Undervolting - super effective?

[Fry750]

Doing some Handbrake video encoding, CPU temps typically rise to 95c which is a tad alarming but not surprising.

I've invested in a raised laptop cooler which appears to be largely ineffective and opening the windows during this icy time sees temps drop by 3-5c.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with undervolting and since reducing the voltage by 0.125v, temps have dropped to a much better 82c during the same Handbrake video encoding.

It's even allowed me to reduce the fan speed and make the laptop almost silent during heavy load... I haven't experienced any crashing and the CPU can maintain consistent boost across all cores.

At face value this seems unbelievably effective and I can't believe I haven't done it sooner...

It's also worth nothing laptop is MSI GS43 (14") with 7700HQ, so compact size and limited cooling potential play a huge part in this.

TL;DR - Undervolting is worth looking into and incredibly useful for small form factor laptops.

 

[deusexlumina]

Couldn't agree more It may the case you have a good chip in there as it's possible that not all CPUs can maintain the boost stability even with a small reduction.

Nonetheless, I think it's always worth looking into for laptops with relatively power hungry CPUs. The prospect of reduced power consumption, noise and heat makes it a no brainer!

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Yeah - I've undervolted my Aero 15X to good effect.

 

[Monkeynut]

You have also just extended your battery life noticeably.

 

[Distracted]

In conjunction with undervolting, something people have done in the past to help with laptop cooling is swapping the standard tim for liquid metal. This is especially effective because many laptops have cpus with exposed die (no ihs) that are cooled by copper heatpipe solutions. The gpu also has an exposed die and benefits from the application of liquid metal.

You would not want to do this if your cooler is aluminium, it will destroy it.

I plan to do this when i eventually pick up a laptop and i have liquid electrical tape and a steady hand ready.
The cooling will still be limited by the efficiency of the heatsink and fans, but the liquid metal will get heat into the heatsink much quicker ensuring cooler low to mid load and idle temps and, if the cooling solution is up to it, cooler high load temps.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

My Alienware 15 is notorious for a poor heatsink mounting fixture and as a result overheating. I topped a reading of 101 at one point a while back. Re-pasting with cryonaut and undervolting has made a huge difference since then.

Liquid metal would be better in the short term , but I shyed away from going that far due to reading about the long term implications that some posts talk about with liquid metal. I'd rather repasted every once in a while knowing that I'm not worrying about the paste eating away at metals (even copper )

 

[Deleted member 209350]

this is very helpful!

now to take it a step further, is it doable on desktop cpu's also? I know its entirely possible, but they usually tend to need more power than less (I think anyway)