Re: [PLUG] OT dell laptop repair

["Eric at Lucii.org" <eric@lucii.org>]

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Bob:

In general, I've experienced that Dell has had heat dissipation problems over
the years across their product lines.  I've had mixed results with Dell laptops.
 An earlier one suffered strange  problems and died early.  A friend's Inspiron
died a fiery death while sitting on his desk.  Dell replaced that one VERY
rapidly!  My daughter's old P-4 Dimension 3000 tower throws off so much heat
that it could double as an easy-bake oven.  On the other hand, my most recent
Dell laptop, a Vostro rescued from the parts/trash heap, has performed well [1].

Based on your description I'd suspect the CPU cooler has somehow become partly
detached from the CPU.  This dramatically increases the thermal resistance and
results in the processor overheating almost immediately after power-on.

When you disassemble the laptop, make sure to have some new high quality thermal
paste on hand.  Take the time to remove the cpu cooler from the cpu, carefully
clean both with an appropriate solvent, and apply the new thermal paste.  Double
check that it's seated firmly on re-install.

Good luck.

Eric

On 08/28/2011 02:44 PM, Bob Schwier wrote:
> I've had three dell laptops that all failed the same way.  The latest is
> a Latitude D610.  The one I have torn apart to see how they build these
> things is an Inspiron B100.  The other is an earlier Latitude.
> What happens is that one pushes the on button and it quickly blinks out.
> One holds the button down longer and it takes longer to blink out.
> Power supplies don't seem to be the problem because I tested the older
> Latitude's on the Inspiron when it was working.
> Hard drives work when attached to my regular machine.
> I remember someone saying that the problem was frequently the fan and I've
> been trying to figure out how to test that but modern engineering get in my
> way.  I'm getting ready to test this machine with a sledge hammer.
> I really don't want to buy a new machine as money is an object in these
> times of the Bush/Obama recession.
> bs
> ___________________________________________________________________________
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- -- 
#  Eric Lucas
#
#                "Oh, I have slipped the surly bond of earth
#                 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings...
#                                        -- John Gillespie Magee Jr
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
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