Laptop Overheats!

[fenrisx]

As the title says... my laptop overheats a lot. During the winter it would overheat when the wife and I would watch movies on it while laying in bed. It would be laying on the sheets, so I just assumed it was blocked air flow. We bought a thing for it to sit on, which seemed to do the trick. Well now that's it been in the 70's(barely into the 80s a day or two) it's over heating a lot. It doesn't matter if the air flow is blocked or not. The CPU part of the laptop will almost burn you it's so hot.

The computer has the following:
1.6ghz Celeron M
512mb ram

My question is this:
Do you think upgrading the ram to a reasonable amount will take enough stress off the CPU to help with overheating? I was thinking of maybe grabbing a gig, maybe 2, to throw in here. I could also buy a slightly faster Pentium 4 to put in here also. I just didn't want to throw too much money into this laptop. I'd rather just wait and pick up a new laptop with a Core i3 or i5 at that point.

What do you guys think?

[Okie81]

Memory and cpu shouldn't heat the system as much as a video or graphics card would, so I'm not sure if an upgrade will help with cooling.
Try some compressed air around the cooling fan, you might have a large accumulation of dust.

[Seanz0rz]

disassemble the computer and clean the fan and heat sinks. im sure there is quite a bit of dust and if you have pets, a small kitty's worth of hair stuck in the fan and heat sink fins.

upgrading will probably not help any.

[L33T35T Tacoma]

Another vote for blowing the laptop out. I had a Sony that was constantly overheating and got
to a point where it wouldn't even run. I took it to best buy complaining that it wouldn't run. Try returned to to
me days later saying they blew a lot of dust out of it. It ran great after that. Ever since I blow it out every couple months

[BruceTS]

Very common problem with laptops, I use mine in bed as well. You need to blow out the vents every once in a while, dust builds up fast in them.

[YotaFun]

Curious? what laptop do you have?
My HP which has long since past away,
actually had a bios update for the fan, too bad I didn't catch it in time and my warranty long since expired so....

Only reason i mention this is cause i could blow as much compressed air out as possible and take the laptop apart millions of times and it never did a thing due to the fact the motherboard was already on its way out.

just another option to explore i suppose

[CJM]

disassemble the computer and clean the fan and heat sinks. im sure there is quite a bit of dust and if you have pets, a small kitty's worth of hair stuck in the fan and heat sink fins.

upgrading will probably not help any.


Had the same issue, took it apart and was COVERED in dust you could only see from inside. I sprayed it with an airhose for a good 5 mins and got it all out. No more issues.

[Obi..]

:ban: Those porn videos will get you every time, buy a flatscreen for the bedroom. :tongueout:

I'll assume here that it mostly overheats when running a lot of programs simultaneously, video feed (youtube, etc) or videos.

IMHO..
It happens, period, no matter what brand of laptop, it happens. Simply b/c there's a lot for the cpu to be taking on.

That said, yes, clean it out, and pick up (or download) a fan app. I have an alloy cased mac, and even I run iStat and iFan to monitor the temps and usage. Consider looking at how you're also using the system, and what, if any programs can be put into shutdown as much as possible. Kind of how with the Mac you can change between Energy Savings, Normal, Better Performance, or Custom settings.

You don't need a portable laptop acting as a $2000 video player when you can get a p.o.s. Canon or Polaroid dvd player at your local Wally-World.

[Robinhood4x4]

It's a known problem for my dell inspiron 5100. The solution, as everybody else says, is to blow out the vents every few months. I don't have to disassemble mine, I just blow it out externally.

[fenrisx]

It's a Dell Inspiron 1300. I don't multitask with this elderly beast. The other night it overheated 4 times within 2 hours. What was I doing? I had a few Yota forums open in FireFox. Nothing else was goin' on. The only thing that starts up when the PC boots are the things necessary. I've got everything else unchecked in msconfig.

We have a DVD player in our room.. we don't have cable ran to the bedroom though so I always download he new episodes of House as they air. Those are divx as well.. not HD.

I'll take it apart tonight and clean 'er up. Hopefully that does the trick. I'll look into some fan control apps.

Thanks for the tips fellas.

[Bob98SR5]

I would NOT blow out the vent or fan with compressed air. ask me how i know.

If you turn your laptop over, you will see that its pretty easy to take apart provided you have the right screwdriver(s). Place your laptop on a piece of big paper just in case those little screws get away when you remove them. Make sure you remove the battery and AC outlet before you start removing the screws. You'll figure it out. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to finally get to the fan. I betcha you will pull a dust bunny from hell out of the fan area. I did twice over the life of my 5 year old laptop.

Consider getting one of those cooling fans. Even the cheapy ones work well. I bought a metal one that's slanted upwards with three fans on it. It keeps my Dell 700M cool and this laptop is notoriously known for having a hot palm pad.

[fenrisx]

Well.. I start takin' her apart. It was coming a part fairly easy. I had to take the monitor off to get to two small screws. Then I was gently pulling it apart, but it was being stubborn near the mouse area. I decided to stop there because I didn't feel like breaking anything. This is our only computer, lol. If I managed to break it I'd have a hard time doing some of my course work.

With that said.. I'm about to give it another go after looking over the guide on Dell's site.

--edit--
Took it apart again. There are two really small connectors that need to be unhooked to be able to freely lift the arm rest area off of the base/bottom of the laptop. One came out, but the other started to break.. so I left it. I could still lift the base up enough to see the cooling fan by the cpu. It was dusty, but by no means was it bad. I couldn't see any dust bunnies hiding, and I used a q-tip to feel in between the fan blades in hopes of it snagging a big dust ball. I couldn't see any.. and the q-tip didn't grab anything.

