Laptop overheating when on charge

Hi, 

Does the screen start displaying colors after you plug in the AC adapter? Are you using the original AC adapter from Dell? Does it have exposed wires? Go into the Bios (to access the Bios, tap the F2 button during boot) and check on the Adapter Type option, what does it show?

The screen starts to display the colors a little bit after the charger is plugged in. The fans start to rev quite fast and loud then the screen goes and the laptop freezes. The charger is a replacement one since the original one died. There is a little bit of exposed wires showing from the adapter to laptop end at the adapter side, the exterior sheath has been ripped.

The bios shows that the adapter is 150Watt and that is about it.

UPDATE:

I have tried using a different Dell Adapter which produced the same results and did not charge the battery, I tried to update the bios and chipset which also yielded no results. I am trialing a different battery to see if that is the issue.

Hi, what GPU to you have?

Have you check your system BIOS to see if battery is set to "Hybrid"?

This stupid function enables the laptop to draw power from the battery when the laptop needs more power than the AC can provide - Either a design flaw or just being cheap with parts, not sure which.

Hybrid charge will seriously reduce your battery life.

Try disabling hybrid battery behaviour in system BIOs and see if that helps, if it does you may need to replace your AC with a large capacity AC.

But you may also have other problems, some of the symptoms you describe suggest something else

Anything above a GTX960 needs a 240w AC - Every 970 or 980 I sell I replace the 180 AC with a 240 AC

Hi, what GPU to you have?   Have you check your system BIOS to see if battery is set to "Hybrid"?   This stupid function enables the laptop to draw power from the battery when the laptop needs more power than the AC can provide - Either a design flaw or just being cheap with parts, not sure which.   Hybrid charge will seriously reduce your battery life.   Try disabling hybrid battery behaviour in system BIOs and see if that helps, if it does you may need to replace your AC with a large capacity AC.   But you may also have other problems, some of the symptoms you describe suggest something else   Anything above a GTX960 needs a 240w AC - Every 970 or 980 I sell I replace the 180 AC with a 240 AC

He's talking about the m15x from 5 years ago, not the AW15 R1 from earlier this year.

Coopz, have you ever cleaned the fans and/or re-applied thermal paste on the CPU/GPU? I know my m15x got hot before I clean the inside of it, so maybe doing some cleaning may help. 

I pulled the laptop apart last night and got all the dust and gunk from the vents and fans out, I am looking to buy some more thermal paste as i noticed there was virtually none left over the processor and GPU. I don't think that's the issue since the problem only occurs when the laptop is charging?

Is there any chance it could be a windows error? It only started happening once i joined up to the work domain, I have since reformatted but no avail.

Is there any chance it could be a windows error? It only started happening once i joined up to the work domain, I have since reformatted but no avail.

Possibly:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/950-power-plan-restore-default-settings.html

But it could just be a coincidence. Due to its age, it's more likely a bad battery or motherboard.

AFAIK, you can switch countries. It should work as long as you are still using a properly wattage rated genuine Dell power adapter, and it is correct for your country. It converts the AC-Power to DC power into the laptop which is universally the same everywhere.

Think of it this way. When on battery, the laptop throttles to not use too much power as the battery cannot provide enough power for both the CPU and GPU. However, when on the wall, the CPU and GPU can use more of its power. Since they can use more power, they can heat up more too.

If you want, you can start the laptop without a battery and just the charger.

1. I pulled the laptop apart last night and got all the dust and gunk from the vents and fans out,   2. i noticed there was virtually none left over the processor and GPU.

1. Good first step with any computer that is over-heating or just good routine maintenance.

2. Definitely needs to be addressed regardless. Thermal paste can "wear-out" . Heat-sinks must be perfectly flat and secure against hot chips.

Okay so I bought Thermal Paste and applied a decent layer of it to the GPU and CPU and so far the system appears to be running cooler. I'll do a couple of tests and post results.

New Thermal Paste was the solution!. Everything is running smoothly

Thank you for all the help.