Re: [PLUG] OT dell laptop repair

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

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HA:  Forgot my own footnote.

[1]  The Vostro runs Ubuntu Mavrick.  It "sleeps" when I close the lid and has
never exhibited any problems with that.  Last week, I closed it and stuffed it
in my back pack.  I took it out about 4 hours later and it was *extremely* hot!

Apparently, it did not go into sleep mode for some reason.  It must have
overheated in the confined space and then kept hitting the thermal trip causing
it to reach a really high equilibrium state.  After I took it out and let it
cool for about 30 minutes it came right on and works fine.

NEXT time, I'm making sure the light starts it's little sleepy wink before
stuffing it in the backpack.

Eric

On 08/28/2011 04:11 PM, Eric at Lucii.org wrote:
> 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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> 
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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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