Do I need to repaste? 780m

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Orendil

Member
Hey Guys! About two weeks ago I purchased a 15" Vortex IV with a GeForce 780M graphics card (my first PC Specialist purchase!). While I am very impressed with the performance of the unit, I thought I would fire up NVidia Inspector and CoreTemp to see how the laptop was performing temperature wise. So, after about 15 minutes of playing Crysis 3 on my dining room table (not around dinner time, so the room is a reasonable regular temperature) I noticed the following temps... BTW, I pressed Fn+1 before starting the game to fire the fans up.

The CPU cores hit a max of 77-81C, which I'm pretty happy with. The GPU on the other hand hit a maximum of 94C, at which point the machine started cutting back the clock speed. My gaming experience was still pretty good but I was concerned about the overall lifetime of my GPU suffering, as I'm a pretty intensive gamer and will likely put the GPU through that sort of experience for about 10-15 hours a week.

Would appreciate some 'what would you do' advice really. I figure my options are (1) to just leave it and not worry about it, (2) re-paste as suggested in this thread or (3) RMA it. I'm clearly against option 3, but have never re-pasted a mobile GPU before. I have, however, done a number of desktop CPUs in my time so would be confident that I could do the repasting if I can get over the fear of tearing the back of the laptop. My biggest fear is that I re-paste it and then it turns out to be a problem with my GPU specifically... Then PCS won't take it back because they blame my re-pasting. Thanks for reading!
 
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Gornlostor

Active member
I am getting a Skyfire 3 with a 780m (currently processing) as well, and am getting the better cooling paste, but if what is said on this thread is true, whether I should keep it or get the standard one? Also has anyone else had any problems with overheating??
 
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vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
Gornlostor said:
I am getting a Skyfire 3 with a 780m (currently processing) as well, and am getting the better cooling paste, but if what is said on this thread is true, whether I should keep it or get the standard one? Also has anyone else had any problems with overheating??
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I wouldn't worry about it,PCS sell hundreds of laptops and this is the only thread I've seen complaining of a bad paste job.
 
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Gornlostor

Active member
Ok :), I just wanted some confirmation because it's horror stories like these that make people re-think their purchases.
 
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Orendil

Member
keynes said:
No cooling stand? Have you try with one as well?
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Can't say that I have tried a cooling stand. Although, we're currently living out of 2 suitcases at the moment until we know where are our next job(s) are going to be, so I don't know if that is a great solution for us as we're trying to pack light at the moment.

I guess with turbo boost and throttling etc, these things are built to get as hot as they can withstand before turning the clock down to compensate. I just don't know whether I should be worrying about seeing temps at 92C or so (while the max is 94, it really is just a couple of frames at that, it's sitting around 92C) or if that's just normal behaviour for these GPUs. If it'll last 3 years then that's fine - I expect I'll be upgrading again then! If people here think I could do better, then I'll get some Noctua NT-H1 and try my first mobile GPU repaste!
 
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Orendil

Member
Is the general rule the same for GPUs as CPUs? Apply a pea-sized blob in the middle, slide the heatsink around a tiny bit after lowing it onto the chip and then screw it back together? I've seen a lot of talk about the 'line' method too, but never gone in for that myself with CPUs and never had a problem!
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
Orendil said:
Is the general rule the same for GPUs as CPUs? Apply a pea-sized blob in the middle, slide the heatsink around a tiny bit after lowing it onto the chip and then screw it back together? I've seen a lot of talk about the 'line' method too, but never gone in for that myself with CPUs and never had a problem!
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yeah pretty much all i do :)

you wont need to slide the heatsink around though, the mobile cpu's and gpu's are pretty small, so the pressure should spread it evenly anyway. If you need to take two attempts, go for it. My cpu's a nightmare cause my heatsink is massive, so sometimes i will do it once, fudge it up and try again lol.
 
bigben

bigben

Master Poster
Like Tom said , don't be afraid to try more than once. When I repasted my CPU I tried 2 or 3 times before I finally did it properly, make sure you are giving it a decent spreading
 
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Orendil

Member
Thanks for the tips guys. I should be able to get the 'bits' together tomorrow and give it a shot. I'll report back with how it goes!
 
