Dell Inspiron 1764 Shut Down Problems

Hello,

I'll keep this short and sweet. I was having some overheating issues with my 1764, and attempted to blow some air through the vent on the left side of the laptop to move some dust out of the way. Once I booted it up again, I was pestered by a shutdown problem. Windows will boot, and stay active for about a minute or two, and then the computer will completely shut down, fan and hard drive included. It just stops cold. I was wondering what was up, so I logged into my Ubuntu partition, and the same thing happened. Now naturally I want to keep this computer around, and I was wondering, will a tear down and cleaning help? I was thinking that I might have dislodged something when I blew air in that's now in the wrong place.

Thoughts?

 

Hi finengage,

It can be frustrating when the system shuts down repeatedly due to overheating. I suggest you to run the hardware diagnostics that tests the system hardware for any issue. Please follow the steps provided in the link below to run the diagnostics:
Run Built-In Diagnostics for Your System | Dell US

Please let me know about the test results.

 

I don't know about the 1764 but in my 1564 (same motherboard+heatsink, just shrunken down chassis) There was a ton of dust trapped between the heat fins I guess you'd call them that you can see through the vent and the fan itself causing higher temperatures. This was after about a year of usage so I can imagine that's actually going to be your problem if it hasn't been cleaned out in what could be potentially 3 years. To get that dust out you're going to have to take the motherboard out I'm afraid.
But keep in mind I've head of a 1764 that was completely dustfree at the inside with no cleaning whatsoever so.. not sure.. Think it was on the forum too..
So decide for yourself.. you could potentially fix it or ruin your laptop
There's a service manual that's pretty good and I can post pics of my 1564's insides if that'd help you.

PS: If it's overheating he's never going to be able to finish that test
~Aeny

 

Thanks for the suggest!

I went ahead and did a tear down-you're right in thinking that it wouldn't stay on for a diagnostic or test. Anyway, I removed a solid wall of build-up from the fan, delicately returned the whole deal to its original condition. The machine now runs perfectly, and cooler than it has in a long time. Thanks so much!

finengage