XPS M1330 Noisy

I just bought a Dell XPS M1330 off ebay as a present for my girlfriend as she needs a new laptop and wanted a 13.3" screen. I had one of these laptops in uni and it was excellent, I did 3D work on it and it worked wonders.

My problem is this Dell I have just received is noisy. Ive done all the updates and gone all the usual routes. Ive checked the temps and it says that are about 60 degrees. The fan that is making the noise is the fan for the CPU and GPU. The problem is the an speeds up when doing the simplest of tasks like copying files or just using the computer, my XPS never did this at all. Could it be a heating issue and need a new heatsink? I check the fan for dust and even removed it and gave it a clean but the noise is still there.

Could it faulty? If so I will return it. The machine runs fine but the bloody fans goes off on one every now and again for no good reason :-(

Just to note this version has the onboard built in intel graphics not nvidia.

Any ideas on possible solutions?

UPDATE.

It seems when the laptop is plugged into the mains the fan goes off more i presume this is because its charging while in use and thus creating more heat. Also the battery is knackered it cant hold a charge so would it be right to guess it may be producing more heat that usual?

When its not plugged into the mains the temperature goes down a bit and it runs quieter.

But boy it gets hot when plugged in, I installed office 2010 and it went up to 80degrees!!!!

Any ideas on possible solutions? Is it worth getting a working battery, would that fix the problem?

 

It is not the battery. XPS M1330 suffers from poor thermal design (a Dell stable, and considering the laptop is 4 years old model and around one inch thick, pretty decent).

When reporting temperature, report the location of measurement. 80c sounds perfectly "ordinary" on the M1330. You probably bought a system in deteriorated condition. Assuming that the fan is not broken, reapply thermal paste to the CPU/GPU/Heatsinks.

 

As stated above, the poor cooling system design is probably at fault (1 copper heatpipe for CPU, NB + GPU = bad design). The only good part of this design I see is easy access to the heatsink (most laptops you have to remove the palmrest and alot you have to flip over the system board).

I would look into repasting your CPU and blowing out all dust in your heatsink/fins/fan.

Also what CPU do you have? Older Merom processors will run hotter than the Penryn offered for the Santa Rosa platform.

 

I have a 4 ish year old xps m1330 myself, battery is close to dead so its connected to the power at all times. I did however have the same problem as you. Temperatures even rising to 100c.

The couse of problem was the the inside of the fan vent was clogged shut with dust, so it just sent the heat back in the system.

Open up the system, scrrew out the fan, and check the vents for the fan temperatures vent down to around 50 on normal usage, and 80 during hard load.

Reapply the thermal paste is also a decent option.

 

There is also a copper heatsink mod for the nVidia based GPU, it has been known to drop the operating temp significantly. Even though you do not have that graphics chip it may be worth considering - rather than retaining the thermal pads Dell use.

I will be going that way on my 1330 once i can sort out its current issues.