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Gen2/M170 GPU fan too slow, planning mod. - Page 2

post #21 of 47
10/27/06 at 3:47am
ohh and if someone checks with voltmeter i bet they arent even getting full 5v cause unless its direct connection to battery it wont be full voltage (i know battery voltage is quite a bit higher but u get the idea)

For example I own a 96 Chevy Impala SS (caprice-style /w 350 unlike these new common impalas) and has lacking headlights.

They make a headlight upgrade harness for my car which basically is just slightly bigger wiring and routes positive and ground right to the battery and uses its own high quality relays, and man does it make a difference (of course main reason was to get brighter bulbs, but still improved stock bulbs quite a bit!)

Theres also a similar situation in my cars fuel pump (if u start doing some major perf. improvements it can help). Here is a link to a pic of a before and after:
http://www.racetronix.com/product/RX...T1-voltage.jpg

Now i know in our lappies it wont be that drastic but im assuming even a few tenths of a volt would gain quite a few rpms?
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post #22 of 47
10/27/06 at 4:35am
Thread Starter 
I think the 'full' 5v is reserved for running the fan at fan-boost speed. I'll go flash my bios and startup my multimeter...
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post #23 of 47
10/27/06 at 5:16am
Good luck on the mod, but I don't think your temps are way out of line for a 7800GTX. I assume that you have the older/hotter version. I used to get up to 113C in atitool after about 20 minutes. Given your overclock and probably some extra heat from the CPU, I don't think it is out of line.

103 probably won't hurt the 7800 that much either. I wouldn't worry about it until you hit the nVidia limit (115C ?).
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post #24 of 47
10/27/06 at 5:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stratfellow3
We need someone to figure a way to rebuild the existing fan shells on each side to house a higher voltage fan, say 12v. Someone oughta tinker with these fans.

That or if someone can find same dimension 3rd-party fan thats made to pull 12v.

Cause I agree 100% that if these fans used 12v and really got spinning we could be quite a bit cooler

Here are the fan specs for the fans installed in my Gen2. Both are made by Toshiba Home Technology Corporation.

CPU fan (Mounted left hand rear corner):
Model MCF-J01BM05-1
Rev A01
DC 5V
0.44A
6.8 CFM

GPU fan (Mounted right hand rear corner):
Model MCF-J02AM05-1
Rev A01
DC 5V
0.12A
3.0 CFM

You can see that the rated flow rate for the GPU fan is only 44% of the CPU. This, I believe, is part of the cooling problem when using high powered video cards. Also, I'm not sure that the left hand side GPU (long) heatsink arm is very effective at all compared to the short right side arm. I'm going to run some additional tests to confirm this.

Anyway, maybe someone can do some additional research on these fans. I do wonder if you tried to rewire these to 12V how that would affect the system? I wonder if the unit would boot if you unplugged the fan(s) and wired into another source. Maybe the bios has to read fan rpms to prevent shutting the system down.

I agree that we need to fix this problem as Dell doesn't seem to fix problems, only to replace defective parts hoping the problem goes away. Think how great it would be to have a normal bios to tweak instead of the castrated version from Dell.
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post #25 of 47
10/27/06 at 5:47am
Before you cut "speed holes" it might be a very good idea to see what Dell will charge for a replacement bracket. It can't be THAT much since it's just plastic...but don't be surprised if it's a 30 dollar piece of plastic =/
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post #26 of 47
10/27/06 at 5:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tijgert
I think the 'full' 5v is reserved for running the fan at fan-boost speed. I'll go flash my bios and startup my multimeter...

I'm curious as to what bios you have now and what you would flash to. Also, when you installed your 1.8 CPU @2.4 did you also pin mod the voltage, or are you using RMclock utiility to change it? I understand pin modding speed procedure but not how to get the proper voltage. I've looked at the procedure in the forums here but am still not clear.

Thanks!
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post #27 of 47
10/27/06 at 5:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Obmij
Here are the fan specs for the fans installed in my Gen2. Both are made by Toshiba Home Technology Corporation.

