One of my computer is a Toshiba Satellite i7 with NVIDIA 530M running SETI@Home at:
- CPU: 90C
- GPU: 95C
The air is circulation well and the fan is doing it job.
I couldn't find a way to increase the fan speed.

Should I:
A) Stop using it for SETI and lessen my RAC of 4000?
B) Throttle it at RAC 2000 with CPU 80C and GPU 85C?
C) Continue running it at this burning temperature and hope for more than a year before it breaks?

Try TThrottle, http://efmer.eu/boinc/, or try a laptop cooling pad.

Cheers.

With an 'M' designated GPU we are talking about a notebook, yes? Just confirming before I talk rubbish.

edit: one should pay attention to the thread title...

Those temperatures are hot, but not too hot for a mobile system. Getting them down is probably prudent though.

I would get an external notebook cooler (i.e. a stand with big fans) - those help a lot.
Next, the fans in notebooks tend to clog with dust pretty quickly - but you probably clean them out regularly already ;)
Use TThrottle as an extra means of temperature monitoring and control - do NOT use boinc's own 'only use x% of CPU time', it's crap.

I would advise to go for B) with extra (external) cooling. The extra cooling will probably already be enough to get temperatures down into a more comfortable range.

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A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. (Mark Twain)

Most people here are going to have a heart attack when they see those temps:) But that's just because most have desktops and running at those temps would be PC suicide. Laptops vents OTOH get blocked far too easily so they are built to handle the abuse. How else would it work on your goose-down duvet?:P

Anyway, yeah the temps are too high. GPU might even be throttling just to stay at those temps (which are probably maxed out). If it's not some thin&light ultrabook style laptop I can't imagine temps going above 80 'cause Toshiba usually know what they're doing. But unless you fired up GPUz and SETI on the first day you got the thing, it's hard to say what your baseline temp should be.

Chances are it really is the vents that are blocked. Fan may be doing its job but if the air inside has nowhere to go...

I always stick a 2000W vacuum cleaner (Hoover in UKspeak) on the outlet vent and that almost always does the trick. But on a public forum like this, that has to come with a disclaimer of "don't try this at home".

Most laptops are hard to open up these days, but if you are comfortable with a screwdriver and Toshiba haven't gone crazy on the screws you might wanna try to open it up. Probably not worth it though as it can't be that old (and therefor not dirty enough to warrant the hassle). Edit: you have to be careful not to go past any stickers that would void your warranty!

Or when I'm feeling adventurous and confident I wont drop the thing, I turn it upside down (keyboard facing the floor) with the screen open. Then like the lady in that Bogart film suggests, I put my lips together and blow (at the air-intake vent). This seems to work best with the laptop turned on. Again, don't try this at home.

So to re-iterate, unless it's really a MacBook and not a Toshiba, chances are it really is the air circulation so:
D) Find a way to clean the vents
E) If that doesn't work then something far more serious and far more rare could be going on with the GPU and you might need to RMA the thing. But again that's considering it's a normal laptop and not an Ultrabook type.

One of my computer is a Toshiba Satellite i7 with NVIDIA 530M running...

You don't say which operating system you're using, and there's no 530M in your host list - so I'm assuming it's the 630M running Windows 7?

What are you system power plan settings?

For my 420M, I found:

--> Change plan settings
--> Change advanced power settings
+ Processor power management
+ System cooling policy

and setting both options (battery and wall power) to 'active' made much more effective use of the fan. Do that separately for each power plan that you might use.

The Intel 3610QM thermal spec 105ºC. So 90ºC should be fine.
The NVIDIA 630 thermal spec is 102ºC. Which I suppose we can guess the M version would be near the same if not a bit higher.

While overclocked to 2.0GHz my old 1.5GHz Pentium M runs around 90ºC at full tilt. Its thermal spec is 100ºC & it 8 or 9 years old.

I found using spacers at the feet of the notebook to have a larger air gap under the unit on a hard surface did a great job of helping cool it. Much more so than one of those "notebook coolers". I used lego blocks and made a foot for each corner so it was about 0.5" off the table surface.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

The Intel 3610QM thermal spec 105ºC. So 90ºC should be fine.
The NVIDIA 630 thermal spec is 102ºC. Which I suppose we can guess the M version would be near the same if not a bit higher.

