Dell Inspiron 1520 CPU Overheating

I've had this laptop for about 7 months now and it's progressively running hotter and hotter while I game. I now have the back of the laptop propped up with some books so that there's more air circulation underneath it, but even so I will often hit 96 degrees Celsius when playing games such as Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Farcry, and World of Warcraft. I will admit that I force clock the cpu to maintain a core clock of 1.60 GHz. If I don't force clock it it will just drop my cpu clock down to 800 MHz and sit there giving me 10 fps and lower in any game. My video card (8600m gt) runs fine and cool so there's no problems there.

I'm just wondering whether I should be expecting this because of the force clocking or is this abnormal. I realize that force clocking it will keep the temps high but is this too high? I've seen people mention something about some kind of cooling paste that needs to be replaced but that might have been for nVidia's 8M series.

Will getting a cooling pad help this at all?

Thanks in advance.

 

A cooler would help, i recommend the NZXT Cryo LX and Enermax Aeolus CP001 (review in sig).

But, first, try Undervolting your CPU. via the Undervolting Guide.
This solved my dads problem with an overheating CPU in his 1520.

 

A cooling pad would probably help, as would undervolting probably. Additionally, if you are comfortable taking your machine apart then applying some thermal paste, such as arctic silver to the CPU (you could also to the GPU), would possibly help.

96 Celsius is getting dangerously high for a CPU - they don't tend to like going much past 100, and typically they shouldn't be anywhere near that when gaming anyway and it's the GPU that is used heavily in most games.

Why are you forcing your CPU to be at full power all the time?

Regardless, that wont actually generate much additional heat; because even though it's not be allowed to downclock, it only really generates masses of heat when it's under load; regardless of the clock frequency.

If your FPS is suffering, then you should perhaps turn down some of the physics related settings, or better, let CoD, Crysis & Farcry determine the level your computer is capable of playing at. If it's lower than you like then you just have to accept that pushing your computer hard is going to mean it's more likely to overheat. FarCry shouldn't present any problems, but turn down some of the physics elements in Crysis (those are the ones that use the CPU more than the GPU), and the same in CoD. Try undervolting, apply some thermal paste and get a cooler - you'll probably see at least 10 degrees drop, and highly likely more than that.

 

I dont think a cooler is neccessary but the Zalman NC2000 should work great (Reviews in sig used a Vostro 1500 which = Inspiron 1520) this is to do perfect vent alignment.

Anyways I recommend first you try and clean out you fans, since the Inspiron 1520 is a pain to open up to clean the fan take compressed air and shoot short burts through the intake and exhaust of the fan. do it until no more dust comes out and then a little bit.

Check your temps after that, if they are still high over 90C if you have warranty contact Dell. Otherwise if you do not still have warranty apply new thermal paste to the CPU. ( here is a guide if you need to apply thermal paste on a notebook cpu)

Your stock thermal paste may have become ineffective.

Afterwards try undervolting, here is a guide: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

Just follow it and see where that gets you. If you still would like to cool more go for the cooler but with that sort of heat its FAR too hot and a cooler is not the solution to the problem. There is a large underlying problem and if you follow the steps I posted above I believe you will find it.

 

Alright guys thanks for the replies, I'm going to go ahead and look into the undervolting guide and go buy some compressed air, I'll post back here after all of that's been done.