Laptop Overheating

[RicChapman]

Following on from MobileTechie about the heatpipe, usually a good sign for urgent replacement is the color.

If you find that's it's not the expected shiny copper/silver color then it's likely that it's not helping the situation. Usually if they're rubbish they turn a dull grey dirty color, I've been told by a Dell support tech that this is usually the result of no internal liquid. Not sure how accurate that is but changing the pipe did fix my issue.

[MobileTechie]

There is one thing against the bad heat pipe theory which is that he reports it's giving out lots of hot air from the fan. Usually when the pipe goes the air coming out is too cool. Often you can feel a bad pipe because the radiator end is significantly cooler than the CPU end, even with the unplugged.

[Captain Spaulding]

Originally Posted by MobileTechie

How old is it? Was it not working when they got it? If so then something must have changed. Maybe the heatpipe is on the way out.

It's not an old laptop, only about a year and a half, the customer has had problems since day 1 with it being hot but only recently has it started shutting down.

I spoke to them and let them know whats happenning they are going to try contacting Dell and see if they get them to agree to repairing it so they will collect the laptop and pay for the diagnostic report.

Out of intrest do heatpipes just go? If Dell won't play ball and the customer does want me to take another look I guess I could replace the whole cooling system with something like:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Studi...item1e621ac0db

[kevinjhaag]

Replace the whole unit...the heatpipe and fan. I've ran into this before and found that the fan was only doing 800rpm. At 800rpm it does look perfectly good and does get some of the heat out; but its not enough. After I changed it, it now does 1500rpm when its running a heavy load and does not shutdown. Good Luck

[PC-MOT]

Here is a good thread from while ago about dying heatsinks that dont sink heat...

http://www.technibble.com/forums/sho...light=heatsink