N5110 issues & questions

I bought this laptop a week ago (configured with i3-2310M and GT 525M) and it runs great, but it has several issues:
- touchpad driver is awful, I'd recommend using the N7110's driver because it's a new, improved revision, anyhow, multi-touch gestures are still buggy
- I installed QuickSet but I can't seem to find where to configure the middle button with a key on it, anyone knows how to do that?
- mine came with 2 gigs of RAM and a 5400 rpm hard drive, soon I'll add a 4GB SODIMM and I'll change the hard drive with a solid state, the problem is that I can't seem to find how to get to the hard drive, do I need to open up the whole computer just for that?
- while on battery power the screen seems to continuously dim and brighten depending on the displaying content, is there any way on disabling this? BIOS doesn't seem to have a setting for that.

Other than that, the laptop is great and is a nice machine for the given money, I'd be happy to answer to any other questions you might have.

 

The N5110 hard drive is located underneath the motherboard. You'll need to flip over the system board to get access to the hard drive. You can check out support.dell.com, input your service tag and check out the service manual.

Brightness, are you using Dell's GPU driver? Sometimes they don't work properly with XX manufacturer's driver. My Latitude 13 had that annoyance.

 

I have the Inspiron 17R (N7110)... I think they are the same except mine is a bit bigger.

Your hard drive is buried in the computer. There is no easy access. You have to remove the keyboard, palm rest and a few other things to get to the hard drive...

The technician who replaced my hard drive (I was sent the wrong HD and was replaced by Dell) BROKE my plastic palm rest and scratched the surface trying to put it all back together again! So be careful!

As for the dimming problem, check Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings. That might help.

 

Just like I though, replacing the hard drive won't be too easy.

I'm using the latest versions from both Intel and NVIDIA, I don't have any other issues, if this can be named like that.
It just acts like a light sensor, like the one you find on mobile phones, it might not be an issue but is kinda annoying.

Argh, I hope mine won't break when I'll put a SSD in it.

Yeah, I checked that before and everyting is set to my liking, the dimming problem is still there.

And as a little update, I reinstalled Windows and now the touchpad driver works great, bear in mind, you have to use N7110's driver.

Also, I still can't find where to configure that midddle hotkey with a key on it. I'm talking about those 3 buttons on the right above the keyboard.

 

Hey i've got n5110, touchpad sucks, tryed using touchpad while keyboard is pressed? it just stucks and doesnt move... ;s

everything else is great, only LEFT palm rest area gets SO HOT, eaven in surfing mode , in gaming it is inposible to hold ur left hand on laptop!
my specs are i7 and gt525 6gigs ram,do u guys have same problems with it?
do u with n7110 have same problem?
btw i called dell's support and middle button can only work with pre-installed machines.. and it aint eaven important button anyway so thats fine

 

I see that you have the i7 processor, these have a 45 Watt TDP and therefore are a bit warmer than the lower end i3's and i5's.
I have the i3-2310M and the machine only gets a bit warm during surfing, office, IM, music or even HD movies accelerated by the onboard GPU, the cooling system even shuts down during these tasks.
During heavy load it gets warmer and pretty loud too, but this is normal, CPU and GPU temperatures don't exceed 80 degrees anyway.

For touchpad, use N7110's driver and it will be fine.
You can also use the latest Alps version, download here (click), I found this to be the best and it even disables touching during typing, but you can't disable it with the FN combo.

About the middle button I think I'll leave it like that.

 

no no u dont understand
my i7 cooler is also shut down when surfing, only chipset procesor gets freaking hot, CPU and GPU areas of laptop are perfectly cooled down

my temps are 50-55 in surf and 80 in load so thats ALLRIGHT

chipset makes problem under left palm, how hot does ur i5/i3 on palm rest when in full load?

 

Chipset (northbridge) is integrated into CPU, as well as the Intel HD 3000 IGP.
Only the southbridge is located on the motherboard and this does not heat up much.

