Dell overheating problem?

My darling gf has a lovely little Dell Inspiron 1525 that seems to have a little overheating problem.

It started after the original 250Gig hard drive failed and they sent a replacement 320Gig drive. It only used to happen whilst watchind films through the hard drive (so graphic intensive stuff) so we started to raise it off the ground when we were doing this, by putting a couple of cd cases under each side (we watch films from the hard drive through the tv)

This was fine for over a year until it started getting worse, and has now got to the stage where it overheats quite regularly unless you hand the laptop off the side of the sofa, or some how hold it off your lap or allow the majority of the underside access to fresh air!

As you can imagine this is a PITA.

Any ideas what is wrong or how we can fix it?

Regards

Gf's does the same, i took the casing off it and got the hover on it around thefan and vents, seem'd to help but still does it.

[munkygunn182]

It doesn't resolve the problem, but Belkin do a "tray" you sit your laptop on. It plugs into a free USB socket and is fitted with fans and helps ventilation. I know a lot of people use these to cure Xbox 360 overheating issues, so they must be reasonable. Aside from that, if you put the laptop onto power saving mode, or whatever it might be called on yours, it shuts off everything it doesn't need and produces less heat as a result. Worth a shot!

[fizzwheel]

+1 on the Belkin tray. We got one for Liz's laptop as it was putting alot of heat out.

Wont fix the root cause of it though, as said above, check that all the vents etc arent blocked up with dust and fluff.

+2 for the tray.

I have a Dell XPS M1330 which I used to play games on in bed with the laptop resting on the duvet, and it overheated a lot, til eventually the graphics card burnt out. Luckily a warranty jobbie.

Got one of those trays, problem solved.

A lot of laptops run very hot regardless due to the space constriction, some more than others due to design.

Have you checked to see if maybe one of the fans have stopped working also? A possibility.

Just to give you an idea, at idle, with no graphics intensive stuff running, my XPS graphics card runs at 78C :s

[anna]

When cleaning the fans in your computer by hoover or can of air jobby, remember to put a pencil or something to stop the blades from spinning as this can break them.

^ erm never heard of that? the fans spin up at about 1200rpm+ any way, some of my pc fans spin up to 5000rpm much faster than the hoover makes them spin.

[timwilky]

I have a Dell M6400 with a house brick size power supply, You just know all that power consumption has to be turned into heat. who needs an electric fire Not me. I need a power station of my own.

Surely laptop designers are supposed to be knocking out high efficiency, low energy consumption devices. However, we have to realise laptops are a compromise. If we need oomph, we need high power and therefore hot components.

Yeah I've been told that too, don't let the force of the air cause them to spin while you're cleaning. Over time the heat sinks and fans will get clogged with dust and you need to clean them.

My Macbook gets scorchio if you're playing a game on it, the bit by the vent and also some areas of the underside can get almost too hot too touch. But switch the game off and it's barely warm a minute later!

Originally Posted by phil24_7

... it overheats quite regularly unless you hand the laptop off the side of the sofa, or some how hold it off your lap or allow the majority of the underside access to fresh air!

Any ideas what is wrong or how we can fix it?

Regards

Laptops, despite there name, should not be used quite so literally. The fix is to get it out of her/your lap onto a hard flat surface.