My E6510, heat problems and Dell's response. Will it get intresting? Follow along - LONG

Greetings fellow Latitude Owners,

I have been an extremely satisfied E6510 owner for a little over a year now. The machine has been absolutely fantastic, reliable as can be and delivers wonderful battery life. I have had no issues what so ever until recently .

First, let's start off with the specifications so you may have an understanding on what I'm working with.
i7-640m
8gigs of Crucial memory
NVS 3100 graphics
Originally shipped with a 320g 7200rpm drive, recently changed to 750g 7200rpm after the problem started.
Webcam
Fingerprint reader
1920x1080 full HD screen
Lighted keyboard
WiMax wireless card.
Modem

I think I covered all the basics.

I started noticing the machine running VERY hot suddenly one afternoon. The fan was not running and I contacted Dell. While on hold, I ran RealTemp and SpeedFan to check temperatures. Both indicated a CPU temp of 230 degrees F with occasional spikes, the GPU was also over 200 degrees. This was while the unit had firefox open and outlook running. I attempted a clean install of windows 7 64b and that did not help. Worth a shot right?


They advised me to send it to the depot, overnighted a box and 8 days later I get my machine back. This is where the fun starts.

I open up the box to discover my once absolutely flawless, out of the box brand new, not a scratch/scuff E6510 was now a mess. Someone simply put the machine in a huge box with the power supply and sent it back. No foam, no padding, no nothing. The power supply had been slamming against the lid for a few thousand miles and who know how many shipping depot stops. The lid was scuffed all to hell and had a few minor scratches. I thought sure enough the screen was broken. Thankfully it was not.

Before I even turned it on I was able to gently buff out 99% of the marks on the lid and clean it up quite well.

The depot ticket indicated that they changed the heat sink assembly, nothing else.

I turned on the computer, began to reinstall my software, Unit immediately heated right back up; well over 200 degrees again. I could not rest my hands on the palmrest to type. It was that hot.

I contacted dell again and this time raised the roof about the shipping situation and the issue that was half-assed fixed. They wanted me to return it for another 10+day downtime. My response was obviously no.

After speaking with a manager they agreed to send a tech out to look at the machine. Tech calls me today and comes over. They sent him a complete internal set of parts for the machine. Motherboard, daughter cards, trim pieces, fan, heat sink, etc; everything except a palm rest, HDD and DVD-RW.

Tech gets the computer apart and realizes someone has glued the back of the unit together near the hinges and there's no way he can get it apart to get the motherboard out.

Someone obviously has broken something and glued it back together.

He ended up replacing the fan and heat sink assembly, reassembled everything and turned it on.

I ran Corel Video Studio Pro, began rendering video to put a heavy load on the CPU. Within a few minutes, temperature began to creep up, CPU load went from around 90%, dropping to 20% within an additional 5-8 minutes. It was boiling hot again. Fan was running this time, but barely moving any air.

Tech calls DELL, explains the situation and that he needs a new palmrest and lower frame assembly. Keep in mind they already sent every single part for the lower half of the unit except the keyboard and speakers. Everything for a complete 100% new rebuild.

Dell refused and wants to replace my machine now.

They can not guarantee what I will get.
They say it will be equal or better than what I have now. It will be hard to be a like-new condition E6510 with another E6510 from who knows where.
I really don't like the E6520 with the numberkeys.

Bottom line the machine is heating up, the fan is not increasing speed to compensate for the heat load. It used to open wide up and blow a hurricane out. Now it's just a slight breeze.

Has anyone had any experience with Dell Business replacing machines with "equal or better" machines? What was your outcome?

Will the batteries for E6510's work in the new machines if I have no choice but to take one of those?

Follow along as I'll keep this updated. Next update will be posted in the first post and may be sometime Wednesday.

Man, I really like my E6510........

