5160 fan running all the time

Can anyone help me with this? My 5260 used to run nice and quiet but now the fan is on all the time. I took it into the shop but they could find nothing wrong with the hardware or software and they cleaned out the fan to no avail. I have 1gb RAM and it is currently using less than half of that and 10%CPU. I have propped up the machine to keep it off the desk. Performance seems to have suffered with things running slowly though it's hard to pin that onto this problem. Anyone got any ideas for me?

Thanks all,

Phil

 

Hi -

My friend has this on another Dell Inspiron - turned out to be BIOS trouble, once he had flashed with an updated version the fan went back to normal operation.

Worth a try.

 

you could also give I8kfangui a try. it monitors both temperature and fan speeds. you can set it for automatic or take more control of the fans yourself with custom controls.

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

 

Thanks. How would one go about flashing a Bios? I'm a photographer so I have a number of hand flashes and studio flashes. Would they work?

Phil

 

OK I installed 18k and it seems great! But what is the ideal temperature that the machine should run at? How hot is OK?

Thanks for this help, it's great!

Phil

 

i dont know offhand really, might wanna take the time to do some googling. however, my 1420 right now is running at 39C while sitting on a cooling pad with built-in fans. a good rule of thumb to go by probably is anything under 50C while idle is good and reasonable. if it's higher, than i would consider blowing out the fan with compressed air in case there is dirt and dust clogging it. and then of course there are always cooling pads.

 

OK, mine is humming along while resting at 63! And then when I do anything at 69! Eeeek! It just came back from being cleaned out professionally. Wow. That's so high, it seems.

Any other thoughts? Cooling pads, huh? Hmmm, must look into those.

Phil

 

wow 63? that's pretty high. i would def look into getting a cooling pad which will help some. unfortunately that is all you are going to be able to do i think. also, looking to see if there is an update for your BIOS on support.dell.com is a good idea as well. that may help in addition to everything else.

 

Well, I already updated my BIOS this morning to no avail. What might cause mine to b so hot and yours not? Is it just age?

Phil

 

well yea age is it. dont forget my 1420 is brand new while your 5160 isnt. within that time period, advances in cooling design have improved, better cooling components have been developed, etc. that is just how it goes with anything. you said it just came back from being professionally cleaned. what exactly does that mean?

 

I mean they took the machine apart and cleaned it all out. That's all I know. And the machine used to run fine without overheating and the fan being on all the time. I notice my 2.8ghz CPU is currently running at 3902Mhz. Does that mean it's now overclocked somehow and if so should I reverse that somehow and if so how?

Thanks for the continued support.

Phil

 

I mean they took it apart and cleaned it out. That's all I know. And it used to work well without the fans going all the time. What would have changed?

I notice my 2.8ghz CPU is running at 3902mhz. Does this mean it's overclocked? Not sure how that would have happened but if so how would I reverse that? Do you know?

Thanks for the continued support.

Phil

 

Oops, thought that hadn't posted. Sorry for the repost.

Phil

 

whenever something is taken apart, especially a laptop, there is always a danger that when it gets put back together it wasnt done properly. it is possible that 1 of the cooling elements within the computer was not reinstalled properly and is not operating the way it is supposed to. you could always get in touch with the person/persons who did the clean out and raise the concern of temperature now.

as for the CPU running at 1.1Ghz faster, that seems to me like there might have been some overclocking done which will certainly cause average temps to increase. however, it is possible that it is being reported incorrectly within the program (nothing is always right 100% of the time). if there is any overclocking done, it was most likely done from within the BIOS. you'll have to go into all the settings and see if anything was changed regarding the CPU clock speeds and FSB speeds.

 

Oy vey. How would I get into the BIOS? And the problem was there before they took it apoart, indeed, that was what they were looking to fix but couldn't. And I trust them implicitly as they have always done right by me. Hmm. Where next, I wonder?

Thanks,

Phil

 

to access the BIOS restart the computer and start hitting the delete key or F12 or F2 key. i dont remember exactly which one it is. just hit those fast and you should be able to get into it.