Inspiron 5150

First time poster here, and I'm asking about a question about a very old model. Not sure anyone would be able to help.

The Inspiron 5150 has the dreaded heatsink issue. My warranty ran out and my computer is 4 years old. I really want to replace the heatsink because the computer still runs well. Problem is, I followed many online help sites to do this and I simlpy cannot get the heatsink out of the case itself. It's almost like I need to take apart more stuff to get it out of there. I followed all of the tutorials and even separated the bottom of the heatsink.

Can anyone help? I'm not even sure whether this is the right place to be asking for help.

Thanks.

 

I had a 5150 that I passed on to my Son when I got the 1720.
1.) What is the " Dreaded Heatsink Issue "?
2.) You might have to split the cases to remove the Heatsink/Fan
3.) What are you going to replace it with? Can ya just clean up the Heatsink and apply Arctic Silver5 ?

 

did you follow the service manual (or some other tutorial)?

The key to removing the heatsink is you need to remove the palm rest

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5100/en/sm/thermal.htm#1084976

 

i had a 5100 6 years ago and i absolutley know about these hot ovens.


after a few month from purchase i began experiencing high temps even in idle mode, the fan was always on and it was the noisest machine in the entire house.

so i researched about the issue and got to a conclusion that dust have accumilated on both the fans and heatsink, 2 options were to either get an air can and sprays though the vents to get the dust, or take apart the laptop and get both the fan and heatsink out and clean out those dustbunnies.


the problem with compressed air is that it might make the problem even worse by pushing the dust futher inside to other components, so disassembling the laptop was my only chance

i went to dell.com and got the disassembly/assembly manual which helped alot.

you might even see dust covering the motherboard, so since your laptop guts are open, you might as well wanna clean other areas than just the fan and heatsink area.

if you know what your doing, try to get thermal gel and apply it between the CPU and heatsink, helps thermal conduction greatly.

 

Well thanks for the help guys. Most of the tutorials I came across did not mention anything else other than removing the EMI shield and then jumping directly to removing the heatsink.

Removing the palm rest and display panel seems pretty daunting. Is it as complicated as it appears from the instruction manual?

As to the final question, I bought a replacement heatsink. All I need to do is acquire this "thermal fluid." Does anyone know of a good product.

 

There is quite a few thermal compounds availible. I use Arctic Silver5..........
As for disassembling the palm rest and display, it's not all that bad if you take yer time and don't rush things............................