Dell Inspiron 1100 - Massive Heat Problem

[Dark54555]

My GF has a dell 1100 w/ a mobile celeron. (yeah, not my pick.) As of late, it's developed a real problem with heat. Here's what I've tried so far...
1. checked the fan, it's working and not all clogged up.
2. Pulled the battery and ran on AC only. Lowered the heat some, but not enough.
3. Added a cooling pad (the Antec one), still not enough. (The cool pad was enough for my Toshiba Portege 3505 that was running way hot)

Basically, it gets hot enough to shut itself off. Before those changes, the damn thing actually burned me. Anyone got any ideas? Cause she'd like to be able to use the battery again, and she'd generally not like it to keep shutting itself off.

 

[thuned]

How many fans are there? Should be a couple, right? Are they all on? What's heating up? The cpu, hdd, vid card, or wireless?

 

[Dark54555]

I'm grabbing it from her again after class, so i'll be more specific, but the heat source is about dead center on the bottom of the laptop.

 

[Dark54555]

Alright, the hottest points are around the fan and the memory. the memory part is very disconcerting.

 

[AmigaMan]

could be faulty RAM. Did you order some third party stuff or is it OEM Dell RAM? If the former, take it out and leave just the Dell RAM in and see if it still gets hot. If you have OEM stuff in there, then try replacing it with some new RAM (Crucial or whatever).

 

[Dark54555]

it's all OEM dell stuff, she hasn't changed anything. checking into whether this thing is still under warranty...

 

[rogue1979]

I have had several laptops come into my shop for the same reason. In all cases removing the heatsink and the horrible material in between and applying good quality silver compound cured the problem. Of course removing the copper heatsink/pipe and cleaning it as well as everything else goes along with the repair.

 

[Frightcrawler]

I think you should try what rogue did.
If its out of warranty, get out the scalpel and operate on it.

 

[trungthiendo]

i find that my d500 gets really hot in the center too...not so much around the hard drive like everyone says but in the middle where the memory is...

i find it weird because on a desktop the ram doesn't even get warm at all...but on this laptop it gets pretty warm...

the cpu fan barely comes on at all, it just gets hot around the ram...might just be ram that runs hot on laptop though iono

i would call up dell and ask them wats up

 

[Abhi]

Hmm ...

1) Google for I8kfangui...
It is a free utility to check and control temperatures by controlling the fans. Post back the temps.

2) Alternatively ... pop in the Dell diagnostic CD and check both fans are working...

3) What will most probably work is taking a can of compressed air and blowing air in the fan outlets and inlets of the laptop (Even at the bottom). It gets pretty dusty... and the heatsink gets dirty... hence causing overheating.

 

[Abhi]

Originally posted by: trungthiendo

i find it weird because on a desktop the ram doesn't even get warm at all...but on this laptop it gets pretty warm...

Current memory temp on dell inspiron 8500 ... 48 Celcius...

Reaches higher 50s while gaming...

 

[Dark54555]

i'll google that util. dell diag came up clean.

and the warranty expired 3 days ago

 

[Abhi]

Post the temps... and blow clean the fans... It dropped 5 degrees on my dell ...

 

[Dark54555]

alright, loaded the fan utility. After avg. stress for a few hours, cpu at 50 and HD at about 50. Since in the past, it's tended to die under stress, i figured i'd simplify the problem and run prime 95 to get it there faster. Prime 95 for 20 minutes or so, CPU at 60-62, HD in the upper 50s, and the fan is running on high, showing 115000 ish RPMs. I'll get back after stressing for an hour or so.

 

[Dark54555]

alright, running for an hour, finished the 10K tests. Seems like that's about where the CPU temp tops out, and the HD has actually cooled down to 48-52ish.

 

[Abhi]

115000 ish RPMs?????

Shud me more like 7000 rpm me thinks...

anyway.. the temps are not too high... under full load...

Try blowing out the dirt from the heatsink with air..

 

[Abhi]

See this http://www.geocities.com/i5100dustproblem/main/solution.html