Wierd Dell laptop problem.

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15 Jun 2007
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55
Okie dokie, see if you lot can figure this out because me and the numerous dell engineers are scratching our heads... (Laptop is a Inspiron 9400)

When the laptop is turned on the fans should spin at high for a couple of seconds and then settle down, thats what they've always done since before i've had this problem. However now when the laptop is turned on the fans dont work at all. They've been replaced twice before the diagnistics being run on them found out that they do infact work... but only when directly told to by a specific bit of software.

It seems like all the automatic control has gone leaving the laptop to slowly die due to heat build up - which has happened twice in 2 months now. First manifests itself as graphics corruption even on the bios and boot screen leading to complete failure to display anything.

Quick list of what's been replaced this past 2 weeks:

2x Motherboards
2x Graphics cards
2x Fan assemblies
1x CPU
BIOS has been re-flashed to the latest one

So there we go, do you know of any reason that would stop the fans from receiving the command from what i presume is the bios to turn on to regulate heat?

I've been told by the engineers and looked for myself that there isnt any direct fan control in the BIOS. I cant rely on this bit of windows software forcing the fans to spin to keep my laptop alive :(

Thanks for any help :)
 
Bios was version A08 and the problem was still there, changing to A09 didnt do anything but i'll have a look on the website to see if i can get the old ones.

Tried with and without the adapter even using a friends (same model) and no change either.

-Edit-

Alright, found an old A02 BIOS on their ftp server, flashing went alright but problem still persists :(
 
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