Some Serious Help

[Justaphysicsnerd]

So, It has been going on for a while now, I just have a 4-5 years old Dell Inspiron, literally the cheapest one you could get at the time of purchase, and this machine with just 4GB of DDR4 @ 2133MHz has not aged well. It happens everyday that when I am doin something whether it be very very important or not so important it just randomly freezes. And its fans are so loud that you can hear it from outside my room, it has an i3-6100U, yet somehow, it needs to have its fans spinning all the time. And when it randomly freezes, the old whack the TV trick so to say is turning it off via the power button and turning it on again. Just a few minutes ago when I was doing something very important, it froze as usual. So I turned it off, and then when I turned it back on, its power LED started Blinking and then its fan started spinning which always happens. But then its power LED turned off, fans turned off and then they turned on again themselves. And it made noise like a Hair Dryer. Did I mention it gets quite hot on the backside of the laptop ? And it doesn't work without the good old power brick being plugged into the wall. Yes, so when there is a power cut, you need to pray to the PCMR gods that the stars align and you get to save your work.

 

Lets get down to biz, I am a high school student, who uses his above described somehow still working machine, in fact even typing on it right now. But, due to the above said problems. I asked my parents to buy a new pc, and they are like meh, you don't need one. Whenever the problem occurs, my parents have also seen it. And they are like you just play games on it all the time, which is ridiculous ! to be fair I did try to play minecraft though, but I got bored and have never tried again.

So my plan was, when I go to college next year, I will get a new desktop. Because, up until now all the PCs I have had either had core 2 duos or Core i3s in them which sucked. But now, I need a new PC, but my parents are not convinced that I need one and they say that If I get one I will only play games on it, which BTW is not true.

I plan to use it for study and gaming both.

 

TLDR : How do I get a usable computer now and If I should get a new one ? And I plan to keep my old one for some time as it has some proprietary learning software on it, that can't be transferred to another PC (nope you can't do that by swapping the drive)

 

PS : Like why do people have problem with gaming ? Some people don't like interactive entertainment so they watch TV and cringe sitcoms, and some people like me might game as they like interactive entertainment?

[Cyracus]

You might take your laptop apart and make sure the fans are clear of dust and debris. Probably worth applying fresh thermal paste as well if you're comfortable with that (I would recommend looking up a disassembly video to know what you're doing)

As for a new machine, since you're going to school a laptop may be more preferable, the zen 2 laptops are pretty nice (4000 series)

[Justaphysicsnerd]

1 minute ago, Cyracus said:

You might take your laptop apart and make sure the fans are clear of dust and debris.

I have done that on a monthly basis. But no difference

 

1 minute ago, Cyracus said:

a laptop may be more preferable

After going to college, I will most probably use Blender and IDEs like currently I use Pycharm. So I don't think a laptop would have the power to get stuff done quickly or are there any laptops out there ? I am not talking about the chonky gaming laptops 

[Chiyawa]

3 minutes ago, Justaphysicsnerd said:

So I don't think a laptop would have the power to get stuff done quickly or are there any laptops out there ?

There are quite a few, but most of them are quite costly. There are a few of cheaper version one as well. You can check your local or online store for that.

 

8 minutes ago, Justaphysicsnerd said:

I have done that on a monthly basis. But no difference

Could it be that the dust covered your heat sink's fin that restrict the airflow? I have many laptops send to me facing the issues (even if the fan is cleaned). If you can, remove the fan from the heat sink, and clear the dust from the fins.

[zeusthemoose]

17 minutes ago, Justaphysicsnerd said:

I have done that on a monthly basis. But no difference

Have you repasted it? If you have not yet, that should help. 
 

In order to boost the performance of your existing laptop, the best options are going to be  removing software and other downloads you don’t need or use, adding ram If possible, and replacing the hdd with an ssd. The ssd should give you a very noticeable improvement in responsiveness but if you can’t move your software over, you might not be able to do that.

[Cyracus]

15 minutes ago, Justaphysicsnerd said:

I have done that on a monthly basis. But no difference

What are temps like under load?

 

17 minutes ago, Justaphysicsnerd said:

After going to college, I will most probably use Blender and IDEs like currently I use Pycharm. So I don't think a laptop would have the power to get stuff done quickly or are there any laptops out there ? I am not talking about the chonky gaming laptops 

There are, but I wouldn't recommend them unless portability is a must due to higher price/performance.
 

 

2 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

The ssd should give you a very noticeable improvement in responsiveness but if you can’t move your software over, you might not be able to do that.

drive cloning software should enable such a swap, as long as you have a device both drives can be connected to at the same time.
OP have you tried something like this to see if product keys can be retrieved? https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/

[Justaphysicsnerd]

27 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

adding ram If possible, and replacing the hdd with an ssd.

I can't add more ram as the other DIMM slot is actually damaged and I do have it on an 860 EVO. But it is still a bit slow due to the processor

 

20 minutes ago, Cyracus said:

What are temps like under load?

I don't have any recent data for that, but the ideal temps are in 50-55 degree celsius.

 

21 minutes ago, Cyracus said:

OP have you tried something like this to see if product keys can be retrieved?

Have you ever heard of Axxis-soft it is a korean company that makes video players with DRM. It is one of those, and the last time I tried something, the original key that I had didn't work, that was when I transferred from HDD to SSD, but I got saved as you get 2 licenses for the product I am using, but only 2, which I have used both now.

 

33 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

Have you repasted it? If you have not yet, that should help. 

I don't think you can on this old machine. And even if I can, I am not comfortable with doing it. Since, If anything goes wrong then it might brick the PC. And the proprietary stuff I think also tracks you if you change your Hardware and also your windows Install.

[Justaphysicsnerd]

So I opened the PC up, and I removed the tiny fan, some dust was stuck in there and I cleaned it. But so far there is no difference in the temps. The lowest I get is approximately 50 degree celsius. And what should I do about the battery it was original a 42 Wh and now its just 10 Wh. One more thing that I wanted to ask was I have included an image of the back cover of the laptop. Is it supposed to be discolored like this from the inside ? And Dell has stopped making replacement parts for this specific model.

[Cyracus]

12 hours ago, Justaphysicsnerd said:

The lowest I get is approximately 50 degree celsius. And what should I do about the battery it was original a 42 Wh and now its just 10 Wh.

Chassis coloration fine, can be cleaned if desired, I'm not the person to tell you the best way to clean it... sorry

Those battery cells are swole, time for replacement.

Dell offers them for a chunk of $ https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-42-whr-3-cell-primary-lithium-ion-battery/apd/451-bcdn/pc-accessories 

Newegg has a couple listings through their marketplace (third party seller)  https://www.newegg.com/p/16J-001J-00FK0   

Or you can search for a wdxor battery replacement, it's a ymmv, try at your own risk, kinda thing.

 

For repasting you're best off looking for a disassembly video for screw counts and locations.

But basically you'd need to remove every screw holding down anything connected to the heat pipe (most critical step).

The cpu is under the silver square bracket near the end of the heatpipe. Use isopropyl dampened paper towel to clean cpu and under side of bracket. Also gently clean the fins at the other end of the heat pipe, a toothbrush and isopropyl do well.

Apply electrically non-conductive thermal paste, too much better than not enough.

Replace heat pipe and screws from step 1, do the cpu screws in steps to spread the pressure evenly, don't over tighten.