Yes, a great sticky guide that I wish I had found a little earlier too ... but as usual you don't go searching for a solution until you've run into the problem.

One note could be made: The black mylar strips adhered to the top of the fins at the end of the copper heatsink tubes do not need to be removed at all. I preferred to just leave them all as is and make sure they were all re-installed properly, as the manual explains. Just make sure they all lay the same way they were before you took everything apart.

I took some pics of the dust I found packed in mine between the fans and the fins at the end of the heatsinks and wow ... I couldn't believe the dust in there. You are correct in stating that Dell should make this problem area aware to people that own these things. It is no wonder they are frying all the time ... they can't breath. And all the blowing and sucking you can do from outside the case will NOT remove the dust packed in this location. Many people are afraid to disassemble their notebook in fear of voiding their warranty but it MUST be done on a regular basis regardless. This is a problem Dell should rectify ASAP ... should have rectified a looong time ago and they would have saved a ton of warranty work and saved much face. They lost a lot of loyal customers over this to be sure. Apparently ACER is greatful though

Already been said many times but.... I can only hope newer models are made to enable user access for cleaning dust along the air flow path. It seems so basic and would improve the reliability, reduce component thermal stress and failures.

Another thing to note is that Dell designs its bios fan control in order to minimize fan sound rather than to keep the computers idle temperature cool. Sure its a tradeoff but there should be some common ground rather than just keeping the fans off most the time.

Right, my M1710 cycled between 70 & 80*C constantly with the latest A07 BIOS. I installed i8kfanGUI and now I can keep it between 50 & 65*C (just what I chose) with the fans barely running any more often. You can't even hear the fans on Low speed anyway. I'm a lot happier with my notebook running so much cooler and I'm sure it is too.

Did you ever consider that this was engineered by Dell on purpose, in order to lessen the systems life, so they can sell you a new laptop?