Overheating laptop.

SMed · 22 Dec 2011 at 00:37

My old Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop has been running hot for a long time now. It idles between 52-55 degrees and when watching HD Youtube it can get up to 85 degrees plus. I've tried laptop cooler fan pads, doesn't do much tbh. The fans are always on low when idling. Medium above 65 degrees and high over 80 degrees. The fans don't seem to make much difference.

Is this a case of dismantling and trying to reapply thermal paste?

-Mike- · 22 Dec 2011 at 01:07

Have you tried cleaning out the air vents on the laptop? Compressed air should get some of it moving. If you can get easy access to the cooling system you'll probably find most of it blocked by dust.

My D630 was idling at 60 or so degrees until I cleaned out its vents.

SMed · 22 Dec 2011 at 01:16

Yeah, forgot to mention that. It was blocked with dust and was idling in the 60s/70s without a cooler pad. I dusted it out and now it idles in the 50s. Now the cooler pad makes almost no difference though.

Orcvader · 22 Dec 2011 at 01:45

Have you also tried repasting the cooler? The paste might have dried out between the cooler and CPU.

Speed · 22 Dec 2011 at 02:54

Orcvader said:
Have you also tried repasting the cooler? The paste might have dried out between the cooler and CPU.

Not to mention the stuff they use is often rubbish. Get some MX-4 or similar on there.

SMed · 22 Dec 2011 at 14:13

Yeah, I suspect it's thermal paste time. Looks like it's gonna be a bit of a bitch to take apart.

SMed · 23 Dec 2011 at 22:22

I'll wait for until my project is finished. This is my only working computer and I don't want to break it and temporarily be left with nothing.