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*Update June5th* i7-7700 - Hot Cores and the story of Dell Incompetence

CMetaphor

Quadfather
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
6,459
Location
Montreal, Canada
Short(ish) version:
- Alienware 13 R3
- Bought last December
- Had an on-site technician repair/replace the processor heatsink under warranty due to manufacturing error. (cpu package temps exceeded 102c regularly)
- Was not present to watch the on-site tech - I was at work an couldnt be there.

- Fast-forward to this past summer \ early fall:
- Recent bios updates* made the laptop unstable again, fans screaming during lock-ups and crashes.
- Verifying with Hwinfo64: reveals that Cores 0 and 2 peak at over 20c hotter than cores 1 and 3.

To me its plain as day that the on-site Dell tech didn't properly reinstall / replace the heatsink in January. A temperature dell between cores on the same die of 20+C is simply unacceptable. Dell, however, keep giving me the run around with garbage like "the average cpu temp didn't exceed 80c" even though they can't say if the average should be over a minute, or ten or an hour, etc etc. They also said they can't do anything if no temps peak over 95c... which I have shown many times in screencaps I've sent them.

*= Bios update for the Intel microcode fix, which has a definite effect on the temps.

Tell me I'm crazy.
OR
I'm never buying Dell again and will advising everyone I know to do the same.
 
Last edited:

JD

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What's the specs on it?

I re-pasted mine, not overly hard to take apart. It helped a bit, but not a huge difference like some people. I can't recall the temps off hand, but I don't think mine exceeds 102C.

What are you running on it to hit that temp?
 

FreeKnight

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Jul 8, 2009
Messages
4,444
Location
Edmonton, AB
Short(ish) version:
- Alienware 13 R3
- Bought last December
- Had an on-site technician repair/replace the processor heatsink under warranty due to manufacturing error. (cpu package temps exceeded 102c regularly)
- Was not present to watch the on-site tech - I was at work an couldnt be there.

- Fast-forward to this past summer \ early fall:
- Recent bios updates* made the laptop unstable again, fans screaming during lock-ups and crashes.
- Verifying with Hwinfo64: reveals that Cores 0 and 2 peak at over 20c hotter than cores 1 and 3.

To me its plain as day that the on-site Dell tech didn't properly reinstall / replace the heatsink in January. A temperature dell between cores on the same die of 20+C is simply unacceptable. Dell, however, keep giving me the run around with garbage like "the average cpu temp didn't exceed 80c" even though they can't say if the average should be over a minute, or ten or an hour, etc etc. They also said they can't do anything if no temps peak over 95c... which I have shown many times in screencaps I've sent them.

*= Bios update for the Intel microcode fix, which has a definite affect on the temps.

Tell me I'm crazy.
OR
I'm never buying Dell again and will advising everyone I know to do the same.

The one non-work supplied Dell laptop I owned was a 15" in around 2001 that was thermally shutting down after about 20 minutes of gaming. It'd start heat throttling and then die. Twice it got sent to Dell's repair techs and twice it came back with the same problem. It took me another 2-3 months of fighting to get a refund IIRC. I hadn't bought another Dell product until my Alienware monitor this year. I still won't buy a dell laptop or PC.

Maybe they've changed, but it was a bad enough experience I'm not considering going back.
 

CMetaphor

Quadfather
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
6,459
Location
Montreal, Canada
What's the specs on it?

I re-pasted mine, not overly hard to take apart. It helped a bit, but not a huge difference like some people. I can't recall the temps off hand, but I don't think mine exceeds 102C.

What are you running on it to hit that temp?

Specs: i7-7700k, no OC + 1060
If I take it apart I invalidate the warranty. But apparently they can be with me on the phone during the reinstallation of the heatsink and the warranty will stay.... now if I could only convince them to go that route.

Temp program: Prime95 - Small FFT test


The one non-work supplied Dell laptop I owned was a 15" in around 2001 that was thermally shutting down after about 20 minutes of gaming. It'd start heat throttling and then die. Twice it got sent to Dell's repair techs and twice it came back with the same problem. It took me another 2-3 months of fighting to get a refund IIRC. I hadn't bought another Dell product until my Alienware monitor this year. I still won't buy a dell laptop or PC.

Maybe they've changed, but it was a bad enough experience I'm not considering going back.

Yeah, this whole experience has seriously made me hate Dell tech support.