______________________________
Update 1. I ran the same video rendering software on my E6510, using the same video and methods. Temps did not get above 133 degrees. That was a 40 minute render process.
___________________________________
Update 2. Dell advised they will be replacing the unit with a new E6520 with the following specs:
DELL LAT E6520 1 1 717.00
AIRBORNE DOCUMENTATION,SY 1 1 .00
6-CELL,60WH,PRI LITH ION 1 1 .00
INTERNAL MDC MODEM FOR LA 1 1 29.00
2.0GB DDR3-1333MHZ,1 DIMM 1 1 60.00
i7-2640M DUAL CORE (2.80G 1 1 250.00
8X DVD+/-RW,LAT E 1 1 49.00
LCD HD+/FHD COVER, LAT E6 1 1 .00
INT WEBCAM,W/MIC,LAT E652 1 1 30.00
8X DVD+/-RW Bezel,Lat E6X 1 1 .00
nVidia NVS 4200M 512MB DI 1 1 69.00
15.6FHD+(1920x1080)AG LED 1 1 129.00
US-3FT/FLAT POWER CORD,LA 1 1 .00
WINDOWS 7 NOTEBOOK LABEL, 1 1 .00
TECH SETUP ENGLISH,LAT E6 1 1 .00
Internal Backlit English 1 1 49.00
ES ENABLES/E-PEAT/GOLD, L 1 1 .00
SWIPE SMARTCARD READER, L 1 1 19.00
BLUETOOTH CABLE, LAT E652 1 1 .00
NO VPRO TECH ADV MGMT FEA 1 1 .00
INTEL LABEL FOR CORE i7 1 1 .00
90W,3-PIN,AC ADAPTER,LAT 1 1 5.00
DOCUMENTATION, ENG/FR, LA 1 1 .00
DELL DBRM,W7,MUI,SP1,Opti 1 1 .00
320GB HDD, 7200RPM, LAT E 1 1 110.00
DELL WEBCAM CENTRAL SW,LA 1 1 .00
NO PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE, 1 1 .00
CYBERLINK PDVD 9.5,NM,OPT 1 1 4.00
ROXIO CREATOR STRT,NO MED 1 1 1.00
WIN7 PRO,SP1,64BIT,NOMED, 1 1 65.00
IW6250 WiMAX 802.11a/b/g/ 1 1 55.00
WIRELESS 375 BLUETOOTH, L 1 1 19.00

Everything is comparable except no fingerprint swipe, encryption and a few other very minor things.

I am going to ask about an upgrade to a E6530 as it is cheaper and I'll get a better machine than the E6520.

_________________________
Update 3

Well now that the heating issue has been fixed, it seems my screen crapped the bed. Screen was flickering slightly. Now the panel displays nothing and the machine does not boot. The power button has to be held down to power it down. Where can I start in an attempt to diagnose this? I would like to try like heck to avoid having to send this stupid thing to the depot.....and more down time.

 

There are still many E6510's in the Dell Outlet, so there's a good chance you will get a refurbished E6510. E6520 batteries are not compatible, they are a totally different shape.

It sounds like the original problem was just a defective fan, which only takes five minutes to replace. It's possible to avoid returning the laptop by requesting a parts-only dispatch, but you need to be able to diagnose the issue and complete the repair yourself. Otherwise, make sure you purchase at least NBD service to avoid the hassle.

 

The unit can still technically be repaired. It will need a new upper and lower chassis, in addition to all of the internal parts already on hand. They refused.

Dell contacted me today and advised they are building a new E6520 with comparable specifications. After I reviewed the two units, it looks like I''m losing my fingerprint swipe/encryption, latitude on, dual microphones, and media disks.

Monday I will call and inquire about an upgrade to a E6530 (It's $100 cheaper than their build replacement).

My only real issue is that dell depot glued the E6510 back together and I may end up getting a unit that I'm not too fond of. While I could deal with the E6530, I really don't want the change.

I also have 5 9-cell batteries; they certainly were not cheap and are not comparable with the new unit. A lot of money thrown down the drain now......

