Laptop keeps warming

IAmAndre · December 3, 2013

Hi,

My Dell Vostro 3700 won't stop warming. My average temperature is around 52°C.

I always use an external fan under the laptop but that doesn't change anything. A few weeks ago the internal fan was dirty and the laptop would reach critical temperatures (lt reached 100°C once and turned off automatically) so I got it cleaned by a professional and everything was fine for about 3 weeks. But since this week even with a great air circulation the temperature keeps getting higher.

I'm using Linux (OpenSUSE) most of the times and I made an update a few weeks ago but I don't think that's what is causing this since there hasn't been any change in the first days. What surprises me the most is that the CPU seems to work more than it should. When I watch a video I can hear the fan sounding like an airplane but when I open the system monitor I see that the CPU is used at less than 40%.

I sometimes play light games, some are really old like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory or Dirt 2. Last time I played Splinter Cell it stopped making that noise when I reduced the resolution.

I also removed the optical drive and replaced it with a SSD drive (with an adapter) so I don't know if this might be the reason. I did it about a year ago. However this SSD is not even mounted automatically when I use Linux. I also added a 2Gb ram.

Now I'm considering building a desktop but I would like to have a working laptop too.

Let me know if you need any other information.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Vindola · December 3, 2013

Depending on the internal cooling layout (from copper piping to heatsinks) such temperatures are actually relatively normal in a lot of laptops. Now if you want to lower it down, get a can of copressed air (http://goo.gl/bXkDOM) and spray some on the vents to clear the dust every couple of weeks. You would be surprised how quickly dusk gets into there. That's an easy solution that does a bit of improvement.

Another solution which can have a significant improvement, but is a bit more difficult, is redoing the thermal paste on your laptops. So you gotta disassemble parts, remove the copper piping and fan, clean the old paste, and reapply a fresh coat of appropriate thermal paste.

IAmAndre · December 3, 2013

Depending on the internal cooling layout (from copper piping to heatsinks) such temperatures are actually relatively normal in a lot of laptops. Now if you want to lower it down, get a can of copressed air (http://goo.gl/bXkDOM) and spray some on the vents to clear the dust every couple of weeks. You would be surprised how quickly dusk gets into there. That's an easy solution that does a bit of improvement.

Thank your for your reply. I will try this, but I have been told that the fan wheels shouldn't turn in their oposite way or it might generate a shortcut in the motherboard. So is it risky to use these cans?

Leonius · December 7, 2013

Thank your for your reply. I will try this, but I have been told that the fan wheels shouldn't turn in their oposite way or it might generate a shortcut in the motherboard. So is it risky to use these cans?

actually i am pretty sure that almost every fan has a protection for that, a friend of my once spon his gpu fan up whith an air compressor and it sounded like an airplane enging, definetely not the best thign to do but is did not damage the gpu because there is a resistor or somethign like that build in to stop currenf flowing from the fan to the board and the wrong way!