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Dying motherboard! HELP

post #1 of 8
3/19/06 at 12:11pm
Thread Starter 
Hi Guys,

I had an inspiron 5150 before I knew any better, and it dead after only a year. Conviently a week after the warranty ran out. I'm using my mom's 5100 which is about a year and half old and I'm starting to see the same problems I had with my 5150 when it was on its deathbed. It overheats, shuts off by itself sometimes, and theres a black u shaped burn mark to the left of the touchpad. I just need this laptop to last another month or two before I buy another laptop(def. not a Dell) but how do I atleast keep this Dell alive till then?
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post #2 of 8
3/20/06 at 12:40am
Sounds like it's full of dust.
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post #3 of 8
3/20/06 at 1:17pm
Thread Starter 
How do I fix it?
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post #4 of 8
3/20/06 at 4:48pm
It's risky because of static damage, but you could vaccuum it via the fan slots.
OR, you could open it up and do a more careful job of it...just touch metal before touchng anything sensitive, to get rid of static.
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post #5 of 8
3/20/06 at 5:20pm
Overheating seems to be a pretty persistent issue with the 5100 and 5150. As far as I can ascertain, its due to the crappy thermal grease Dell uses on the heatsink from the factory. After the Laptop's been run for a while the grease hardens (almost like glue) and doesn't conduct heat well anymore. What you'd need to do (and this requires quite a bit of disassembly) is remove the heatsink (you'll probably need to open the cam-lock on the CPU socket too) and get the CPU off the heatsink if it's stuck in place. Then clean both the CPU and heatsink with an alcohol pad and use something like Arctic Silver 3 in place of that white crap. It seems to do wonders for the system cooling. However, that still doesn't stop other problems that people have been having with the 51x0, such as an intermittent short when the laptop is handled a certain way or the palm rest has pressure applied near the center.
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post #6 of 8
3/20/06 at 5:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrEvil
Overheating seems to be a pretty persistent issue with the 5100 and 5150. As far as I can ascertain, its due to the crappy thermal grease Dell uses on the heatsink from the factory...other problems that people have been having with the 51x0, such as an intermittent short when the laptop is handled a certain way or the palm rest has pressure applied near the center.
Interesting.

Good stuff.

If you don't want to put on the thermal paste yourself.
Bring it to a pc shop, and get them to do it.
Git em to dust it clean too.
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post #7 of 8
3/21/06 at 4:01am
Hey dlinkin, you said that vacuuming the laptop creates static elec. I have done that a few times to my laptop. Has it done damage that is irreversible?
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post #8 of 8
3/21/06 at 5:33am
It's ok since it's still working.
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