Inspiron 6000 fan/CPU issue

Ok so here's the deal.

I have a 3 year old Inspiron 6000. A few months ago I left it sitting on the couch and it overheated and shut itself down. Fair enough, it's happened before. Except now the fans will not stop running on full speed.

I recently reformatted the computer, and reinstalled Windows and all the drivers, and it's still doing it.

I installed a temperature and fan control program and it shows the CPU temperature at 85 degrees steady, the CPU speed at 217 MHz (its a 1.6 GHz) and the CPU load is constantly spiking between 0ish and 50-75%. I can't even use this program to force the fans to low speed.

Anyone got any ideas?

edit: I don't have access to tools at the moment so taking it apart to take a look or fix anything won't be possible for a couple weeks.

 

My thinking would be it probably overheated and burned out the thermal paste. It's probably clocking it down to the lowest speed it can just to run and keep from overheating and dying.

You're going to need to open it and check your heatsink.

 

Why would you want to force the fans to a low speed for?!?

Agreed with Raduque, you've temporarily (and possibly permanently) killed the processor. I'd probably suggest not using it at all until you've had a chance to take it apart.

 

The first chance you get, take that thing apart and replace the thermal paste between your processor and heatsink, making sure you clean off the old stuff first, with rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip. Once that's done, use compressed air and blow the dust out of your fans and vents.

And don't use the laptop if at all possible until you do!

 

Thanks guys, I guess that's my next move. I already blew out all the vents from the outside with some high pressure air. Lots of came out of there, so that was probably part of the problem. Next chance I get I'll be taking it apart to check the inside and probably replace that paste as it seems like the problem.

Thanks again!