Dell Precision 5510 Owner's Lounge

BIOS 1.6.1 to address Intel ME security issues has been released.

John

 

Hi, does anyone had a problem that one CPU heatsink screw nut came loose from soldering (nut is soldered on MB)? I put a picture below with red circle showing the location. I haven't ran the system harsh before, but saw now the temperatures are also going up to 90'C when stressing the CPU/GPU.


I will check if Warranty covers it, but not sure yet... Checking if someone has had it before and been more common problem. Nut was already loose when opened the system and changed the thermal paste as fans been constantly working lately.

 

I would talk to Dell. I've read most of this thread and not come across anyone else who has had this problem. The Precisions usually come with 3 year on-site warranties. It's likely that a mainboard swap will be needed which is a fairly simple job for a service technician - I have watched it done twice due to BIOS-related problems.

John

 

Having said the above only yesterday, today I decided to repaste the CPU as wPrime 1024M 8 threads was getting the CPU to 95C. And, to my great surprise I found the same problem, albeit for the heat sink screw at the same end but nearest the back (numbered H5). Here it is with the loose part put upside down and next to the hole.

So I'll have to see what Dell have to say. That end of the heat sink is next to the GPU so it didn't cause my cooling problem. However, a clean and repaste has dropped the temperature by 15C so the old paste was evidently getting tired. Irefitted the loose bit back on the screw although it's not doing anything useful.

John

 

well, crap. I'm pretty sure they'd replace the mobo if a nut broke free from the mobo. It should be impossible to over tighten the heatsink if the screws are spring loaded. The Dell manual for the 5510 (and my 7710) say nothing about torque when retightning the heatsink. Simply says to do them in criss-cross pattern or to follow the numbering on the screw pattern. Looks like the brass material (or copper?) in the PCB used to retain the nut is just too soft/weak as it looks fragmented around the edges. Or the pcb layers that sandwhich the retention material is too weak.. or both.

 

That nut / threaded insert is more likely something along the lines of brass, which was then soldered into a copper-plated through-hole in the board.

"Thank you", RoHS and your pointless, useless lead-free solder malarkey...

 

It's a brass swage/PEM nut designed for PCBs, most likely.

I'm not sure I understand how a spring on the screw "makes it impossible to overtighten the heatsink". That's what torque wrenches are for.

 

LOL, call it a coincident but same thing happened to me in the end of december. I haven't talked to DELL yet.

 

Has anyone noticed that the 5520 4K display is not as sharp as the 3800 4K display? I recently upgraded to a 5520 from a 3800 and I had been very pleased with the 3800 4K display. Unfortunately where the 3800 display was sharp the 5520 display seems blurry. The 5520 is a refurbished unit, and it's possible the display is defective, hence my question.

 

Are you sure you selected the correct screen resolution in your operating system?
Which scaling factor do you use? Many apps are not HiDPI aware and are simply bitmap scaled which looks blurry.