I am stumped.

I have a laptop from a work colleague who asked me to look at it and fix it.

The history (according to her). It had its Motherboard replaced. She recieved it from a friend for free because it didn't work and she was told it needed a motherboard.

$160 dollars later, the Dell Studio 1735 has a new motherboard but it won't boot up. It shuts down at the bios load screen. I immediately identify it as overheating. I place the laptop over an Air Conditioning vent to verify. I can run the entire Dell Diagnostics, but can't access the drive. If I take the Laptop off of the vent, it will shut down w/in 20 seconds.

OK, so I disasembled the laptop and noticed there are about 8 screws missing. There was thermal paste under the Heatsink, I reseated the Merom T5800 CPU SLB6E (Dell service tag identifies it as a Penryn) reapplied AS5. The Video Card pad is intact. I reseated the RAM for S&^% and Giggles. And inspected the HDD connection to find the Data Cable is broken.

Ok, now the physical visual damaged is assessed and I know its overheating, but this is where I am stuck. I can't really see where the Heatsink is not making contact with the CPU ( I believe it is) but the mating surface of the HSF looks like it was made for a larger Die on the CPU. Could the person that did the Mobo swap possibly have swapped the chip? I looked at the Intel data and I appears that there is only a Merom T5800 and no Penryn T5800.

Ok, so the Sata connector is broken and I have a connector on its way. I tried a Dell "thermal pad" between the cpu and HSF, that was a waste. Its just thermal compound and not an actual pad. 5 dollars wasted. I am going to try a new Heatsink, but I can't imagine for the life of me why the current one would be broken.

There is no way to see the temps in Bios, so I will have to wait for the Sata Cable to boot into windows and run CPUz/Everest/Realtemp for some temp values. Am I missing something for overheating on these laptops? Is there a chronic Temp sensor problem? I am currently at A03 Bios, but I will upgrade them as soon as I can get into windows.

Please help.

 

Sounds like a tough situation but it's the weekend so hold tight! more members will be on their way to help you soon. Honestly, it has to be the heatsink. If anything, Decent Thermal Paste >>> any thermal pads from OEMs. I have never worked with a studio 1735 so i can't say exactly what the problem might be, but I suggest searching for a Studio 17 thermal paste replacement guide and seeing what the heatsink is like in those videos

 

Thanks for the quick response. I am still in preliminary checks. The part # from dell coincides with what is in the laptop. I can only imagine that somehow the heat is not transfering properly. I ordered the official thermal pad (thermal compound) which like I said looked like Arctic Silver, so that has been tried. I ordered another heatsink to give that a try, I found one for 8 dollars. I am exhausting the cheap fixes first.

The big hassle is there is no temperature values in bios like most computers these days have, so I can not accurately tell if its the CPU overheating or maybe a SB or NB overheating problem. I just know that over the AC vent it runs fine.

 

Honestly don't waste anymore money on thermal pads, stick to a new heatsink and that might just fix it.

 

I also found differing service tags on the bottom of the laptop as well as in the bios (for the Mobo).

This is an Asian Mobo, and it took a Intel P8300 is that the chip with the bigger die? The one I ordered is the part number from the Dell Site for the Penryn Chip.

Wow, what has this person gotten into. I wonder if the HS doesn't properly fit. I hope the new one screws down the same way.

 

Yep. I would have told her to keep her motherboard from the beginning, pay dell some money to extend warranty, and then send it in. Good job catching the fact that its an asian mobo

 

Hrm, she still has the old Motherboard I believe, but after tinkering around with it, I'd imagine the warranty would be voided.

When looking at the two HS they look almost identical from pictures. Probably only a part number would show the difference. Maybe just re badged for a newer Mobo.

I also may try shimming it later if I can get a hold of some copper shim material. I wonder if the Bios reads the chip sensors differently. If a 8300 runs warmer, you would expect this chip to be cooler. Same TDP so you would expect pretty much the same temps.

 

No one? Any ideas?

Is there anyone here with a Dell hook-up that could ask about compatibility between the American and Asian Dell 1735? Even when I look around for the exact H268K motherboard that is listed by the chassis service tag, I don't see any reference to that in part numbers for sale, so either they don't make it or it is sold under a different Dell Part number.

I see references to a H267K and a H274K. I would think if everything plugs in and turns on, then it would be compatible. I also noticed that the CD rom is powered up, but when I try to insert a disk it continues to spit it out. Might just be a configuration problem, but it may create a hassle in installing a OS, in case the Hard drive is not working. I am starting to think that this is a little more than "the motherboard issue".