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

Fantomex, thanks for joining and sharing your story. I guess you can try all different GMA drivers etc. and won't be lucky. The problem is even worse when using an external high resolution monitor - or even dual monitor on the E-Dock.

I'm patiently (more or less) waiting for BIOS A13 and hope it'll bring the cure we need. Dell PRO Support here in Germany told me, they've replicated the problem and escalated to the product management of the Latitude laptops.(As the Latitudes are business notebooks and most of the time display Outlook and Excel sheets, there won't be such a high priority like for the Dell M4400...)

Lets cross fingers.

If you find something new, please post it here - I'll do so, too.

JB

I am having the exact same problem.  I have the Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M.  Would I also be using the Intel GMA 4500 MHD chipset?  If not I suppose the problem is not the Intel Chipset then??

Thanks

Wood, I don't have extra gfx card in my system, only Intel GMA.

Joe, Also looking forward for A13 BIOS. Well it's a business range, but there are several other business applications than Outlook =) Hope they will react fast.

I further tried to analyze problem with SpeedFan, older drivers for GMA didn't help as expected. The slowdown appeared at 60C, but according to SpeedFan it was Core1 sensor that did get past 60C. It was a sudden rise for about 5degrees Celsius, fan at full speed 5000RPM and no change in processor/gpu load at all at that time. The naming of sensors could be bad (or are they imported from mobo?).

What I absolutely don't understand is, why the antioverheating circuit goes in place when 60C is far beyond the critical (turn off) temperature. My old Thinkpad's Centrino (Pentium M 2Ghz) system had a fail (turn off) temperature at 91C. I understand the critical temperature at northbridge could be lower, but don't tell me it's 70C or something, so the stepping down (antioverheating) circuit need's to get activated at 60C.

dear colleagues,

I suffered from this problem as well (E6400, 2x2GB Ram, NVS 160M, 250GB 7200rpm drive) - from January 2009 to yesterday (FOUR MONTHS!!).  

I have finally solved it. It's not a driver issue or bios issue (or OS / Software), it's definitely hardware problem. DELL changed motherboard on my notebook at first. Of course, this didn't helped. Then HDD, because the old one crashed (I think because of enormous heat inside the system). I got HITACHI drive instead of SEAGATE. This helped a little bit, HITACHI is not causing so much heat. Then I figured out, that after changing of HDD and removing one memory from slot (running just with 2gb) I'm able to work at home (without E-PORT and ext. Monitors) without this slow down. 

After again and again describing the problem to DELL with all the combinations I tried (close lid, open lid, E-PORT / without E-PORT / just one memory module, new cooler HDD etc) they finally agreed to change EVERYTHING (again motherboard, CPU, memory and cooling system).

The problem is gone. Whole system is running cooler now, not so noisy - FAN is running at 2800 rpm most of the time (even with BOINC running all the time), not 4800 rpm as before, you can't feel heat on keyboard, the temperature of GPU chip is not attacking 100C, it's like brand new model.

I think, the problem was at cooling subsystem. The copper pipe is filled with some liquid and DELL technician confirmed me, that sometimes happens, that there is no fluid at all, or much less, than should be. 

All of you should definitely call DELL and ask for changing of the components. Again, it is DELL HW issue.

I hope this info will help all of you and at the end you will enjoy your DELL notebook the same way, as me.

best regards,

mk

@ivka57:

Hey, thanks for sharing your issues. Sounds really scary and great you've solved it on your side.

I'm not too sure, if that is the same what I have. Because the system isn't really hot. The air flowing out of the cooler is quite low. The temps of the cores and HDD are just between 30-45 degree. Which is "nothing"... 

It's just the GPU that gets beyond 50°C. which is not too hot either. It just looks that the system is behaving like the chipset/core/hdd has such hot temperatures that it starts downclocking.

In my case, I still believe it is a BIOS issue as the system doesn't feel hot at all.

I'll keep your posting in mind, however! Thanks again for sharing!

Dear Joe,

in terms of core temperatures, the same was here (35-42C). I would not have been so pessimistic in your case, even if core or gpu core temp is so low, non functional cooler is causing more hear inside the chassis (not on the thermal sensors) and this can lead to some unpredictable behavior (slowdowns). 

If you and people here are observing _the same_ symptoms as myself, and it was defective part issue, I will bet with you, that it is the same.

Last remark from my side, your system maybe doesn't fell hot, but my system feels cold now. Call to DELL costs nothing, why not to ask for new cooling system. And you will see. 

mk

Thanks for your sympathy, mk ;-)

Dell DID replace the heatsink already. But it didn't solve. Well - I'm passing your post to the Dell pro support here and will ask them for response. Please note, they have replicated the issue in their laboratory and reported it to the DELL Latitude product management. I hope there will be some more info soon.

Thanks again. J.

Joe,

still, you have two motherboards, cpu, memory and hdd to change :))

mk

ivka, thanks for your support in this issue, but i've been able to replicate the problem in the brand new system as well - just took the hdd out of the old and put it to new one! i have the luxury of having few spare systems in boxes i can test with. this has been narrowed down, it's not an corrupted OS issue and HW issue as well. Except for the situation that the third mobo/fan combo in a row would fail. But that would be a real bummer =)) (and i don't count dell labs and joe to this =))

After the last posts, I got curious and invested another hour testing:

I've uninstalled one of the 2 GB DDR2 RAMS and tested the system with some 3D action to get it on temperature. And wow, it ran fine for a quite significant time. Than I tested the other 2GB and it came back again. Being happy finding the culprit I've tested it once more with both of them and separately.

It was a sad end... It wasn't the cure.

Darn - when will we find a cure for it?

(And when will I find the cure for the Video hickups I face on youtube, etc. as long as the Video is loading. As soon as it's ready loaded the playback continues without any hickups... - PM me please, when you know it - don't want to off-topic this thread...)

Yep I also tried the 2GB variant and got a significantly longer time before it overheated. This problem is sometimes a bit harder to replicate... =) But it's there!

Today I went to work after more than one week of illness. System slowed down immediately after one hour working with E-Port, two monitors and closed lid. Then I had to open the lid again and work this way.

I was happy too early and the problem still persist. On the other side I was not able to replicate the problem working at home (same applications and same load). It means, new components helped a bit, but didn't solve the problem.

I'm definitely not in the mood to call DELL support again.

Another two weeks have passed... What happened:

• After DELL support and other forums recommended not using IRRT (SATA - Mode Raid...) but AHCI (same without RAID) I've really re-installed everything from scratch. That should have helped to get rid of the audio and/or video hickups... It took my several hours to re-install all the drivers (in the correct order recommended by Dell, including the system driver patches etc.) and several days until my notebook was again ready for my business tasks.
  
  And it was all for nothing. Same behaviour.
  

• Regarding the TEMP overheating problems we're having, no better news. DELL pro support offered today changing motherboard etc. I refused that action. I don't see a good reason for it yet and am still waiting for A13.
  Is that really a problem of a few of us or why can't they (DELL LAtitude product mgrs.) not replicate the problem? It obviously happens more or less only in the E-Dock with external monitor(s).

Any news from one of you guys?

Regards, J.

no news