540M GPU temps

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heggy

Active member
I was playing Bad Company 2 last night and decided to have a look at the temperatures it was reaching, since BC2 is by far the most intensive game I have (I think).

Speedfan showed the temperature continually rising and after about 10-15 minutes the GPU had reached 90 degrees C. I thought that seemed a bit high so I quit there, but I suspect it might have continued as it was on a rising trend. CPU (i7 2630QM) reached 70 before I stopped also.

Just wondering what safe operating temperatures are recommended for regular use. I know the GPU has a max operating temperature of around 105 (I read that somewhere), but I can guess that it's not a good idea to approach those temperatures frequently.
 
Frenchy

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
Ive seen quite a lot of people on 90 ish, I think especially as its a mobile version its a lot more compact so likley to heat more. I would deffinately start worrying if it goes much higher, but I think 90 is ok (atleast not too high anyway) but im not too good with mobile cards so not 100% sure on this. Maybe someone else can put a little mroe input in.
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
If you are playing at a desk, consider getting a cooling stand which has fans built into it that blow into it, or after every game getter a proper fan and blow onto the bottom, with the back panel off, even leaving the back panel off should keep it a bit cooler
 
Frenchy

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
But he shouldnt have to do that, the point is he needs to know what the max temp he should be expecting the card to reach under normal circumstances.
 
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heggy

Active member
I was considering a cooling pad. Is it difficult to get one that's suitably portable? And how significant are the temperature changes? Like 95->75 or 95->92.

Frenchy said:
But he shouldnt have to do that, the point is he needs to know what the max temp he should be expecting the card to reach under normal circumstances.
Click to expand...

This too. :p
 
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Frq

Member
Hi Heggy, I posted a similiar question on the forums a few months back after I got an Enigma 3 lappie from PC Specialist, the card I have is a GT 540 M 2Gb.

When running Dolphin on my Laptop, I noticed that if I set the resolution to 1080 x 1920 the GPU temp would rise to about 90 C, so I played games on a lower resolution.

To answer your question, a laptop cooling pad allows me to play dolphin games on max hi res resolution and brings the temp down to about 76 C on max res which is far more sympathetic to the component, the one I use was a cheap belkin number from PC Worls, think it was about 12 quid, but as you can see, even a cheap one causes a significant drop in temps, I am going to upgrade it to one of the better twin fan ones soon which should give an even greater temperature drop.

Regarding portability, the pad I have slips into the main pocket of my laptop bag and still gives enough room to fit other components such as power supply and mouse, and is light enough and slender enough as not to prohibit portability, connects via USB so obviously you would need to sacrifice a port to it's usage but tbh I only really need to use it if I'm playing an intensive game or watching a hi res movie, even using Autocad doesn't warm up the GPU enough to worry.

Hope that helps, Enigma is an awesome laptop, definitely made the right choice, will serve me well in my masters year. :) :)
 
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heggy

Active member
Thanks Frq, that's very helpful. Usually I have the laptop propped up at the back a little to get that tiny bit of extra flow and apart from spikes the gpu temp won't rise over 90. I found that running in power saver mode prevented the temperatures from breaking 80, at the cost of the frame rate.

The fact that a cooler should work so well is excellent, so I will almost definitely get one.

Still doesn't really answer the question of whether or not 90 is a harmful temperature for this GPU though.
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
Keeping it at 90 for a very long tme 6hrs+ would probably begin to damage it alhough it would be alright for short amounts of time
 
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Dealmaster13

Gold Level Poster
I managed to get my 2630QM to 95 degrees after playing GTA IV for 5 mins, with a desk fan blowing across the vent!

The idea is modern pieces of hardware should down-throttle when reaching certain critical temperatures, thus protecting your computer parts.

Nevertheless, if you have a notebook cooler, you should be fine in most situations; and in the event that the laptop does crash, then you know the respectable temp limit has been breached, and you can go about altering the power options to remedy this.
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
I think if a part reaches 100 that is when it turns itself off, thats when mine says it will turn off, although most ivr reached is 85, and i just unclipped the back and got my fan onto it, it went down to 40 afer 5 mins of being idle with the fan
 
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Frq

Member
heggy said:
Thanks Frq, that's very helpful. Usually I have the laptop propped up at the back a little to get that tiny bit of extra flow and apart from spikes the gpu temp won't rise over 90. I found that running in power saver mode prevented the temperatures from breaking 80, at the cost of the frame rate.

The fact that a cooler should work so well is excellent, so I will almost definitely get one.

Still doesn't really answer the question of whether or not 90 is a harmful temperature for this GPU though.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't keep it at that temperature to be honest, although the tolerance of the chip is given as around 105 C, other components within the system can be damaged by the temperature rise, short term, i.e 15 mins to a half hour, fine but a long term gaming session lasting a few hours, I'd personally play on a lower graphic setting or use a cooling pad.
 
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