 

Ask if they can arrange for a refurb E6510 from the Outlet to be substituted. Otherwise, you can always sell the E6520 and get the refurb E6510 yourself.

 

The machine should have shut itself down at 100C (212F with your measurements).

Are you running something like throttlestop or another program that overrides the thermal profiles in the machine?

The laptop should be running the fans wide open when you get to 90C, but for some reason it is not. My first guesses are that you have never updated the BIOS in the machine, are running something to override the thermal management in the machine, or have accidentally messed something up. You are running speedfan to check temps, that would be my first red flag.

 

I am unaware of how to access or modify temperature settings in the bios.

I was using speedfan to monitor the temps, I was under the impression "that was the best"??

Regardless of the temp, it was certainly boiling hot and I couldn't even rest my wrists on the palmrest without it nearly burning me.

There is no software other than OEM, microsoft office, firefox, corel video studio pro, etc. Should I install throttle stop?

Regardless, the old and new fan never ran fast. During video rendering it rarely blows more than a very light (and extremely hot) breeze.

Is there anything that I can do at this point? Software fan control?


During video rendering on my E6410 the fan ramps up and will blow hurricane force winds to keep the laptop cool.

EDIT:
You mentioned it should have shut down, why didn't that happen?
I am running the latest BIOS from the dell website. It was just downloaded and made no difference.

 

I have a recent experience of a Dell swap here in the UK.

I had a Vostro 3700, which Dell messed up a repair on. They decided they would swap the machine rather than attempt yet another repair.

They offered three different models - including the Vostro 3750 and a couple of Latitude's, all of which didn't match my original specification for one reason or another... an obvious issue being that I had a 17" Vostro, and you don't get a 17" Latitude!

They suggested a refund might be the best way to resolve the situation, but later decided that rather than refund me, they'd supply a Precision M6600 which was their only current model which would meet all of my original Vostro 3700 spec's... a very nice and much more expensive machine!

Bottom line - don't let them downgrade anything. Keep pushing - you are entitled to get at least what you had before. Among many of the issues, they wanted to fob me off with a much poorer wireless card than I had before (Dell seem to supply lots of new machines these days with Intel 10xx cards - they are rubbish!). Just don't let them - as long as you can justify from a technical point (in my case, new machine was only 2.4Ghz 'N' only and not 2.4+5Ghz from my Vostro) they will oblige, at least in my experience.

Once they issued a M6600 spec, I asked for a couple of changes (on the basis that it was cheaper for them, but preferred by me) and they happily obliged.

Maybe the UK is different, and I had a Next Business Day ProSupport warranty - the ProSuppory seems to have made all the difference, allowing me to deal with a UK based rather than an international support team. But my experience did end up being quite positive in the end!

 

So after nearly three hours on the phone with Dell:

They would not upgrade to a E6530 as a replacement with equal components as my E6510. I offered to obviously pay for the $100 difference and they remained firm.

I pushed back and simply said I will not accept a 6520 and since their depot pumped my unit full of epoxy, they need to step and rebuild the unit. Bottom line they ruined it by gluing it together.

I have a mail-in service. Not going that route again, they are sending a tech out to fix the machine and will replace the following parts:
Motherboard
Processor
Fan
Heat sink
Daughter cards
Hinges
Hinge Covers
Bezel
Assembly Panel (I'm assuming this is the Chassis)
Palmrest
Bezel
touchpad

Basically a new machine and reusing my screen.


Hopefully this will fix the heat issue. With the new fan CPU temps are peaking at 180deg, fan comes on and gently blows and cools down to 160. It remains 140-160degrees at idle with the fan not blowing.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping this fixes it. I really didn't want to lose the E6510 platform. I purchased it over the 6520 when they came out.

 

Also, is there any way to force the fan to come on??

 

Tech is scheduled to be on site Thursday morning. He advised "I got a huge box of parts for this thing."

We'll see how this goes. Keeping my fingers crossed.