Inspiron 1520 heat issues

My cousin has an Inspiron 1520 and recently it is has been having some severe heat issues. She has an IC2D T5800 that is undervolted. I cleaned out all of her vents and applied AS5 to the heatsink. Suddenly her processor gets really hot, it can go up to 70 degrees with barely any load at all. Mind you, this is UNDERVOLTED. When I closed RMClock, the processor reached 85C and the computer showed a pop up stating that temperature limits were approaching. I have no clue what is going on. I took the computer apart yet again and found nothing wrong, the heatsink was making perfect contact with the processor. I am so confused. The fan is working properly but it won't speed up until the processor reaches 76C. I have had to use IK8fangui in order to keep the temperatures down, making the fan go at full speed when the processor reaches 64C. Currently, with just basic web browsing, her computer is idling at 60C. I removed her processor and put it in my Studio 15 and saw normal temperatures of 40C idle and 65C load when undervolted. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

So, it has normal temperatures in your Studio 15 but gets way hot in the Inspiron 1520...leads me to believe something wrong with the cooling system in the Inspiron.

Is there direct contact between the CPU and heatsink? If there's any gap, you'll have to use a copper shim to bridge the gap, much like the GPU copper mod. Although if that's the case, it's certainly odd. Heatsinks are designed to have direct contact with the processor die.

How tight are you screwing the heatsink down in the Inspiron? More pressure generally yields better thermal contact, of course providing that you don't crush the CPU to death.

 

Well to start off, the Inspiron 1520 has a horrible cooling solution. The copper heatsink is nearly 7 inches long meaning that by the time a significant amount of heat reaches the fan vent, the processor is already boiling. At the same time, she didn't notice so much heat 2 weeks ago. The vent was completely clogged when I removed it. Ironically, she did not have any heat messages/issues until after the vent was cleared of dust.

I screwed the heatsink down as tight as I could without doing any damage. On the Inspiron 1520 the heatsink makes direct contact with the CPU, I verified this by screwing the heatsink down and then removing it. There was a significant amount of AS5 on the heatsink.

 

That's just weird, then. I assume when you first took the heatsink off, there was a thermal pad. After you peeled that off, did you scrub the processor die and heatsink contact surface with rubbing alcohol?

 

Yeah there was a dried thermal pad which I scrubbed with a rag and rubbing alcohol. The surface was completely clean when I was finished.

 

Well, that's just inexplicable. Unless the Inspiron somehow does something to make the processor run hotter, I'm at a loss for ideas.

 

My 1520 cools quite well for a laptop. I can't get it above 65C and that's with multiple virtual machines going and the processor at 100% cpu for hours.

It probably needs good thermal compound on it - the Dell heat pad is not that great and will wear out after a while. I use arctic silver ceramique and it works good for me.

 

John said he's using Arctic Silver 5...thermal compounds don't really get a whole lot better than that.

 

the 1520/1500 are kind funny in the sense it works like this

edge of case | heatsink for gpu | heatsink for cpu | <-fan blowing in this direction. When i took mine apart to do my first CPU upgrade i noticed the heatsinks were not seated correctly in the chassis. So i bent the fins back, blew the dust out and dipped the heatsinks in alcohol. Reseated the assemblies (notice i said assemblieS since there are two different heatsinks) the GPU heatsink is pretty much attached to the GPU so i just took the whole thing out. cleaned out the fan and now its quiet and works great.

 

Yeah, it's such an odd design, one I'm not used to. Her specific 1520 doesn't have dedicated graphics, so it's just one heatsink.

 

I have the same problem. My 1520 started getting far fairly hot all of a sudden. it hasn't gotten to the point where it has has any problems like artifacts or shut-downs. but the output vents metal fins get hot enough at times that i don't really want to touch them for more than five seconds or So.

I think my problem is my fan isn't running at the speed it once did. i used to hear it turn on when i was under load, now i barely ever hear it. and when i do, it doesn't sound as loud as it once did.

I've started putting something under the battery to give the 1520 about an inch boost up off of my desk. I assume this will help with airflow and cooling.

 

You can use I8KFANGUI to force fans to full speed.

 

Well i cleaned out my brother's 1521 which is basicly a amd version of the 1520 but onward..

his fan had giant lint balls in it that prevented the fan from spinning and moving air properly. my advice is to take a qtip in alcohol and clean out the fan blades and make sure it is cleared of all obstructions. My brother also had a hair stuck in the shaft of the fan which prevented it from spinning correctly.

Ever since i cleaned out his 1521 it runs much smoother.

Turning the fan speed up while still having obstructions doesnt help a whole lot.

Best of luck~

 

All hope is lost. By the way Erokitsune, where in Northern California are you located?

 

How hot is normal for an Inspiron 1520? Mine does not have noticeable problems, but becomes very hot when gaming for an hour or so.

Is overheating covered by the warranty?

 

Upon further investigation I discovered that the copper heatsink had a crack in front of the fan vent. I didn't notice it before and I'm not entirely sure how it happened. It would take a lot of force to snap the copper bar, force which I can only explain as a temperature stress fracture. This explains why the CPU temperatures were abnormally high but the exhaust air was completely cool, even with the fan at full speed. The first half of the heatsink was scalding hot while the vent portion was cool. The computer is not under warranty but a replacement heatsink is only $22 on eBay. We have ordered one and we'll see what comes of it.

 

Haha, that's a new one...a heatsink snapping in half from heat.

At least notebook heatsinks are pretty cheap. Let us know how the replacement goes.

Godspeed!

 

I replaced the heatsink today and WOW. What a difference. The new one works magnificently idling around 40 and full load around 57. Opposed to idling around 57 and full load 78 like the old one. Part of the old heatsink had discolored since the last time I opened the computer. Odd really. It still boggles me as to how it cracked. Oh well. It's all good now.

 

Awesome, it worked. Those temps are pretty on par with what I get in my Studio 15. I still lol at the fact that a heatsink cracked from heat stress.