Alienware 14 heat?

[Aniallation]

So I do use my boyfriend's Alienware 14 a lot, and I notice it does get quite hot under normal use. The fan is on all the time, the air coming out of the exhaust is quite warm, and the metal grills by the exhaust are uncomfortably hot to the touch. He barely games on this laptop and it's mostly CS:GO, so I disabled the dedicated GPU and it's only running of Intel HD 4600. It's an i7-4700MQ so I don't expect it to stay cold to the touch and run pleasantly the fan off all the time like the i5-4300U in my HP Elitebook does, but shouldn't it be running at least a bit cooler and quieter then this? 

[Volbet]

Well, how hot is it?

Use RealTemp to measure the temperature of the CPU, and MSi Afterburner to measure it on the GPU.

It's not uncommon for gaming laptops to run really hot. The CPU might run as hot as 85°C and the GPU might hit 95°C.

 

If the heat is a problem, and the parts are throtteling, then try cleaning out the heatsinks and maybe reapply thermal paste (if possible)

[minibois]

Does he clean it often? The dust filter, but also the fans and such?

[Aniallation]

Well, how hot is it?

Use RealTemp to measure the temperature of the CPU, and MSi Afterburner to measure it on the GPU.

It's not uncommon for gaming laptops to run really hot. The CPU might run as hot as 85°C and the GPU might hit 95°C.

50-52 degrees while browsing the forum, with the laptop on a flat table. So around the same as my HP (but fan is on whereas HP runs passive due to ULV CPU). 

 

Load temps aren't a huge deal either (Intel ark says this CPU is rated to 100C), and the parts don't throttle. It's just that I never expected a regular Haswell CPU to be this much hotter then a ULV one. My old Toshiba laptop had a 40W CPU and even that ran passive under load and stayed quite cool to the touch. Seven more watts makes this huge of a difference?

[Aniallation]

Does he clean it often? The dust filter, but also the fans and such?

Umm, probably not tbh but this laptop isn't that old.

[ForsakenLive]

It should be, I'd check the Nvidia BatteryBoost settings, it's a neat function that allows to save a ton of power (and heat) by having it automatically use only the iGPU from the i7 instead of the GPU. This way you don't have to disable manually the GPU, you can assign it to run with HD Graphics on certain games and applications.

Also, if any of this is reducing fan speeds, check temperatures from the Alienware software and bios, see what's actually running so hot (maybe he manually set his CPU to be boosted all the time instead of running automatic TurboBoost). If temps are all right but fan speeds keep going hard, try creating a better fan curve in the software/bios.

[minibois]

Umm, probably not tbh but this laptop isn't that old.

Oh, I read too fast. It's a laptop and not a desktop.

Can't really expect someone to clean a laptop as often as they clean a desktop.

 

What material is used on the laptop? (I've never had an Alienware laptop)

[Volbet]

50-52 degrees while browsing the forum, with the laptop on a flat table. So around the same as my HP (but fan is on whereas HP runs passive due to ULV CPU). 

 

Load temps aren't a huge deal either (Intel ark says this CPU is rated to 100C), and the parts don't throttle. It's just that I never expected a regular Haswell CPU to be this much hotter then a ULV one. My old Toshiba laptop had a 40W CPU and even that ran passive under load and stayed quite cool to the touch. Seven more watts makes this huge of a difference?

7W can make a lot of difference. The cooling units in laptops are quite tightly packed, and are build as small as possible. 

You can always check if there is a different fan porfile, that will allow the fan to spin faster.

 

And as I already recommend, try cleaning out the heatsinks. Just vacuume the exhaust grills. If you need more suction, duct tape the vacuume nossle to the exhaust grill and vacuume away. 

[Aniallation]

It should be, I'd check the Nvidia BatteryBoost settings, it's a neat function that allows to save a ton of power (and heat) by having it automatically use only the iGPU from the i7 instead of the GPU. This way you don't have to disable manually the GPU, you can assign it to run with HD Graphics on certain games and applications.

Also, if any of this is reducing fan speeds, check temperatures from the Alienware software and bios, see what's actually running so hot (maybe he manually set his CPU to be boosted all the time instead of running automatic TurboBoost). If temps are all right but fan speeds keep going hard, try creating a better fan curve in the software/bios.

Well he doesn't need the dedicated GPU, so it's running on HD Graphics all the time, ruling out the dedicated GPU as the cause of the heat. I'll check into the TurboBoost settings as that seems like I'd make sense. Thanks.

 

 

What material is used on the laptop? (I've never had an Alienware laptop)

The laptop itself is soft-touch plastic. Not sure what the heatsinks and stuff are made out of

 

 

And as I already recommend, try cleaning out the heatsinks. Just vacuume the exhaust grills. If you need more suction, duct tape the vacuume nossle to the exhaust grill and vacuume away. 

I'll definitely try that. Due to the design of the cooler I could just use compressed air to blow all the dust out easily, so I'll try giving it a cleaning.

[GuyNamedBrad]

Hey, I have an alienware 14 too, and mine usually idles around 47-52 degrees, and thats a norm so i would suggest a cooling pad, or having the vents on the bottom and sides in an optimal air flow environment.