Vostro 1500 - problems with overheating and hard drive

I've got 2 problems with my dell vostro 1500:

1) There is a huge amount of heat coming out of the side vent and the fan is constantly on. I'm led to believe that this is because of dust inside the system. Looking at the service manual (http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/vos1500/en/sm/fan.htm#wp1179839) suggests that I have to take the monitor off. I'm worried that the system won't work after I do this. Can't I just open the system from the bottom?

2) My second problem is about hard drive noise. Looking on this website, many people have commented that hard drive noise is low. For me the hard drive noise is quite loud and when your in a quiet room it can be annoying. I've changed the setting in the BIOS to quiet but this has made no difference. I know that the hard drive is not broken because it's only 3/4 months old and I have used seatools to check that there are no faults with the hard drive. Is there any way to make the hard drive quieter?

Thanks in advance

 

1. If the fan is blowing out lots of heat then the cooling system is in reasonably good order. You need to investigate what is creating all the heat. Perhaps the CPU is running at full speed. What CPU utilisation are you getting in Task Manager's Process Tab?

2. Is the HDD a Seagate (model number beginning with "ST")? if so, check the Dell downloads to see if there is a firmware update.

John

 

The air is so warm that I'm worried that components are being damaged. Using coretemp i found that the system idles at 67/68 degrees celsius and goes up to 72/73 while just watching a youtube video. I'm sure there is no software causing the system to run the cpu at full because I've just reinstalled windows completely.

My hard drive's model number is ST9320325AS, i've tried searching for an update and I couldn't find one. I entered my laptops service tag on the dell downloads website and no update is available there either.

 

Those are high temperatures. It's time to read the undervolting guide.

OK. So no firmware update for that particular Seagate HDD. The other tactic is to try to reduce HDD activity. Start by turning off indexing.

John

 

Ok, I will look at the undervolting guide.

About the hard drive, I have turned the indexing off. Hard drive activity is less but when the system is accessing the hard drive it's still loud.

Thanks for all your help so far.

 

Did the undervolting help? Some of the 1500 models were famous for heat due to the 8400M NVIDIA GPU. Bios and GPU drivers up to date? I remember that there was a major Bios upgrade to deal with the heat issues and the fans. You might try docs optimized drivers for the GPU too. They seemed to work really well for me.

The hard drive noise is a fairly uncommon problem on the 1500. I had mine for a few years and I don't think I ever heard the hard drive operate. I always had to look for the blue LED to tell if it was loading.

Bronsky

 

Hi,

This is far too much. My own Vostro 1500 (with T7250 CPU and GT8600M GPU) runs at ~50°C at the moment. Same value for the GPU.
No modifications (like undervolting) done. Either dust is the culprit, or there is something wrong with the thermal transmission from the CPU or GPU to the heatsink.

Have you verified the CPU slows down if it has nothing to do?

Some HDDs are noisier than others. My 250GB WD drive is audible when it's working, but I can't complain at all.

Michael

 

Seagate's HDDs tend to be among the noisiest. You can try Driver Power Manager at the bottom of this page. I haven't tried it myself so I can't comment on whether it may work.

John

 

I have got the latest BIOS (i upgraded directly from version A01 to A06, would this be ok?) and nvidia drivers.

Regarding the hard drive problem I was hoping there would be a simple solution to the problem. I've read reviews here that the vostro 1500 hard drive can hardly be heard but that is not the case for me. It also has a weird problem where every 10 seconds or so it just accesses the drive for a moment and the hard drive light comes on. It does this all the time.

Well I've had the laptop for 2 and half years and I've never opened it up or cleaned the fan. So dust may be the culprit.

Having looked at this guide (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=263039, these forums are very good ), I'm weighing up what would be the best option for me. Opening it up or undervolting. I would say that I'm a novice by standards of people on this forum, the most technical thing i've ever done on a computer is reinstall windows and open up a desktop computer.

According to dell http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/vos1500/en/sm/fan.htm#wp1179839 I need to remove the monitor before i can get to the fan!

What do you guys think is best option undervolting or opening it up to clean the dust?

Thanks for all your help so far, you guys are brilliant!

 

1. Dell uses HDDs from several sources. Unfortunately, you got a Seagate and they tend to be noisier.

2. Try removing the keyboard as per the service manual. You may be able to see the fan and thermal assembly and then be able to clear any muck with a can of compressed air.

John