XPS 14 ultrabook Fan issues some questions and help needed please

Hi all
Bit of a long post so bear with me.

I have had a xps14 for over a year now and have been really happy with it apart from a few niggles with the wifi and a few blemishes on the screen.
The one thing I was really impressed with was the quietness of the laptop (its got a ssd) the fan didn't seem to come on much so I was as happy as can be.

My problems started when the engineer swapped over the screen ( this was after 3 cancelled appointments) all was well except the webcam no longer worked!!!

After lots of arguing I was offered a brand new machine.

The replacement arrived and wouldn't even boot!!!
cue more arguments and another laptop arrived.

within seconds of powering up the fan was going crazy and making a huge racket.

So an engineer arrived and duly swapped over the motherboard and fan- he said the noise was due to the tape holding the metal plate on was loose and catching the fan.

But the fan still comes on and annoys the hell out of me (as my old one is so quiet) so I started thinking:

Maybe the fan on the old laptop isn't working (though when I did the pre boot diagnostics said it was fine.

I also thought I could reconnect the webcam and then reject the new noisy one.

So I thought I would conduct a little test.

I got both machines to do a video conversion of an film to a HD AVI so see what happened.

both machines were left to completely cool down before the test.

Both machines had core temp running


During the conversion I noted the following:


New machine

highest temp 78 deg c
average temp 66 deg c
fan kicks in 66 degc

core 0 running at 55%
core 1 running at 28%

Old machine

highest temp 99 deg c
average temp 77 deg c
fan kicks in ?? deg c couldn't ever really hear it kick in

core 0 running at 40%
core 1 running at 10%


SO (FINALLY) MY QUESTIONS ARE:

Is it normal that a machine could get up to such high tempratures? (old machine)

is it normal that the fan comes on at 66 and then stays on for so long under load (new machine)

Is there a reason why the core loads should be so different?

Is there a reason why the old machine should suddenly be reaching such high temps? ( it never used to get that hot)

How easy it to get to the webcam connector on the motherboard (the manual seems to suggest that it is)?

Is the fan serviceable at all?

My thoughts were that I could take off the back cover on the old machine and then do a test and see if the fan actually kicks in


I have a week to decide what machine to keep. my ears say fix the webcam and keep the old one my head says keep the new one and just accept the noise.


Finally is there a way of controlling the temp that the fan kicks in at ( I have system cooling policy set to active on both machines)

many thanks in advance