The most recent conversation I had with them was me telling them flat out that the temperature differences between the cores is an Obvious sign of a badly installed heatsink and that I would gladly do the repair myself if it meant keeping my warranty. Instead, the manager I spoke to (since level 1 techs ONLY know how to go through a checklist and don't posses any brains of their own) said the following when I asked him what further troubleshooting I need to do to prove the heatsink issue:
Dell Manager: "I dont have that information"
Me: "You're telling me I need to go back to one of your techs to do even more troubleshooting steps but you can't tell me what those missing steps are?"
Dell Manager: "I don't know what the steps are, you need to speak to a technician".
Me: You have screencaps of the two hot cores hitting 94+ and 96+ respectively and one of your techs reinstalled every driver on my laptop, and you still have no idea what else can be done?"

I Laughed in his face and hung up. Maybe I'll call again tomorrow and try to get through to someone higher up. Didn't we used to have a Dell guy here in the forums somewhere? Oh well. At least someone higher up will hopefully be able to manage English without mumbling or having a massive accent.
 

Bond007

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Joined
Jun 24, 2009
Messages
7,964
Location
Nova Scotia
Haven’t owned a dell computer before, but from everything I have read they seem really good for warranty when something is broken (aka 1 for 1 swap to a new one), but issues seem to arise whenever they are “fixing”. Your temps do sound like bad paste...that or a bad heat sink design that either isn’t making contact across the cores, or has poor pressure.
 

JD

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Toronto, ON
Temp program: Prime95 - Small FFT test
Similar story on mine after a 10 minute run, I hit 96C and 97C on Core 0 and 2, triggering thermal throttle. Core 1 and 3 run about 20C cooler, peaking at 68C and 60C. That was just an issue with Kaby Lake chips in general I thought?

I recall running HWInfo remotely while gaming though after I re-pasted, no thermal throttles were triggered and it's been stable. I'm not one to run Prime95 (or any stress test) on a laptop, as long as it works for real world applications.

I'm running BIOS 1.2.4 currently.

EDIT: for kicks, installed ThrottleStop and put the CPU, Cache and iGPU voltages to -100mV, no more thermal throttle, peaks at 92C instead.
 
Last edited:

CMetaphor

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May 5, 2007
Messages
6,459
Location
Montreal, Canada
Similar story on mine after a 10 minute run, I hit 96C and 97C on Core 0 and 2, triggering thermal throttle. Core 1 and 3 run about 20C cooler, peaking at 68C and 60C. That was just an issue with Kaby Lake chips in general I thought?

I recall running HWInfo remotely while gaming though after I re-pasted, no thermal throttles were triggered and it's been stable. I'm not one to run Prime95 (or any stress test) on a laptop, as long as it works for real world applications.

I'm running BIOS 1.2.4 currently.

EDIT: for kicks, installed ThrottleStop and put the CPU, Cache and iGPU voltages to -100mV, no more thermal throttle, peaks at 92C instead.

You repasted, how is the temp difference between the cores now?
 

JD

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You repasted, how is the temp difference between the cores now?
That is with it repasted... I did it like 2 weeks after I got it last year.

I can't recall if the CPU had an IHS on it or not though. But still, the desktop 7700k had similar issues with hot cores.
 

CMetaphor

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Joined
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Messages
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Location
Montreal, Canada
That is with it repasted... I did it like 2 weeks after I got it last year.

I can't recall if the CPU had an IHS on it or not though. But still, the desktop 7700k had similar issues with hot cores.

You repasted and still have 20c differences between the cores and think it's okay? Hmmm.

I've read around the place a lot, a while some sites were talking about spikes (around May) most of them weren't as severe at 20c+.

It's still a constant struggle with Dell. I've asked and asked to be allowed to remount the heatsink but they give me BS every damn time.

Call me paranoid, but a 1 or 2 core spike of 95c or more - plus the throttling that flashes on and off before the fans can react - can't be normal. Intel... Trash. Maybe I should've waited for a high-end Ryzen gaming laptop.... Ugh.

Do we really have no one from Dell on this forum anywhere? I'm tired of being treated like garbage by morons thousands of miles away who only know how to read off of a troubleshooting script.
 

JD

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In gaming I don't see any sudden performance drops/loss. So to me, that's "acceptable" and what I'd expect from a gaming laptop that was before the the NVIDIA Max-Q design, running a (terrible) Kaby Lake chip, and in a 13.3" chassis. I guess we just have different expectations...

You've tried calling any of these?
1-866-287-6727
866-502-7536
866-502-7537
1-800-254-3692
 

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