CPU fan (Mounted left hand rear corner):
Model MCF-J01BM05-1
Rev A01
DC 5V
0.44A
6.8 CFM

GPU fan (Mounted right hand rear corner):
Model MCF-J02AM05-1
Rev A01
DC 5V
0.12A
3.0 CFM

You can see that the rated flow rate for the GPU fan is only 44% of the CPU. This, I believe, is part of the cooling problem when using high powered video cards. Also, I'm not sure that the left hand side GPU (long) heatsink arm is very effective at all compared to the short right side arm. I'm going to run some additional tests to confirm this.

Anyway, maybe someone can do some additional research on these fans. I do wonder if you tried to rewire these to 12V how that would affect the system? I wonder if the unit would boot if you unplugged the fan(s) and wired into another source. Maybe the bios has to read fan rpms to prevent shutting the system down.

I agree that we need to fix this problem as Dell doesn't seem to fix problems, only to replace defective parts hoping the problem goes away. Think how great it would be to have a normal bios to tweak instead of the castrated version from Dell.

Yes sir the lappy will still start without the FANS plugged in. Did this once by mistake. It was actually kinda funny though. Fangui would still show my fans as running. Hence the bios was telling fangui the fan was running even though my GPU fan was unplugged from the MotherBoard. I was also wondering if you find some way of drawing 12v from somewhere else and finding a real 12v fan that could repalce the cheap 5v Dell fans. And if you could then some how place a switch (slider type or other) right above the power button. It would seem like the easiest place to put it. At least you will have enough room to route the wiring that way. Any thoughts on that.
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post #28 of 47
10/27/06 at 6:02am
I would guess it is more than that because it has the power switch attached and the LCD hinge covers built in. It is a shame we even have to consider doing these types of mods and install 3rd party fan utilities just to make the laptop operate like it should. If it wasn't such a great laptop otherwise I would have sold it many moons ago and gone with another company.
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post #29 of 47
10/27/06 at 11:35am
Thread Starter 
Yeah baby! rattle up support all over the... net.

Anyway, I was talking about flashing my GTX bios to lower the temp at which the fan boost kicks in, just to see how much it helps and at what voltage it gets then.
I only pinmodded the speed of the cpu, voltage I regulate with RMclock. At 1.276v it can't be any hotter than a 1.8GHz me thinks.
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post #30 of 47
10/27/06 at 12:16pm
Hi tijgert,
From what I've read you've got a great CPU @1.276v only. Have you flashed your card's bios yet. I just downloaded NiBiTor v3.0a to try the fan boost myself. With a laptop if we hose the bios on the Go card I'm not sure how to fix it. I have already reflashed my M/B bios to the same A05 hoping to get CPU/GPU fan speeds up again. It didn't work. I was thinking of flashing back to A04 bios to try again. Do you have any idea if that would work?

Thanks!
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post #31 of 47
10/27/06 at 12:32pm
To recover from bad flash there are pcmcia gpu's but the easiest way I know would be to monitor the cd boot (or just change the bootmethod to cd first as "failsafe") and make a backup flash disk with an autoexec...the stock 7800 clocks are 400/1065 so yes, tijgert has flashed...I'm gonna see if I can undervolt and set a lower fan boost for my 6800 ultra...no real reason though as its highest temps are like 65-70...
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post #32 of 47
10/27/06 at 12:59pm
Hi zzpulp,
Thanks for the info on flashing. I've already saved a backup version of my Go's bios so I'll download a copy of nvflash and try it tomorrow. I'd really be happy to have temps as low as yours. This afternoon I ran 3Dmark05's first test and I could see it throttling down toward the end of the test. I aborted the benchmark and my Go had hit 111 degrees C! I can't imagine any computer component lasting very long at temps like that.

Cheers!
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post #33 of 47
10/27/06 at 5:29pm
Thread Starter 
I'll try to flash and test either today or tomorrow.
I don't know if different bioses have different max fan speeds.

I'll report here what I find when I fidn anything.
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post #34 of 47
10/28/06 at 3:23pm
Thread Starter 
Allrighdy then, results (but don't get too excited).

Opened up the lappy, cleaned out the fans and the copper again and boy, does that get dusty quick or what!

