It is JUST overheating causing this problem, right?

SideWinder

SideWinder

SideWinder

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Doing my absolute NUT in. :mad:

Dell Vostro
2.2Ghz
8600 GT

It seems to be struggling more and more with CS:S. I love it and tend to play it a lot but it's getting worse and worse. I had downloaded CoreTemp and sometimes it does hit 70C or so. So,

1) Can someone recommend a decent laptop cooler?

2) Anything i can do to resolve this problem with my laptop, will opening it up help?
 
Opening up a laptop usually ends in tears...

The mobile 8600 has some manufacturing issues tho and liable to die :| dell may still have some warranty thing for dealing with the fallout of this...

A laptop cooler would deffinatly help tho
 
when say struggling what are the symptons, is it slowing down or are you getting artifacts and blue screens, the latter would suggest gpu failure but it could just be a blocked heatsink. So would give that a clean.
 
MeatLoaf said:
Didnt Dell issue a BIOS update that caused the fan to stay on all the time
Click to expand...

There were a couple of BIOS updates. The first did what you said and just put the fan on fast all the time, making the laptop noisy all the time.

Once they realised this was a stupid fix, they released another update which puts the fan back to normal but throttles the CPU earlier once temperatures start to rise. Whilst it's the GPU that's at risk of dying, throttling the CPU will slow both down and so saves the GPU.

Unfortunately with that update generally once the laptop starts warming up after 30mins - 1 hour gaming the laptop will throttle almost all the time as the cooling on Dell laptops isn't great. I have this problem on my XPS m1530 so it's not just the Vostro line.

I tried the new BIOSs but they made games unplayable with the frame rate drops every time the laptop throttles so ultimately gone back to the old one. Running a risk the GPU will die, but as it's lasted a few years already I think I got a decent one and if not, Dell did extend the warranties because of this problem.
 
SideWinder said:
Dell Vostro
2.2Ghz
8600 GT
...
2) Anything i can do to resolve this problem with my laptop, will opening it up help?
Click to expand...
I have the same spec of Vostro 1500 - well, same CPU and GPU. I bought it about October 2007. A year later in October 2008 while fitting a memory upgrade I decided to see how much dust was in it. I took a few pictures at the time and have just uploaded them so you can see: http://picasaweb.google.com/dhpiggott/Vostro1500Rebuild?authkey=Gv1sRgCPD2ioap3JHBrQE (all pictures)

PA140032.JPG


They aren't too difficult to strip down and clean, you just need a decent work area, a crosshead screwdriver and a steady hand.
 
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