.:

BIOS A17 released @14.10.2009

Fixes/Enhancements
------------------
1. Updated Intel(R) Active Management Technology firmware.
2. Updated Computrace OPROM.
3. Improved support for Ambient Light Sensor on Windows 7.
4. Fixed issue that unable to set Asset Tag when Admin password set.
5. Fixed issue where Local KB control is not released properly during or after IDER session.
6. Added password support for remote console.

There is a very in depth conversation about this issue here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=348221

EDIT: A17 was no good for me, sitting here with nothing running, everything closed, sitting on the dock, room temp is 23oC, I left it like that, with MSN closed, everything I could close I did, and went and made a coffee, came back 5-10mins later and checked the temps, the fan is blowing on high speed, cpu core temps are 44/42oC, memory temp is 52oC, chipset is 64oC, HDD temp is 44oC. This is sitting on an E-Dock.

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

Dkalmick — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:32:02 GMT

I pulled the bottom of my case off (one screw pretty awesome) and got the air compressor out, removed the fan and cleaned off the heatsink. It hasn't throttled since. I assuming that this problem seems to catch people at about 6 months is that it takes about that long for cat hair and dust to accumulate on the heatsink. I look forward to Dell putting out a patch...but my fan has always run at full speed in the advanced dock pushing 2x 24" monitors. The GPU is what is getting hot probably. I think dell pulled an HP and skimped on heat sinks.

Dan

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

JoeB7 — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:01:57 GMT

I've received a pre-release BIOS for the E6400 from DELL. I can confirm, that the downclocking doesn't happen any longer. Even after stressing the system for hours.

Moreover, they've built in some more steps for the fan speed. Previously it was off, "slow" and fast. Now, there are some more steps in between and the lowest speed is lower than before, too. It's beneficially when the system is very hot and you turn off the app that causes the load. Now, after just one/two minutes the fan speed starts reducing, not like before, when the fan stuck at high speed nearly forever.

I have absolutely no clue, when it will be released and if it is A16 or A17.

I've suggested as well, to raise the level for the slowest fan speed a couple of degrees as stil it is not possible doing plain office work with E-Dock and one external 22" monitor without fan noise. Lowest fan speed is always on, when using E-Dock and external monitor. Even when the sys is IDLE for a longer period.

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

Dkalmick — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:18:23 GMT

Well i just wanted to add my two cents:

I've had an E6500 nVidia in my Dock Advanced with 2 24" monitors running via display port for about six month. I was running XP 32bit without any problems. Upgraded to Windows 7 RTM 64 bit and i'm getting Error ID 7 and my processors started to throttle hard. Now it's been warm for the first time here in So. Cal., but I have a feeling that since I'm now running 64 bit and installed the Windows XP mode (they throttle for the first time once I started using that) that the processors are getting hotter than normal.

I called Dell the other night and they had heard of this in Vista but were unaware of the problem being an ACPI issue. I'm running the newest BIOS and the nVidia drivers from nVidia's sight as the Dell drivers caused really bad Mach Banding and had a really low refresh rate.

I don't know why it took until 6 months to start having the problem. Now in Resource Monitor it's CPU Frequency is never greater than 84%, but when it throttles it's down to 14%. NOT COOL (not pun intended).

It looks to be a software fix, but I'm glad we're heading into Fall and Winter so at least ambient won't be 90 degress anymore. I think the people that aren't having problems are in offices that climate control down to 70 degrees. For those of use at home with no a/c it's in the mid-to-high 80s now. It doesn't look like Dell is in any rush to really solve this problem, as the last BIOS version didn't do anything to solve this problem. Does anyone have an update since it's been about a month on what BIOS rev. the ACPI table update is going to be in?

Thanks!

Re: Dell Latitude E6400 - Overheating issues with minute tasks such as playing flash videos for extended periods?

ivka57 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:23:51 GMT

JoeB7:

I'm not sure ivka57. It's right after the 3d app starts and where the system is not hot at all. It's when a complete new frame is rendered that the system has sort of hickup. Even enclosed sounds are duplicated (played twice) when the 3d app has this sort of hickup. That started when upgrading to A15.

JB, i can't reproduce your hickup. And I can' reproduce downclocking of GPU with A15 (what I previously described). Interesting.

But with A15, I'm facing problems with USB. Devices plugged in when the laptop is turned on and windows loaded, are not recognized. Like nothing has been plugged into the USB port. If I plug it before I turn my laptop on, device is properly recognized and working.