Laptop GPU throttling

[Aereldor]

Had a hunch my GTX 1060 (Alienware 13R3 laptop) was throttling. Turns out the GPU exceeds 90 degrees at full load at just 1240 MHz on the core, and then throttles all the way down to 900. In the voltage/frequency curve, it doesn't need more than 700mv to get to 1300 MHz, this is the default setting.

 

I've already repasted, beginning to suspect a slightly warped heatsink. Any ideas?

[JayBe]

6 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Had a hunch my GTX 1060 (Alienware 13R3 laptop) was throttling. Turns out the GPU exceeds 90 degrees at full load at just 1240 MHz on the core, and then throttles all the way down to 900. In the voltage/frequency curve, it doesn't need more than 700mv to get to 1300 MHz, this is the default setting.

 

I've already repasted, beginning to suspect a slightly warped heatsink. Any ideas?

Sounds to me like either the heatsink is bend/doesnt fit 100% or it just sucks and cant cool your CPU properly. 

But, in my experience, when Computers and especially laptops are starting to overheat and throttle after a while, it usually needs a good cleaning, so have you tried that?

[Aereldor]

6 hours ago, JayBe said:

Sounds to me like either the heatsink is bend/doesnt fit 100% or it just sucks and cant cool your CPU properly. 

But, in my experience, when Computers and especially laptops are starting to overheat and throttle after a while, it usually needs a good cleaning, so have you tried that?

Yeah, I just cleaned and did another repaste, and tried to bend the heatsinks back into place. It's not throttling anymore, it's been running furmark and cinebench simultaneously for an hour, but CPU is at 93 and GPU is at 90... That being said this is more strain than a game will ever put on it, and it's not throttling anymore, GPU stays above 1250, which is good enough for a laptop card I guess. Idk if the temps will go up when I have my hands on the keyboard to play...

[JayBe]

The PC of a friend of mine was randomly shutting down while playing and he couldnt figure out why. When i drove to him to take a look for myself, i saw the problem.. i was asking him, how often he cleans his PC (he smokes in his room while gaming + is a very messy dude and always has his balcony door open, even in winter) and he replied once or twice a year... i later figured out that he always just cleans the dust meshs in front of the fans. 
His PC was so nasty.. i took out the GPU, hold it up and showed another friend who was there with me as well, that GPUs usually have those heat sinks behind the fans, but his didnt have them and it confused me. I took out my pressure blower to clean the fans and guess what.. the sinks where covered in a 2cm thick layer of dust and ash.

When I got the CPU cooler off to clean it and apply new thermal paste, the old paste was so dayum dry that it crumbled off of the heatsink. 

 

It took me around 1,5h to clean that nasty shit up and after that, the whole balcony was covered in nasty dust and ash.

After that, he never had this issue anymore

So, thats why the first thing im always recommending when it comes to such things is taking the time to fully clean everything out and see how your heatsinks and thermal applications look like  

 

9 hours ago, Aereldor said:

it's been running furmark and cinebench simultaneously for an hour, but CPU is at 93 and GPU is at 90... That being said this is more strain than a game will ever put on it,

Ye, i'd say that too. Laptops obviously always be hotter than similiar desktop pcs. Those temps should not be of matter to you while gaming. 
Maybe, if it still concerns you, get one of those laptop coolers that you put like a standoff underneath it. Those things usually always help with cooling as well and cost around 20-40 bucks. 
 

[Aereldor]

36 minutes ago, JayBe said:

snip

Jesus that's fucked lol. Yeah I cleaned out some fans from an old Haswell build to put in my little sister's new PC, they were so caked in fine dust, she thought they were beige fans lol.

 

The thing is, this laptop isn't supposed to run so hot. Many people have problems, but the way it's supposed to run is never exceeding 85 even under full load. But the heatsink is really badly designed. For me, core 0 and 2 were running way hotter than core 1 and 3 because the heatsink was warped. I literally bent it back into shape. It's still bad but now they're like 4-7 degrees apart, not 12-16, so the bending worked.

 

The GPU is what confuses me. It never boosts above 1250 MHz, which is still low for a laptop 1060... If I benchmark just the GPU, it hits 100% use in Furmark and stays at 75C, but never boosts above 1250. If I run it concurrently with cinebench, it gets to 90, drops to maybe 1200 at the lowest.

 

Ordinarily, the boost clock for a laptop 1060 is 1600 MHz, so in theory, my card runs 25% slower, although in 3dmark it benches similarly to other laptop 1060s.