XPS 730X Thermal Issues

David,

You cannot adjust the Front CPU fan or the CPU pump. That is by design. Fan and pump are responding as expected based on the temperature. What is the CPU utilization when the fan is noisy versus not noisy? Was the CPU or H2C unit replaced on this system? Since this issue only occurs in Left4Dead, please run a non-game application (Prime 95) to exercise the cpu cores. Does the same issue occur?

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Reason: XPS 730x Thermal Issue

Great suggestion! I'm running Prime 95 now (100% all core loads). Within seconds my core CPU temps look like this according to HWMonitor.

Intel Core i7 940 hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0    98°C (208°F) [0x2] (Core #0)
Temperature sensor 1    87°C (188°F) [0xD] (Core #1)
Temperature sensor 2    100°C (212°F) [0x0] (Core #2)
Temperature sensor 3    79°C (174°F) [0x15] (Core #3)

And the front CPU fan spins up to 4000rpm.
HWMonitor also appears to be able to report fan speeds (not sure what all these are, the thermal monitor only reports the front CPU fan spinning up to 4000):

Fan sensor 7          4004 RPM [0x1F48] (FANIN7)
Fan sensor 12        4000 RPM [0xFA0] (FANIN12)
Fan sensor 13        1987 RPM [0x7C3] (FANIN13)
Fan sensor 14        1296 RPM [0x510] (FANIN14)
Fan sensor 15        2243 RPM [0x8C3] (FANIN15)

This is loud.

The fan is not objectionably noisy at idle or when running many applications.

According to Core Temp the CPU load for the first two cores is in the 80-95% range when playing Left4Dead.

The unit was manufactured 1/07/2009 and no parts have been replaced.

The motherboard bios is version 1.0.0 (initial release).

If the unit would be stable with the front CPU fan spinning at 3000rpm that'd be great, but I understand this cannot currently be changed.

Thanks so much for the application suggestion (Prime 95)!

I look forward to any advice.

Also, if anyone is running a 730x with an I7 940 I'd love to hear if you are experiencing the same phenomena!

Could it be that the i7-940 runs hotter than the i7-965? I have a i7-940 with liquid cooling and the front fan spins up to max when the CPU is under load. It's kinda loud. I'd pay to the difference if upgrading the chip would solve this problem. A couple of folks on the general 730X thread with i7-965 CPUs seem to be suggesting they are not having this issue. Also I sent you the requested information via private message. Please let me know if you didn't receive it. Thanks so much.

Hi Folks,

My problem is solved.

My i7-940 was running hot (i.e. 90-105C) under load.

After hours problem solving with Dell I posted my temps to five different computer enthusiast forums and the consensus was my waterblock/heatsink has to be loose or my pump is not working. First thing I thought when opening up to inspect my system was the that the shroud over the CPU pump that is attached to the waterblock seems like a very bad design and was loose. Well, after reading thirty or forty posts about how there is no way my i7-940 temps should be so high, I tightened the screws on the waterblock. My temps dropped about 20C-40C depending on load. Problem solved. Turns out the system is designed just fine if installed correctly. I'm a bit stumped that the Dell folks didn't seemed surprised my CPU was running at close to failure temperatures. To reiterate, my i7-940 CPU under load now runs at 60C instead of 90-105C. Thanks to everyone who listened and helped!

Hello Mastin, I've the same problem than you with a i7 920 !

Can you explain me what you have done to solve the issue ?

Thanks you

I noticed my front CPU fan and CPU pump increasing to 4000+rpm when playing the game left4dead.
I found several utilities confirmed my CPU was running hot (e.g. core temp, realtemp, hwmonitor),
especially when under load (left4dead and p95 utility).
By hot, you'll have to research what normal idle and load temps are for a 920. The Dell support team were not
able to provide these at the time of my problem.
There are several reasons a fan could be loud and/or a CPU could be running hot.
In my case, I noticed the cooling block was not securely attached to the CPU.
I purchased a long enough correct size screwdriver, grounded myself, and tightened the four screws and my problem was solved.
It is likely any thermal paste/pad installed in the factory is likely to have been ruined by the originally loose install, but I'm in no mood to find out as I'm getting acceptable temperatures now and very low fan rpm.
Please note my system is a 940 with liquid cooling.
I suggest only calling Dell support during normal business hours, preferably in the morning.
Good luck and take care.

Thanks you mastin, it's solving my problem too . But one screw is to far for my screw driver.

So, i want that someone from dell came now to replace the thermal paste ;)