XPS 1530 fan stopped working

So the fan stopped working last night and my temps shot up to almost 90C. After pulling the back off I found this:





I pulled it out and everything seems to be fine. It looks like wire tubing and it could not have entered from the outside its too large. This is the first time I have opened the bottom panel as well. I have had the laptop since mid august.

I emailed dell they told me as long as its working now there is nothing they can do, which I guess I can understand.

 

I had a similar thing, Dell came and replaced something (I can't remember what, there have been too many times), and after the guy left I realized that it was actually hitting 100C and slowing down. I took off the bottom panel and found a piece of plastic lodged in the fan, stopping it entirely. After taking it out it was still having heat problems, but only reaching 89C and not slowing down, so I had them come install a new heatsink, now it works fine with a max temp of 70C.

 

pics should work now....I didnt have them in the public folder sorry!

 

That piece of plastic looks like the cover on the ends of the unused antennas for the wifi and wwan cards. If you see, there wires running from the left side of the section you just opened onto the next section, the smaller square piece with one screw on it. Open it up, see how the wires run from the first section with the fan through to the second section that you just opened which contain places for the wifi and wwan cards. If any of the antennas which are not attached are missing their cover over the end of them, then you have your culprit. At any rate, I am glad you found the answer to your fan problem and that everything is running okay now.