Inspiron 9300 fan constantly on

Thanks ejn63.

I took it apart today and cleaned everything out. Interesting process --had not done that before. There were miniature dustbunnies to be sure!

Cranked it back up and everything worked as it had before opening --which is to say, it was still unbelievably slow, fan ran constantly, but the good news is at least I didn't mess something up in the process. (I like playing with gadgets, I just want them to work when I'm done.)

Here are some details that may not have been clear at first:

By "slow" I mean that I can't, for example, install Office 2007. The installation starts and then just sits there. This is a machine that I used for 2 years for business and filled to its gills (not a tremendously huge hard drive: 60 GB) and did high-quality graphics and some Web design, until finally deciding it was time for a new machine. Is it slower than my new XPS? Yeah. Is it slower, currently, than it HAD been? Well, YEAH. I used to be able to install software. I rebuilt this machine a couple of times, so I have my own checklist. It's working, but for some reason these days it's slow. I'm thinking it has to be hardware, just some part that isn't entirely obvious. (Currently, it has practically nothing on the HD.)

Another example of slow: I launch Windows Update and it just sits there also. I'm messing with this, though, as I think it might be a system setting that I need to tweak.

Finally: I'm not 100% sure that the fan hasn't always run constantly. I can't remember FOR SURE, and I found something on a Web search that suggests Dell is saying the 9300 was always designed for the fan to run constantly (I didn't buy it for gaming, but I gather that was the target market). In an office with office fans, I might not have really noticed; now that i only use it occasionally (and daily use my slick little XPS), I might notice. So I'm not sure this is even connected to the fan.

In any case, dustbunnies thoroughly banished. I took everything apart. So I'm thinking some hardware unit or other.

Hello,

Have the same issue with my Inspiron 9300 laptop. I ran Dell's diagnosis tool and note that the CPU Thermistor failed, the temp reading is 250 and the valid range is is from 1 to 100 and mys system is reading 250...

I suspect the thermistor is telling the fan to stay on because the sensor says its too hot but in reality the motherboard isn't hot.

You'll also notice that the system is slow because 100% of the CPU is in use, I can only assume the CPU is 100% in use because of the fan...

Have you in the last 3 yeards had a battery fail?

Our battery stopped taking a charge and gets extremely hot to the touch, I suspect this heat impacted the thermistor/fan temp sensor...

Can anyone tell me if the the temperature sensors are built into the fan unit?

What do we need to replace so that the fan kicks in only when needed?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Running- Inspiron 9300, 1.6 GHZ, 60gb hard drive, 1.25 GB Ram, replaced LCD panel due to vertical lines...

The sensors are built into the system board itself - not the fans.

Hello and thank you for the update, do you know how to repair the issue described?

Left side fans are on all the time and the computer is very slow at all times,not caused by a virus because the hard drive has been reformatted and the drivers have been reinstalled...

Thank you,

CE