My left area on the palmrest also gets hot during gaming, I don't know how normal is this but I can live with it.
Did you tried replacing your laptop's thermal compound with something better?
I think I'll do that as soon as I'll get a SSD in there, will this avoid warranty (replacing thermal compound and the HDD with a SSD)?

 

you probably swapped AMD's Llano with I7 sandy bridge, no way chipset is integrated within the CPU,

Intel's HM67 Chipset is separate chip, thats why u have i72630 with hm65 and hm 67(on mine) chipsets,
also i called dell's support and guy there told me that they had to succrefise the chipset position and place it upwards and it isnt conected to the main heatsink/cooling system, thatws why it emits temperature upwards
he also said that n7110 versios has much more room and chipsed is facing dawnstairs so it shouldnt have problems...
google for the chipset integration u'll see u were wrong ;-)
btw greetings from serbia ;-D

 

Yes, it is. This is a quote from Wikipedia:

As I said, there might be the southbridge, but this chip usually doesn't heat up much. Likely there is the CPU or GPU heatsink that heats up the case.

Greetings from Romania also.

 

all i know HM67 CHIPSET isnt integrated within i7, nor other procesors
monitor AIDA 64 for chipset temps and u'll se about 60 C

Stop conviceing me that it is gpu + cpu heats the case where they dont D

i see i maight have to draw for you ;-)
Whole case is good temperature only left palm is warm, and under left palm there isnt any heatsinks

 

A chipset usually has two parts: the northbridge (being integrated into SB and Llano CPUs now) and the southbridge (this is still on the motherboard).
Anyway, southbridge is only responsable with peripherals and interfaces (SATA and IDE ports, USBs, audio, BIOS and so on). Therefore it doesn't heat up much, this being the reason for why it doesn't even have a heatsink on it.

Maybe on our laptops the southbridge may, somehow, overheat. A small radiator could fix our little problem. To me this isn't much of an issue as almost all laptops on the market get hot during load, is not like I can't keep my hands on the palmrest or something.

I didn't opened up my laptop yet, as I think it will void my warranty (I have almost 3 years left and 3 years I'm planning in keeping this).

 

Well it gets HOT in IDLE ASWELL after 30 mins of usage,

if southbridge is so 'unimportant' why the hell is it stuck at 60 C and it climbs up to 70 C when gaming?

that thing heats up palmrest. not the processor not the GPU, i called the DELL's tech support and guy told me that.. im just interested if i3 i5 versions got same prob.

 

Mine when idle is cold to touch and just a little warm when browsing or watching movies, it gets quite hot when gaming though.
As far as I can see from the service manual, the southbridge as well as the VRAM are placed right below the left area of the palmrest.

The VRAM could be the one that heats up the case.

 

Vram is not the problem cause it is facing Downstairs, and it barely reaches temps of 55 C, and there is also a airholes to cool RAM memory

this big black chip is heater ;-)

 

Man, VRAM is GPU's memory and as you can see from the picture above, these chips (VRAM) are right next to the southbridge.
Monitoring apps don't always tell the truth.
Better open up your laptop and touch the southbridge and then the VRAM to see which one is hotter, my money is on VRAM.

 

nope, you lost your money, aha so u mean VRAM, these 4 litle black chips? haha
well those belong to nVidia GPU and since this machine has optimus they arent beeing used during surfing or when graphic is set to integrated, and integrated intels gpu uses regular RAM as VRAM, so nVidias vram ( one you are suggsting ) arent beeing used at all so they should be perfectly cool, thats why that doesnt makes sense, why is it still hot when playing with integrated GPU or surfing with integrated GPU? cause HM67 is problem, end of story ;-)
and yes monitoring apps dont always tell the truth but thay are most of the time right ;-)

 

Well, mine heats up only when gaming, hence my conclusion, and yes I was talking about those 4 chips. As I said, when browsing or watching movies it stays cool.

 

Good for you then, cause mine is a beast, in browsing it gets warm, but gaming is like owen! ;S

 

my friends lappy (2630QM-6Gb-525M) just shutted down while he was playing GTA IV.. I was planning to buy the n5110 but now i've changed my mind !