Vostro 3300/3400/3500 - overheating?

The cooling should be able to account for any kind of heat the components can generate, if it can't, it needs more effective cooling or components that generate less heat. Especially when you offer options like a 330M, "it's just for word processing" just isn't an excuse.

I noticed I can improve the cooling by propping the back of the laptop up, but it will still eventually overheat.

Anyway, I'm gonna update to the latest BIOS (A10), if that doesn't work I'll give Dell a call. I'm definitely not upgrading to a M6500 though, the base model is over twice the price of my Vostro.

 

I know the Vostro 3x00 looks impressive with the aluminum cladding, but these aren't gaming or high-end business quality notebooks. They're just plastic case, entry level notebooks. That 330M GPU might also be part of the problem as far as heat. Anyone that's lived through the last 2-3 years knows about NVIDIA's issues.

In that case, you should buy a powered notebook cooling pad.

Dell doesn't offer a 17 inch Latitude model, so there really isn't anything between the entry-level small business Vostro 3700 and the high-end Precision M6500 workstation.