If I weren't about to get new shocks/struts and some springs for the 4Runner I would just get a new laptop. Bah-humbug!

[Robinhood4x4]

I would NOT blow out the vent or fan with compressed air. ask me how i know.


Soooo...how do you know? Spin up the fan too fast?

[MTL_4runner]

Well.. I start takin' her apart. It was coming a part fairly easy. I had to take the monitor off to get to two small screws. Then I was gently pulling it apart, but it was being stubborn near the mouse area. I decided to stop there because I didn't feel like breaking anything. This is our only computer, lol. If I managed to break it I'd have a hard time doing some of my course work.

With that said.. I'm about to give it another go after looking over the guide on Dell's site.

--edit--
Took it apart again. There are two really small connectors that need to be unhooked to be able to freely lift the arm rest area off of the base/bottom of the laptop. One came out, but the other started to break.. so I left it. I could still lift the base up enough to see the cooling fan by the cpu. It was dusty, but by no means was it bad. I couldn't see any dust bunnies hiding, and I used a q-tip to feel in between the fan blades in hopes of it snagging a big dust ball. I couldn't see any.. and the q-tip didn't grab anything.

If I weren't about to get new shocks/struts and some springs for the 4Runner I would just get a new laptop. Bah-humbug!


I'm not sure why you were taking off the keyboard, but here's how that should be done (see connector cable separation):
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1300/en/sm/keyboard.htm#wp1084976

Here's how to get access to the CPU heatsink:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1300/en/sm/thermal.htm#wp1084976

Remove the heatsink entirely and clean it off in the sink with water. When the heatsink is thoroughly dry, then clean off all the old thermal paste from the heatsink and the CPU core. At this point you should use some compressed air to thoroughly blow out any dust that's blocking airflow to the CPU's heatsink inside the chassis (including any air vents). Before installing again, apply some new Arctic Silver 5 paste to the surface of the heatsink contacting the CPU.

Here's the Arctic Silver paste:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007&cm_re=artic_silver-_-35-100-007-_-Product

[fenrisx]

I'm not sure why you were taking off the keyboard, but here's how that should be done (see connector cable separation):
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1300/en/sm/keyboard.htm#wp1084976

In order to get to the fan pictured below the heat sink area, I had to take the top cover off.That's why I had to get the keyboard off first. I didn't remove the heat sink due to me not having an thermal paste here. It'll probably be a while before I buy any.. but if I stumped across some at BestBuy (not sure they would even have any) I'll grab some. I actually have some at my mom's house in GA, lol, but it isn't doing me any good their, eh? Oh well.

[L33T35T Tacoma]

I wouldnt take it apart at all. I would just try blowing some compressed air through every hole imaginable. taking it apart you risk breaking something or not being able to get it back together right.

[BruceTS]

I never bother taking them apart, simply blow out the vents once a week.

[Obi..]

Speaking of taking it apart, here you go, all sorts of technical gubbins on things to tear apart: http://www.takeitapart.net/

[MTL_4runner]

I've never broken anything taking off the heatsink and typically the thermal compound they use isn't nearly as good as the arctic silver which will help if there are heat transfer issues with the laptop's CPU causing it to slow down or lock up. After that you can just use the compressed air to clean off the heatsink and thermal vents.



In order to get to the fan pictured below the heat sink area, I had to take the top cover off.That's why I had to get the keyboard off first. I didn't remove the heat sink due to me not having an thermal paste here.

Sorry, I thought you were going after the CPU's heatsink.
The fan itself is buried deep in the machine so that makes sense.

[Seanz0rz]

ive had very limited success in my many years of doing this sort of thing with just blowing out the intake and exhausts. to clean it properly, it needs to be disassembled.

[fenrisx]

Update..

Last night while working on my final project, and having the computer overheat 5 times I decided to take further action.

Previous when I was pulling it apart, I didn't pull the heatsink from the CPU because I didn't have thermal paste to reapply. In a bit of frustration I decided to pull it anyways. Along the edge of the heatsink that gets air from the fan there was a THICK coating of dust.

I pulled all of the dust off, and replaced everything. Since then it hasn't overheated, and the fan hasn't had to run full blast(quieter).

I used the PC about 4 hours after that.. so it's too early to tell if this has solved the problem, but it's looking promising so far.

[Crinale]

good job :-D ... i think i need to do this with my lappy too, but its also about time to replace it, so im not sure... heh

[fenrisx]

It's time for me to replace this one as well.

Honestly.. Even though this PC is slow, I don't mind it so much. It would be nice to be able to watch HD on here, or play my old school fav game Quake 3..

The one draw back to this PC is two screws at the bottom of the screen bezel have felt out. Therefore, the bevel is separating, and makes loud popping noises when you open/close the lid. Plus, the battery is no longer working AT all. I don't see a point in spending about $50 on a replacement battery for a PC so old.

I've been thinking about using student loan money to purchase a new lappy..

[Crinale]

my battery has about 5 minutes life... its pretty much unplug protection :-P ... mine makes a clicking noise with the main system fan, pretty sure its out of balance. the screen hinges are loose, random crashes for no apparent reason (may be a bad PSU).. umm... the list goes on... oh and it heats up a lot worse than it used to

i want a Macbook Pro tho :-P, too bad i dont have $2000 just laying around :-P

[fenrisx]

i want a Macbook Pro tho :-P, too bad i dont have $2000 just laying around :-P


I want an Envy 14 when they come out next month. Starting price is $999 on those, but I bet that's with a Core i3, and intel integrated graphics. The one I see on the youtube videos has a i5 and an ati card. Oh well, I can't afford even the base at @ 999$.