1530 - Hot to touch

Hi folks,

1530 owner, and worried about temps at the moment.

When I bought the Laptop originally, I wasn't too worried about temps. Mainly the upper and lower left side of the laptop would get quite hot to touch, not quite burning, but close. Basically, it wasn't useable to use on my lap for gaming etc. etc. or anything too intense. I didn't think much of it, as I understood that temps on laptops do get high, and that you either had to sit in VERY awkward positions to insure proper ventilation, or suck it up and buy a hard surface to use it on your lap.

However, I went ahead a purchased a Zalman 1000, a desk and basically have had the laptop on the two ever since.

The lower left side has cooled noticeably, but the upper left side is still hyper hot. Almost the same as when I didn't have the cooler.

This primarily happens when I play World of Warcraft, for a raid or any other time I play a game for solid chunks of time. Even playing WoW or say Civ 4 for 1-2 hours leaves the upper left corner pretty warm.

I've been getting blue screens after exiting worlds of warcraft, mentioning issues with the graphics card memory. I've had a few random blue screens as well during different times, but didn't take the time to jot down the specifics.

Sounds like a issue worthy of a call to Dell Tech Support?

 

Umm...did you update your video card driver from laptopvideo2go.com? don't use the Dell driver, they do cause a whole array of problems (BSOD for instance).

Also, when you say hot, what exactly are the temperatures of your components when under stress? According to you, the palmrest is the place where it gets hot...well...that's where your harddrive is, so you might want to look into that as well....

 

Definitly updated my drivers from laptopvideo2go.com. I followed the stickied reformat guide above, by Les.

How do I check the exact temperatures?

No it's not the palm rest, it is whatever component is under the upper left. The lower left side (the palm rest, which in this case must be the harddrive) is noticeably cooler after using the notebook cooler. Never gets past warm.

 

The upper left is where the heatsink for the graphics card and processor is.
Is your fan working?

 

I almost certain yes, as I would have probably noticed if not.

I'll double check tonite though.

 

If it is your GPU, then try NV Monitor from Nvidia. NV Monitor comes with nForce, so just download that from nVidia:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_system_tools_6.01.html

Install it, then go to start, all programs, Nvidia Corporation, Nvidia Monitor.

Run it, expand the monitor by clicking on the arrow on the lower right, have it on for 5-10 minutes while you do your normal tasks (gaming, web browsing, etc) and then see what kind of peak you'll get on your graphics card.

On a typical card running at stock speed, you should expect the average temp to fall between 65-75 operation range, and if it goes, say 10-15 degrees above 75 when you are not doing any GPU intensive tasks such as gaming, then your GPU may have a problem with overheating...and this does happen.

Then, if your GPU is fine, and you still want to make sure that your components are fine, then you can use CPU-Z/RM Clock to monitor your CPU temp, use HD Tuner Pro to monitor your HD temp, and if you have the money and do want the ability to monitor all of the above components in one package, you could buy Everest Ultimate Edition, which not only monitors all of your components (temp, voltage, etc), but also provides very useful information regarding EVERY single components in your PC...which comes in handy when you want to do an upgrade or diagnose for hardware conflicts...