Overheating Problems with M11x R1

The title says it all, I'm having a what I would consider to be a really bad overheating problem. From what I've read the R1 should be idling at around 35C, well right now mine is at 55C on the hottest core. I have a coolermaster U2 pad, but it doesn't seem to be helping much.

Also, the fan doesn't seem to be doing anything. There doesn't appear to be that much dust in there, but I don't have a car or air to try to blow it out with. I installed HWiNFO64 to control the fan, and I manually set the fan to 6900RPM (the max it seems it will run at) and it does not seem like it is spinning nearly that fast. The fan is also very loud.

Also, it doesn't feel like there is any air blowing out of the back vent.

I've had the laptop since Christmas '10. My Dell service tag wasn't even recognized until about a month ago, and my warranty is expired. On dell's website it sounds like to get the fan replaced they'll charge a small fortune.

If I can get a can of air I'll try that. Anyone know if they sell them at RiteAid? If that doesn't work the price for Dell to repair it almost makes me want to just save the money and build a desktop computer, which I was going to do over the summer once Ivy Bridge and the AMD 7800 series is out.

Up until this the laptop has worked great, but it seems like it knew that the warranty was up so it decided to crap out.

Also, I'm just noticing this now, but my RAM feels like it is running a lot hotter than usual. I upgraded the RAM from the stock 2 gigs to 8 gigs from Corsair.

 

its dust trust me. I have had mine since may of last year and at the 6 month mark I nearly choked to death on how much dust i blew out. So yea, open up the laptop, take out the MOBO, (Theres an awesome teardown video of how to do it on youtube) hold the fan still and blow all that junk out. (And dont breath in!)

 

I clean my 2 years old - R1 very often and the result is that it's still running as cool as the day it arrived

 

So I took my computer almost all the way apart, unfortunately I think last time I took off the palm rest I tightened one of the screws to tight and as a result the dead of one of the screw heads is stripped. Anyway I blew some air through it and a ton of dust came out. The fan seems to be spinning a lot better now. And my idle temp is in the high 30's/low 40's. There is also air now flowing out of the back of the vent. Thank you!!!!

 

np, you should do that every couple months or so.

 

Just as my - mine is younger (14 months )

 

My 2 year old R1 runs so cool that the fans periodically shut off. You should seriously invest in a can of compressed air.

 

Sorry to necro this thread, but I feel as though it is needed. So 3 days after posting that my computer was now running at cooler temps again, It is back up to running hot. I still have to use a 3rd party program to even get the fans to turn on. And now Windows Explorer keeps crashing.

 

A fresh Windows install may do the trick. My brother had a similar issue and that did the trick a couple years ago.

It could be attributed to something you downloaded/installed recently.