lil help cps 1640

unfortunately im stuck with the overheating stddio xps1640 with a sound card which constantly crashes and a worn out battery in under a year so im trying to get it replaced under warranty and the dell support said they could send a technician out to help solve the problem. but i dont really want a technician to come and blow dust out from the vents. i have done that and also have a laptop cooler. any suggestions on how to fix this or just to go along with the tech help. heard some bad stories before and the dell customer help care thread doesnt look too promising.

 

Well you say the 1640 is overheating... what exactly is it doing. Is it shutting off? What is the battery doing that you feel it is worn out? Need a little bit more detail to help

 

They're probably just sending the technician out to verify that your problem isn't user related. When he's there just explain to him what's wrong, and let him check it out. If it is genuinely in need of replacement, I'd like to think the Dell technician will recommend that for you.

 

well i bought this in september 2009 so i gotta make use of this warranty by next month lol

@killa
before i got my laptop cooler it was just perma running at 90 deg centigrate according to hw_monitor programme and internal fan always on. standard hand getting burnt through keyboard , top left untouchable could probably make toast on my table if i left some bread between latptop and table and after 10-15 mins of this high temp the sound card would crash. any sound programmes e.g skype ventrillo teamspeak youtube vlc/windows media player etc would crash and i woul dhave to restart laptoop to get sound back. then i got a laptop cooler which makes it average 70 ish or there bouts but it still crashes. it does not shut off it causes the sound card to permanently crash. well the battery life is just about under an hour or there bouts when alone when i watch a movie. I keep laptop in balanced mode as i was told on this forum i think that high performance just heats up the components faster when i asked which laptop cooler to get back in april may time. it is purely overheating.

spec is P8600 1640 xps 4 gig ram
im not that " computery " so i dont know how to overclock and all that fancy stuff or i would and just get the most out of it for as long as i could.

i kid you not. to keep this laptop cool i used to put it on its side, change screen to horizontal mode and put my fan on full blast and place it next to the bottom of the laptop. this would decrease the idle temp from 70 to 45.

so to summarise my rant there sorry, sound card crashes cos it overheats even with a notebook cooler ( zalman nc2000 all i can afford at £55 it cost me )

 

as u can see there are times where the laptop cooler works but otherwise as u can see from the other screen shot i havnt got any ram hungry cpu hungry programmes open

 

Hmmm... I have seen the same temperatures on my 1640 without issue. I don't use a cooler. I would try running on powersaver and see how that goes. I don't understand why the sound card would have issue unless the driver is compromised or the card has an actual issue. The laptop will run hot if u push it regardless if you overclock it or not. But I would reinstall the sound card driver, run on power saver and check the temps. Also to ease any worries, I would let the Dell tech come and take a look. Maybe he will apply more/better thermal paste to the heatsink.

 

ok will hope they send technician then
hmm power saver nothing works on that mode. I have run it on powersaver to watch amovie hoping to get through it without having to charge it and if i do that then the film lags as in the video and audio arent smooth and just spaz up. Its like your trying to stream something and watch it at the same time but the stream rate is slow. Thanks though

is it usual for chargers to get as hot as the bottom of a laptop
am currently rvising forr exams so no time for this silly power saver but i will try to get it in and post back
.
Cheers. Most helpful.
on my other thread about buying the new inspiron 15r it turned though it was funny is a story about underpaid dell workers rather than is the laptop good lol


5am where i am so will post back later tomorrow

 

Well using powersaver should allow you to play a movie without an issue. This leads me to believe there is another problem with possibly the power settings, the power getting to the unit or something else. I use power saver for everything but gaming and intensive programs. Also the power brick (charger) will get super hot if you are using a lot of power... like pushing the laptop. What is it that you are doing when the laptop gets really hot? If it is something as simple as watching a movie or something then I would check to see what it is your computer is doing in the task manager. Maybe a virus... many possibilities.

 

kk in my task manager the only things ever over 50000k virtual memory
are google chrome windows, skype, and whatever game i am playing or windows media player and 2 svchost.exe applications always at the top along with explorer.exe the standard stuff.

i do run nokia ovi suite and this does have a bug which makes ur pc run at 100% but i close that every time i log on and avg like to sneak in but i get that process killed to.

 

ok thought i would update you. after sending a picture of my laptop to dell because it had a bit of the frame where the white power light is coming out of it and they wanted to know if there were any things broken

so after that the guy said i will send an engineer on wednesday ye today!

he replaced the entire screen. yep a brand new screen all for a small little thing which i will attach below hehe http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7688/16082010956.jpg

ye so i got a brand new lcd screen.

my media bar so the bit running above esc to f12 to delete i thought was broken because the left side felt weak however the engineer told me its because the lcd wires only run through half of the media bar so basically he put in a whole new base so new touch pad new and new media bar since it is all one component

also put new wireless card new motherboard so new sound card included in a mother board i believe if i am right and a new bluetooth card.

and @killaz05 i kept my laptop on idle today well for the past hour without my cooler on on balanced and it was just warm below averaging 50 degrees. and nothing is really hot so i guess i had fried the old ones.

anyway thought i'd let u know