XPS m1530 major overheating problem

Hi everyone, this may not be the first thread about this, but since I'm not particularly familiar with forums, please redirect me to the right post if mine is misplaced.

First, my specs:
Dell XPS m1530
Bios revision A12
CPU T9300 Penryn @ 2,5GHz
4Gb DDR2 Memory @ 667MHz
Geforce 8600m GT 256Mb
1920x1200 LCD Panel
Running Windows vista ultimate X86 (came with it, X64 wasnt available yet)

Then the issue: I never had heat problems before, even while playing "harsh" games. My computer would lag before it overheated. But since a month, it started overheating for nothing and I can't even play old games like "Rise of Legends" in 1280x800 without my PC shutting down from overheat after 10-15 minutes. I started monitoring my temperature and noticed that even while Idle, my temps were way too high. See for yourselves:



I first thought that therer was dust, so I opened the laptop, removed and opened the heatsink to remove all dust from the vent and the fan, put it back in place and no change. There actually was a lot of dust, but it still do the same thing. I even undervolted a bit (around 0.150V average) and it doesnt work either. I'm no longer under warranty and don't know what more to do. I could replace the thermal paste, but I don't think I'll lose 30 degres.

I had around 45 degrees idle before, now around 80 all the time...
please help me !

 

Even if you aren't under warranty I'd call Dell and see if they'll replace the motherboard etc for you. Changing the paste is probably worth a try, but I don't know how much of a difference it'd actually make. That is incredibly hot if those are idle temperatures.

 

this might help

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-b...ment-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

 

The heatsink is likely loose. That's when you see temperatures like that. Re-do the paste and tighten the heatsink and it will be all better.

 

Does anyone know if these overheating issue is in anyway under the extended warranty?

 

Thanks for the replies

@ Bikerboy: My video card is running fine, I have no image problem, and the problem they described seemed to be more like "display errors"

@unclewebb: When I put it back, I made sure it was tight, but I did not force it since I did not want any physical damage.

 

This happened every couple of months while I had my M1530. The solution? Replacing the heatsink/fan unit....I don't know why. Changing the thermal paste only helped a bit. It didn't fix the problem. However, I got Dell to change the heatsink/fan and my temperatures dropped significantly. I'm talking 20C for ACPI, CPU and GPU. It doesn't make sense but this is what I had Dell do every couple of months until my warranty ran out.

This is what my gaming temperatures were like straight after a heatsink/fan replacement



This is what they were like after undervolting the CPU and using a notebook cooler. I don't know why undervolting didn't do much for you because it really helped with mine.



After 2-3 months though they would be back to really high temperatures... After my warranty ran out, I changed the purple pad on the chipset but it did nothing. So changing the pad did nothing. Changing the paste did nothing. The only solution was changing the whole heatsink/fan unit and I don't know why. Since my warranty was up I bought a new heatsink/fan off ebay and my temperatures dropped significantly once again. After this though, I had enough and ended up just selling my M1530...

Here's a thread I made long ago

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-wont-stop-rising-even-after-replacement.html

 

Thanks a lot BBoy, seems to be a viable solution! I found some around 40$ + shipping. I'll give it a try!

 

I can't guarantee you'll get results like I did but you should considering I had a motherboard replacement which did nothing. It was only until I had the heatsink/fan unit replaced that I saw changes. Same with my friend. All explained in that thread.

Also, make sure the one you buy is new. For whatever reasons a used one could just give you the same temperatures. It's still a big mystery to me. Could be a problem with the fan wearing out or maybe the metal they used in the heatsink is impure which deteriorates over time, reducing its effectiveness at dispersing heat. A blind hypothesis completely off the top of my head which may or may not even be possible.

I even looked into the different heatsinks they used.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/380341-xps-m1530-heatsink-copper-aluminum.html

There are 3 revisions. 2 use copper heat plates while 1 uses aluminium. Copper is meant to be better at dispersing heat but my tests showed that the actual temperature differences between the two were negligible.

Anyway, let me know how it goes. I'd be interested to see if you get the same kind of results.

 

Yeah I noticed the different models, will they all fit ?

 

I mean, the aluminium one seems larger.

And I checked your previous thread and your Temps were lower than 60 and I'm around 80!!
I'll have to gain more than 20 degrees there. Hope that 60$ will be well-spent!

 

Yeah they all fit. I really hope it does the trick for you too..

$60 though? Ask this seller if he'll ship to Canada

Dell XPS M1530 Laptop Heatsink with Fan P/N XR216 New - eBay (item 250602403118 end time Jun-20-10 21:26:01 PDT)

 

I'm having the same problems with overheating. I've done the undervolting which has cut max temps by about 13C but seeing as it was reaching 98C to begin with it still gets pretty hot so I have contacted Dell to see what they can do. Anyway, my GPU also seems to get hot. What are the best ways to cool this?