Inspiron 1521 help !

Good day all !

My parents have a Dell (the one that's in my Signature), and has been recently experiencing some issues. The main one is that it just shuts down randomly and we cannot get it to turn back on. It WILL eventually turn back on, but you have to wait about 1.5 - 2 hours before it WILL turn on.

Also, for the past few months they've noticed that the computer was acting REAL SLOW. They have every Virus scanner known to man on that thing (Norton, Microsoft Security Essentials, etc.) and NOTHING came up for viruses, the computer was squeaky clean. Then all of a sudden a few weeks ago, presto ! It works like a brand new computer again, out of no where and still works great to this day (minus the random shutting down part).

Now, this thing is almost 4 years old, and my parents leave it on ALL THE TIME. When the computer was acting slow, something told me to check the fan. I put my hand next to where the air is supposed to come out, and felt NOTHING. The computer was very warm, etc. I didn't check the fan itself because the computer randomly just started acting better, but now it's starting to shut itself down.

My guess is the computer needs to be taken apart to have the fan cleaned, because the fan is not working properly.

What do you all think ?

 

What are the highest CPU/GPU and hard drive temperatures on that computer as reported by HWMonitor or similar program?

 

I also ran crystal-diskinfo that gave me an operating temp of 29*C, and said it was "normal". So, that's why I was doubting the fan issue.

Also, I didn't see the Inspiron sub-section at the top If a Mod wants, they can move it in there if needs be

 

That's only the hard drive temperature. The CPU and GPU temperatures are definitely going to be higher than that.

The CPU and GPU produce a lot more heat than a hard drive does.

 

Hmm, interesting ! I'll have to install HWMonitor after work tonight and run it on thier computer, and I'll report back here as to what the numbers are.