CPU fan not operating early enough

[sorcerer]

Got a Dell Inspiron M5030 laptop in for a tune-up and it's running very hot, ie, 55 to 60C at idle - when I use D7's 'Stress Test' it can quickly rise to 74C and counting. I fully expected the airway to be blocked with dust and fluff but when I stripped it down I found that it's perfectly clear, not a speck of dust anywhere.

When it hits 74C the fan starts to run and does do a good job of lowering the temp, but surely the fan should operate at a much lower temp than that, and 55 to 60 at idle is way higher than I'd expect as well.

I've got another M5030 here that's been scrapped because of the '7 beeps of doom' so I swapped the fan/heatsink assembly but it's still the same. Any ideas on getting the fan to kick in sooner - it can't be done in the BIOS, by the way.

 

[UCanFixit]

Have you tried the SpeedFan utility?

 

[Larry Sabo]

Does it have the latest BIOS?

 

[sorcerer]

Cheers guys - the answers are no and I don't know, respectively, so that's my first job of the day

 

[UCanFixit]

Larry Sabo's suggestion might be a better first try, so here's a link to the latest M5030 bios (A05), dated 3/21/2011:

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/driverdetails?driverid=WP6CC

Cheers

 

[DocGreen]

Larry Sabo's suggestion might be a better first try, so here's a link to the latest M5030 bios (A05), dated 3/21/2011:

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/driverdetails?driverid=WP6CC

Cheers

^I like this guy^ :thumbup:

 

[sorcerer]

Right, I've updated the BIOS (I'd already found it before seeing your link but thanks anyway my friend, I do appreciate the help) from A03 to A05 - and it's made it worse! Temperature at idle is now 65C (was 55 to 60).

I then installed SpeedFan but it doesn't seem to do anything at all, although I admit I may be doing something wrong as I've never seen the program before. It doesn't seem to detect the fan - just says Fan 1, 0 RPM. I've set the desired temp to 40C with warning at 50C and I've tweaked and adjusted any settings I can find but nothing makes a difference - it even reports the fan as zero RPM even when the CPU core temp has reached 75C and the fan actually is running and throwing hot air out the side. It does, however, report the same temperature readings as OpenHardwareMonitor, so that part of it seems to work, but nothing I do makes the fan come on any sooner than 74C.

Do these particular laptops just run very hot as normal? I know the '7 beeps of doom' issue is very common - perhaps caused by useless temperature control?

 

[UCanFixit]

Sorry the BIOS or SpeedFan option did not work for you. Anyway, I did some research on this model and many are complaining about the CPU temperature and poor thermal design in general so maybe it is working as designed; however, I cannot personally vouch for that. Here are a few reviews where several have complained about the thermals:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834200142

http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/topic/30997-laptop-problems-dell-inspiron-m5030/

Good luck.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Maybe give I8kfanGUI a try. I've used it successfully where SpeedFan fails on Dell laptops.

 

[UCanFixit]

Maybe give I8kfanGUI a try. I've used it successfully where SpeedFan fails on Dell laptops.

Hi Larry,

I also thought about suggesting that alternative as well; however, I noticed that it only shows support for Vista and below. So, that of course also eliminated any chance of the M5030 appearing on the list of supported Dell laptops. IMHO, I'd proceed with caution on this one.

 

[brandonkick]

Have you tried replacing the thermal compound on the processor?

Old paste rarely works very well, and good quality stuff can make as much of a difference as 15-20C over stock junk paste.

 

[sorcerer]

Have you tried replacing the thermal compound on the processor?

Yes - I use Arctic MX-2 and I always put fresh compound on, probably even sometimes when it's not really needed

 

[JustInspired]

Does the laptop feel excessively hot? You know, in case the temperature sensors might be out of whack and displaying temps that are higher than they actually are?

 

[sorcerer]

Does the laptop feel excessively hot? You know, in case the temperature sensors might be out of whack and displaying temps that are higher than they actually are?

Doh, I should have thought of that. I've even got one of those contactless, infrared thermometers for such things too! Anyway, the laptop has now gone back to its owner, but yes, to me anyway, the laptop did feel very hot - certainly hotter than the other lappy's I've got here.