UNSOLVED

Ms3030

updated

21 years ago

Closed

M

Ms3030

12 Posts

0

21736

January 16th, 2005 13:00

Inspiron 5150 Overheating

This is a really strange problem. Recently my brother's Inspiron 5150 has had seriuous heat issues. It's currently idling at 59 Celcius. This, I know, is way to hot seeing how my Inspiron 9100 idles at 53-56 Celcius (and that is known to run hot). I thought maybe the fans were dusty, but I haven't been able to reach them. On the 9100, I can just unscrew the fans, take them out, and clean them. Is there a way to do this with the 5150?

I think something might be up with some hardware. I'm not sure though, and since I can't reach the fans, I can't rule out the option of excess dust. Is there a program that will test the components of the computer to see if something is wrong? Something that would say "Bad memory, CPU, GPU, etc?" This really a pain because the compute is shutting itself down it gets so hot when my brother plays games (one of the big things he does). I don't wanna up the RAM in his computer until this gets fixed.

Thanks for the help. If you have any questions PM me or ask here.

Thanks,
Mike
  • Leo_s84

    496 Posts

    456

    0

    Posted January 16th, 2005 22:00

    Ok , you obviously have the dust problem.

    Blow some compressed air through the back vent to take some dust out.

  • 456

    0

    Posted January 17th, 2005 13:00

    I've had the same problems, and compressed air does not help.

    Any other suggestions?
  • Leo_s84

    496 Posts

    456

    0

    Posted January 17th, 2005 21:00

    If you're still under warranty send it to dell.

    You probably have the caked in dust that cant be removed by blowing air through the fans.

    You gotta send it to the depot so they can change the heatsink for you

  • Ms3030

    12 Posts

    456

    0

    Posted January 17th, 2005 21:00

    Man I hope it's a problem compressed air can fix. I don't wanna send it off to Dell. Thanks for the advice so far. Anyone know if it's hard to open up a 5150? :D
  • Mr Rich

    136 Posts

    476

    0

    Posted January 19th, 2005 01:00

    Do a search for overheating and 5150. It's an engineering disaster. Try compressed air but from what I understand it might have helped if you had been doing it every couple weeks but it's way to late now. I think you have two options, send it in or take it apart and clean all the caked on garbage off your heatsink. Sorry I couldn't give you some better advice.
     

    Message Edited by Mr Rich on 01-19-2005 09:43 AM

  • Ms3030

    12 Posts

    476

    0

    Posted January 19th, 2005 02:00

    Wow that's really upsetting. I think I'd rather take it apart, especially if it's as easy as the 9100. Thanks for the info and I'll look up the overheating issues to see what I can do to prevent it from happening again.
  • Leo_s84

    496 Posts

    476

    0

    Posted January 19th, 2005 02:00

    No it's not hard to take the heatsink out, look for the guides in dell support
  • johnallg

    2 Intern

    •

    7280 Posts

    476

    0

    Posted January 19th, 2005 03:00

  • Ninetail

    9 Posts

    476

    0

    Posted January 19th, 2005 17:00

    I own a 5150 myself that’s been functionally useless since I bought it a year ago because of massive overheating problems. If anything, the fan doesn’t run enough! Temp probes show the CPU with a temperature of 125 F or more whenever I try to use any multimedia applications. I’ve tried compressed air, but it did nothing to alleviate the problem.

    This is a pretty common problem with the 5150, and I believe is caused by either major design flaws, or an incorrect CPU being installed by Dell, but Dell official stance is that there is nothing wrong with the laptop.
  • Ms3030

    12 Posts

    4375

    0

    Posted January 19th, 2005 22:00

    It's upsetting to hear alot of people are having this issue. Hopefully by cleaning out everything and continually using compressed air I can keep this under control.

    Again thanks for the help!