At low speed (also during startup) the fan get's 2,42v.
At maximum speed (around 4Krpm) it get's 4,16v.
Sometimes it sticks at 3,99v, sometimes it goes to 4,16v, dunno why.

I flashed a GTX bios that *should* force the GPU fan into overdrive at 75c.
But it didn't. No matter what I did, I could not get the fan to go into overdrive.

As said before by someone who did get it to work, the overdrive rpm is about 4800. The normal maximum voltage supplied is 4,16v. This means that at overdive setting the voltage would be 5v since the increase in rpm is relatively the same (around 17-20%) as the difference from 4,16v to 5v.

As for powersource. Everything in there is so tiny that the largest area to solder is on the battery connector in the lappy. I can get 12v, 5v and 3,3v. 5v is too low and 12v too high. I'm thinking between 12v and 5v I get a very nice and comfortable 7v.
However... even though it works fine in my home computers' power supply, I'm not sure how it works with batteries. Will it work there too?

So, I'm still looking into getting the fan into overdrive but I'mkinda stuck... anybody?
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post #35 of 47
10/29/06 at 12:47am
I must apologize for my previous thoughts on this, as I was incorrect. Here's why.

Turns out that my BIOS flashing experience was altered by the gpu fan becoming exceptionally plugged with cat/dog/wife fur. I JUST had the system apart three weeks ago and thoroughly cleaned out all of the heatsinks... but apparantly my cats managed to get the best of this thing. The lack of airflow through the fins of the heatsink were driving the speed of the fan way up.

The Fan Boost setting appears to be a setting for desktop cards with their own fan. Our gpu fans are controlled by the motherboard BIOS, so the Boost setting in Nibitor is ineffective.

Once again, I apologize for the misinformation there. I should have looked closer at it before I jumped to conclusions. As far as your idea goes, there is no reason that upping the voltage wont work. The style of blower Dell uses has a variable voltage coil, which should be ok up to around 9-10 volts. I cannot guarantee that 12 volts would or would not work, but that seems like it would be too much. Get the right resistor to decrease voltage off of the 12V rail and you should be in business. Good luck my friend!
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post #36 of 47
10/29/06 at 5:02am
Thread Starter 
Dude, I'm just glad you told me or I would've been flashing bioses for days

Right now I'm thinking I'll use the 12v-5v=7v from the battery and hard wire it with a low profile slide switch.
I'm also looking into making the keyboard removable and putting a 5v fan on top of the GTX, that baby get's blistering hot and a lot of cooling performance can be attained here...
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post #37 of 47
10/29/06 at 6:47am
I'd still be interested in knowing how much one of the XPS-labeled brackets would run if the "speed hole" mod works.

The only drawback I could see to it is if you at all operate your laptop with an external monitor and keep the lid closed, if you've got exhaust holes right below the screen, it could warp the anti-glare coating just by heat radiating upwards...

...not that a strip of PVC plastic is going to insulate it much stock, but regardless =/
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post #38 of 47
10/29/06 at 7:10pm
Thread Starter 
I found it on-line for about 20 bucks. But I'm thinking that pressing the little knob under the power button is easy enough to do myself, don't need a fancy-schmancy silver colored button to hold my finger.
I'm thinking of leaving the whole plastic strip at home!

When I get back from work I'll start by looking for 5v fans that I can hook up to the USB port...
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post #39 of 47
10/29/06 at 10:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by destruya
I'd still be interested in knowing how much one of the XPS-labeled brackets would run if the "speed hole" mod works.

The only drawback I could see to it is if you at all operate your laptop with an external monitor and keep the lid closed, if you've got exhaust holes right below the screen, it could warp the anti-glare coating just by heat radiating upwards...

...not that a strip of PVC plastic is going to insulate it much stock, but regardless =/

I would't recommend operating one of these lappies with the lid closed as they get very hot. Not long ago I closed the lid on mine while it was on and for some reason it didn't go into sleep mode. When I opened the lid an hour or so later the whole top of the unit was pretty hot. And don't forget there are the small cooling vents on either side of the keyboard that need unblocked air flow.
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post #40 of 47
10/30/06 at 8:16am
My 7900GS fan maxes out at 3670 when I force it to high speed...seems a lot lower than some others on here...why on earth would that be??
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