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Orendil

Member
Well, I have re-pasted the 780m and, after an initial investigation, it doesn't appear to have made much difference really. It feels like it's taking a bit longer before it throttles, but the room might be a couple of degrees C different to yesterday. I did a dry-run first and then a proper run the second time. It's still hitting 94C and then throttling back a tiny bit (down to 750Mhz down from 850Mhz, according to NVidia Inspector) after about 6-10 minutes of game play. I'll give it a couple of days and see if the paste 'settles in'.

At the end of the day, if this is just the way it's going to be with a 780m in a 15" case then so be it. I don't mind too much about the throttling (still an amazing laptop and better than the previous card I'm sure) and I could always get a laptop cooling stand when we find a place to eek that last few % out of it. I'm mostly just worried about the lifetime of the card!
 
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Orendil

Member
Hi Keynes, thanks for the suggestion - will try that later this evening :).

Some good news is that after playing 20 minutes of BF3 on the same settings that were driving it up to 92C after only 5 minutes yesterday now is actually averaging around 85C and has no throttling at all (apart from the odd blip which lasts about a second - not noticeable during game play). Obviously, these things could be down to variations in the levels I'm playing, but it looks like good news. Will pop my notebook under the back of the laptop later (not over a fan) and see what that does to the temps :).
 
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Orendil

Member
Quite interesting Keynes - when I whack an A5 notebook under the back of the laptop, I lose a couple of degrees when playing BF3 and while the temps still cap out on Crysis 3 on Max settings (it runs at 45FPS, so I understand that this is basically pushing the GPU at 100% all the time), it only throttles down to 800Mhz. To be fair, NVidia Inspector tells me the GPU should only be running at 770Mhz, so I guess the GPU is overclocking automatically with some sort of 'boost' feature until it hits 94C anyway. After stepping down, it ran at 90-92C for over an extra 20 minutes and didn't look like it was going to move.

Still seems really hot to me, but I've never had a 'top-spec' GPU in a laptop before. I'll keep my eye on the temps for good measure over the next week or two (just to make sure it doesn't shoot up), but otherwise - I'll just stop worrying and enjoy it :). If nobody here thinks it's anything to be super worried about then I'll just get on with it!
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
I would suggest getting a cooling stand if possible, I get high temps on my dinning table (wood) .
 
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Niao

Bronze Level Poster
Hey,

After repasting my GPU (780m) with IC-Diamond I dropped my temps by 8C on heavy load ! Also before I would hit 80C and over with furmark or unigine valley after 5 mins of benchmarking because my start temp would be already quite high. Now Im most of the time between 70C and 80C ! I should have taken photos but the 780M is really a tiny square and there was paste all over the heat sink (probably like 2mm thick...) and a lot around the GPU. I cleaned with artic cleaner and applied a tiny pea in the middle an reapply the heatsink. I played bf3 since and no more than 78C. My CPU is even higher on temps than the GPU now... I intend to repaste it too soon. Funnily after and before repasting, same settings, i increased my score by 50 in furmark and the GPU core recorded by furmark was 110Mhz lower after repasting, not sure if it has a meaning.

It was my first time and it is quite scary when you have never done it but it is quite hard to do something wrong. I recommend it.
 
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josbac

New member
Hello I also am a new owner of a Vortex 4 with a 780m and as with previous comment I am also very happy with the Laptop but also as above I am also seeing GPU Temps of around 89C - 93C whilst playing Bioshock Infinite. I take it this should not be happening?
 
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Niao

Bronze Level Poster
For a mobile GPU I think it is too hot, I am not an expert but most of the desktop GPU list their everyday temp around 95C.

You can check if :
- Your fan are running at max speed by using Fn+1
- Test different drivers (are you running Beta ?)
- Version of windows (I noticed difference mostly due to driver compatibily)
- Thermal Paste

Before repasting I benched the GPU with all those parameters before repasting. But as I have done it myself, now I can say
you can never go wrong by repasting.

As per my above post I am really pleased since I repasted, BF3 is no longer going over 80C and stress test (FurMark) is reaching
86C max.
 
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