Vostro 1500 sudden performance drop?

Was it overheating before all this mishap began?

I would run HWMonitor and like Furmark or like Unigene and see how hot it gets. The 8600M GT in the Vostro 1500 should be properly cooled, the GPU gets cooled before the CPU.

 

Nope, never. It got warm, like any laptop, but not overheating - and it had never switched off before. I've just finished installing a whole host of drivers from the Dell website, mostly for arbitrary things but it's worth a try - who knows if something like Dell Quickset might have something to do with it. Then I'm installing Windows 7 SP1, rebooting, and retrying 3DMark06 with HWMonitor running. If it switches off again, I'll try a different graphics card driver. If that still hasn't fixed it, then I guess the problem lies deeper.

As I say, I ran GPU-Z logging to file and it never even touched 60C before it shut off.

 

Hrm well doesn't seem like heat is of concern.

Try:

- Removing battery and AC adapter, hold down the power button for 30 seconds

Unless you've shorted the board or forgot to plug in something, you might be having power circuitry issues.

 

I shall try that as soon as Windows7 SP1 is done. By the way, I've repped you for all your help, you've been really great!

 

Check the CPU temperature as well although it should be similar to the GPU temperature. HWiNFO32 is another good monitoring program.

That is definitely a lump of accumulated fluff that gets sucked in by the fan and blown against the heat sink. Eventually this will cause overheating problems but if you have removed the fluff then the system should keep cooler.

John