NOT AGAIN! My Latitude is overheating and the CPU is maxing out:

I have been through 6, count them SIX Latitude E6400 over the past two years due to an overheating and my CPU suddenly and abruptly maxing out for no reason.

Many people went through this when the unti first came out: I finally downgraded to the Intel Video Card (from the nVidia) as that seemed to be the culprit (along with a two speed fan system).

Ive had the laptop for 5 months with no problmes, and suddenly yesterday its startign to do the same old thing again! All i have is itunes and IE open and everything starts freezing up, the CPU is at 99 or 100% and the temp goes to the 70's.

Whats going on?

 

Did you try a BIOS update? Also, you might wanna keep task manager open while these CPU spikes occur and see which processes are causing this.

 

Give ThrottleStop a try. The Latitude E6400 has a problem with the random use of clock modulation throttling. This slows the CPU down internally to a crawl which forces the CPU to work as hard as possible even though it isn't accomplishing very much. Kind of like a sprinter with an iron ball tied around his leg. When these laptops feel sluggish, that's usually a good sign that clock modulation throttling is going on. ThrottleStop makes it easy to monitor for this throttling and to also significantly improve this.

Both types of clock modulation should always be at 100.0% unless the heatsink has fallen off. Next time your laptop feels like it is running in molasses, have a look at what ThrottleStop reports. It's also a good idea to run TS with the Log File option checked so you have a record of your CPU's performance. Upload it to somewhere like Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire and send me a link and I'll have a look at it for you and let you know what problems it shows. Send me a PM in case I forget about this thread.

 

I just downloaded A26 (was running on 20) also, with regard to the task manager list, its doign the same thing it did months ago on my old unit(s)...there isnt one program or process that is hoggin anything. EVEYTHING is jumping around from 2%-30%+ and theres no way to tell what is doing what!

Im having horrible flashbacks of all the nonsense i dealt with this g-d forsaken machine a year ago...

Ill try that; thnx.

BTW, is TS free?

 

I guess the first question is to look at physical factors associated with how your use a notebook computer. Are you somehow blocking the bottom air vents?

If you've gone through 6 notebooks in 2 years, it leads me to believe that the only common factor is the end user. A Dell E64x0 shouldn't require any sort of powered cooling pad if it's used a flat surface, but I've seen plenty of people who insist on blocking the air vents of every notebook PC.

The only reason I asked is because you admitted to still using IE. Yikes!

 

Yes.

John

 

Honestly, at current Outlet prices, it might be worth it for you to just upgrade to an E6410. So far, mine hasn't had this problem at all

 

why don't you sull sell the machine for a few hundred $? or try to get dell send you an e6410 since you have gone through so many?

 

If it's been 5 months, maybe it's time for a format? You could have gotten something nasty downloaded from a website advertisement.

 

Cant afford it.

Ditto; will ask Dell

No way this has been due to a downlaod-its happened four times now. Too many coincidences.

One of the things that seems to be eating up alot of CPU is "Windows Media Network Sharing".

What is that and can I get rid of it?