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34201
E6420 believes it is overheating when on Docking Station
My motherboard was replaced today because of a broken USB port. Everything works fine, except when I dock the laptop and close the screen to use my monitors the fan goes to max and shortly after I get a (false) thermal event+shut down. However if it is not docked (or even docked with the screen open) then the computer works fine, i.e., the fan works as it should (as it always has in the past), kicking in when I do heavy processing, and then slowing down when not needed anymore. The computer is not overheating.
The motherboard, heatsink and fan will be replaced by Dell on Tuesday. However my concern is that this seems a configuration issue, and the technical support at Dell just replaces parts, but nobody seems to think about why this might be happening. I will wait for the replacement of the parts and test, but if anybody has some input on how to fix this, I would appreciate it.
rdefeo
7 Posts
0
April 7th, 2014 11:00
Hi - is this still happening since the motherboard, heatsink and fan replacement? My E6420 is experiencing the same problem and it's quite frustrating. I haven't thought about keeping it docked with the lid open - this may be a semi-passable workaround.
rdefeo
7 Posts
0
April 7th, 2014 11:00
I take that back - with the lid open but the display set to my external monitors, it still shut down. I think the act of having the video card drive two external monitors is just too much and it's overheating (although it never used to - sigh)
rdefeo
7 Posts
0
April 8th, 2014 08:00
Solved it! It turns out the heat sink was not making enough contact with the GPU. I removed the fan/heat sink assembly and scraped off all of the thermal paste. Then I generously reapplied new paste and made sure that it would bridge the gap between the two. After reassembly, my GPU temp stayed around 75C which is far better than the 100C I was seeing! So far, no shutdowns due to heat.