While overclocked to 2.0GHz my old 1.5GHz Pentium M runs around 90ºC at full tilt. Its thermal spec is 100ºC & it 8 or 9 years old.

I found using spacers at the feet of the notebook to have a larger air gap under the unit on a hard surface did a great job of helping cool it. Much more so than one of those "notebook coolers". I used lego blocks and made a foot for each corner so it was about 0.5" off the table surface.

I remember some posters of old would set the laptops on top of coffe mugs and had good cooling.

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Old James

Thanks all for good advices.

I'll experiment with better air intake and investigate more for internal dirt.

I know pretty well TThrottle, but it offers very low degree reduction with a lot of throttling.

Yes: standard laptop, 630m and Windows 7 and already at "Performance fan setting".

I found using spacers at the feet of the notebook to have a larger air gap under the unit on a hard surface did a great job of helping cool it. Much more so than one of those "notebook coolers".

Yes, spacers are the best. I tried one of those notebook coolers and compared with simple spacers I had 2°C more (!) on the CPU (with or without the fans turned on, didn't matter, they were useless) and lots of noice if the fans were on.

The Pentium M I have is running at 55°C with the fan running on the lowest setting, but that's after undervolting by about 300mV, some case modifications and standing on spacers. In summer I take off the cover under it, but that can be done only on laptops, that are used only on one place.

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HAL9000 wrote:

I found using spacers at the feet of the notebook to have a larger air gap under the unit on a hard surface did a great job of helping cool it. Much more so than one of those "notebook coolers". I used lego blocks and made a foot for each corner so it was about 0.5" off the table surface.

James Sotherden wrote:

I remember some posters of old would set the laptops on top of coffe mugs and had good cooling.

Link wrote:

Yes, spacers are the best. I tried one of those notebook coolers and compared with simple spacers I had 2°C more (!) on the CPU (with or without the fans turned on, didn't matter, they were useless) and lots of noice if the fans were on.

I use Cool Feet on my laptop, they are great. Although I don't run Boinc on my latop.

My own laptop which i normally don't use except for our annual stampede of our team, got around 95°C, so i took it to the garage and gave it a few short shots of compressed air (not to much as the fan starts to spin really fast, short test with an rpm meter and an old fan shows 15k+rpm).

after this the temps got down to around 55°C with the fan going slow.
I only use the cpu and it's an core-i3 so no heat generating monster.

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My laptop (which does not run Boinc) sits on a different kind of cooler. It's basically an open grid with a large fan that you can attach to the grid anywhere. You find the hottest spot on the bottom of the laptop and mount the fan so it blows on that spot. There's also a strap to hold the laptop in place, but you may then need an external keyboard (which I have anyway; I had to disconnect the main kb because it got wet). I still get thermal shutdowns once in a while, though; I probably should try blowing out the vents with my compressor.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

My laptop (which does not run Boinc) sits on a different kind of cooler. It's basically an open grid with a large fan that you can attach to the grid anywhere. You find the hottest spot on the bottom of the laptop and mount the fan so it blows on that spot. There's also a strap to hold the laptop in place, but you may then need an external keyboard (which I have anyway; I had to disconnect the main kb because it got wet). I still get thermal shutdowns once in a while, though; I probably should try blowing out the vents with my compressor.

If you blow it out you could probably attach some kind of filter to the mesh of your cooler to keep the internal dust build up down in the future. As a lazy person I would find it less work than cleaning out clogged vents.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

With a powerful vacuum cleaning, I got 17C down on my graphic card in my Laptop i7+NVIDIA630m at full SETI! :)
It was only 6 months old so it is quite a surprise.

With a powerful vacuum cleaning, I got 17C down on my graphic card in my Laptop i7+NVIDIA630m at full SETI! :)
It was only 6 months old so it is quite a surprise.

Here are some pictures of clogged laptop fans. Before you try using compressed air/AirDuster to blow the dust out, use a fine screwdriver, etc., to block the fan from spinning -- too high a speed can ruin the bearing very quickly.

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