9800m GTS hit 105C - Cured, but curious!

C

Chadwick

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2008
Messages
152
This shall be long.. Scroll down to bottom for the point and my questions! :)

So I noticed that my GPU on the P-7805u will at times hit anywhere between 90C-105C on load. At one point it was slowly climbing it's way to 90C while at the desktop with no load.

So the story. I've had it for about 3-4 months. Caught it on the deal for $600.00 from Best Buy. I noticed the overheating occuring not too long out of the box, but was hesitant to return as I had to have it shipped from a different Best Buy 800 miles away. After viewing other forums about overheating 9800M GTS cards all of them contained the P-7805u, I actually began to laugh after I'd click and click and keep running into the same thing. I must of read at least 10 different forums where 9800 M GTS cards were overheating and 8/10 of them were associated with a Gateway notebook. Also, customer reviews from Newegg, and other tech sites that sold the item. Anytime I clicked on the "1" ratings they always seemed to deal with the display crashing and / or ridiculous temps coming from the GPU.

I keep the notebook on flat glass with a fan that blows underneath the glass, the fan is used to cool the AC/DC adapter which sits atop it. Hope that makes sense. The GPU has hit 100C-103C for periods of 5-30 minutes in which case the only sign I had was the room getting warmer, hah. It has had an extreme of 104-105 for around 1 minute on a very select few times. Now I've finely fixed it after numerous different methods from other forums, it was funny what actually fixed it though, I'll make a list.

Rivatuner - didn't work
BIOS update -didn't work
GPU Drivers update - didn't work
Creating foam inserts for the rubber feet on the bottom to raise it 1/3" - worked

So I'm under the assumption that somehow the rubber feet on the bottom were not keeping the notebook up high enough to provide adequate airflow. I'm now running a solid 45-50C idle and 70C load max. Oh I never mentioned dust as an issue because if you knew me you'd know I'm an absolute dust freak. I won't go into my dust prevention methods to save time though. :p

So the final point and questions of this thread!

Gateway notebook engineers suck.

Is it possible that the GPU has been damaged at all in the long run due to it hitting 105C briefly and 100Cish for anywhere from 5-30 minutes more than once?

Should I bother to open an RMA incase any hardware has been damaged in the slightest bit?
I plan on leaving for the Air Force in about 3 months, so I would'nt mind if Gateway took it to inspect it and what not. As long as it doesn't blow up on me down the road all will be great. After all, this will be mobile gaming rig. :cool:

Thanks,
Chad
 
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I have a P-7811FX and have seen the same things you have. I've had the computer for nearly a year & a half now, but I've been lucky to not have a single hardware or mechanical issue... though most of the time it sits stationary with some sort of airflow across it. I've seen the same temperatures you have, though I never really looked into what they actually were until a few weeks ago. I stressed the card about as much as I thought I could (used the "rthdribl" program and turned everything up, AA, etc.), and it hit ~90ºC if I remember right. I then laid a DVD case (ingenious, huh?:rolleyes:) under the battery to give room for a little airflow, and just let it be for a while to see where temps would settle to. I think it was about a 20ºC or more drop, just from that little bit of space, so I will concur with your statement that the engineers that designed the outside of the case need a new job :cool: I play games on it regularly, so it gets pretty hot on a regular basis, but the only negative I've seen is gameplay performance suffering, like I said I've never had any issues with it... I just don't get why they squeezed a 1920x1200 screen into a laptop. I figured 1440x900 or 1728x1080 would've been a better choice, but my understanding is they changed that with the subsequent models?
 
That's correct, the p-7805u was originally a 1920x1200, however, the later-edition model I own is a 1440x900.

Bad news though, the GPU just spiked up to 102C with a weird smell while playing some BC:2 beta, the problem may not be cured. What's weird is it was fine earlier today when I gamed for a good hour or two. As well as all last night for many hours. Now all of sudden.. :(

I sent out an e-mail to Gateway seeing if they may take it in. I kept finding new forum posts stating that members who sent theirs in ended up getting a new GPU and fan, or a whole new notebook. I guess all I can hope for is they don't pull the bullshit 105C is normal and take it.
 
Interesting... I've wondered myself if there was a better cooling solution for it, kind of hard to do anything besides factory inside a laptop :rolleyes:
 
So I've noticed the fan will turn off completely while gaming causing the temps to slowly rise all the way up. Temps would go from 60C while in-game to 70C a minute later, 80C then up up and up. Had a thin piece of paper next to the outlet for the fan and it wasn't moving in the slightest bit. :(
 
Just wanted to update that I picked up a notebook cooler, this one in fact:
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1265442055&sr=8-1

After 4 days of constant tests in CPUID HW monitor and Real Temp, neither the GPU or CPU have gone above 60C on full load. I wish I would have picked of those up sooner. ><

I now just hope that there hasn't been much damage done to GPU to wear it's overall life down.
 
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