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    Dell 5160 Overheating - Potential Solution

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by Confy, Feb 16, 2007.

  1. Confy

    Confy Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hello,

    This may have been covered here before, but I searched for advice on this problem for a considerable time using Google et al and could not find the answer to my problem.

    My Dell 5160 laptop had been experiencing serious overheating problems for several months. Having read into the issue, it became apparant that this was some kind of design flaw and that the majority of users were experiencing overheating. Something to do with a P4 being shoe-horned into a laptop chassis...

    In an attempt to resolve it I used compressed-air in the rear vent to try and clear out any dust/dirt that had collected but to no avail. I then decided to download the technical guide to the machine to set about dismantling it and cleaning out the heatsink/fan in a more thorough fashion.

    Before doing this however, on a whim I decided to fire some more compressed air into the rear vent whilst the laptop was actually running. Now, this may not be very advisable, but to my astonishment after a few bursts a large plume of dust was blown out the rear vent, the fan spun down and the temperature plummeted from 80 to 50 degrees C. I blew a few more bursts in just to make sure but the intial expulsion of dirt seemed to have solved the issue.

    The machine has now been running stabily again for the last 3 months and I am happy in the knowledge that should it ever happen again I know exactly how to resolve the problem.

    I hope this helps somebody else out, and again apologies if it's already been posted up.

    Confy
     
    Confy, Feb 16, 2007
    #1
  2. sweteg

    sweteg Notebook Geek

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    I think I've read a few threads where people said the heatsink wasn't placed on correctly, which also caused overheating. Once fixed, the heat heating was back to normal.
     
    sweteg, Feb 16, 2007
    #2
  3. Ice-Tea

    Ice-Tea MXM Guru NBR Reviewer

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    Actually, instead of knowing what to do when it overheats, cleaning out the sink should be part of general maintenance...
     
    Ice-Tea, Feb 16, 2007
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  4. Confy

    Confy Notebook Enthusiast

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    Very true Ice-Tea, but my point was that the issue was only resolved when cleaning the 'sink with the machine running.
     
    Confy, Feb 16, 2007
    #4
  5. Ice-Tea

    Ice-Tea MXM Guru NBR Reviewer

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    Makes sense ;)

    When you try to clean it without it running you`ll hit 2-3 rotator blades, when it`s running you`ll get them all ;)
     
    Ice-Tea, Feb 16, 2007
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  6. mtor

    mtor Notebook Deity

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    He should also clean out all the air vents and make sure there are no useless programs running using up your resources
     
    mtor, Feb 16, 2007
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