Inspiron Ram cooling

Question

I think my two 1G rams are getting much too hot. I just had to replace one of them, probably was cooked. I've set the fans to come on much sooner, but that doesn't really look like it pulls much air past the ram. I've set both fans at 'slow' until 118F, then one begins 'fast'. At 125F, the other fan goes to 'fast'. It's pretty noisy a lot of the time, but I'm trying to save my hardware. Otherwise, I may as well bring some eggs and cook breakfast on it while I work in the morning. It really does get hot. I've already had it professionally cleaned. See post elsewhere. No dirt was visible at the ports, but the repairman said the internal heatsinks were heavily caked with dust. Now I'm trying to keep ram cool. See 'Forum Home > TechTalk > Portable > General Hardware > Inspiron 9100 cooling idea' for further ideas. They were talking about adding fans, but then you have to find a power source. I got a 'Cool Pad' ($30) thinking that would blow air on to the bottom, but their concept is reversed. It pulls air from the space between the laptop and pad and exits it at the distant edge, keeping your lap cool, but probably having little effect on the laptop temp. I think the Cool Pad would have been more effective to air at the edge and blow at the bottom, forcing heat loss from the bottom. I think the present Inspiron fans can handle the ventilation, but needs more positive air. What if I drill an intense pattern of small holes in the ram cover plate, so outside air is pulled directly to them. Not so large a hole as to allow penetration by foreign object, not so small as to get clogged by dust instantly. I'd pull the cover off first to drill it, of course. :) Comments anyone? Message Edited by DBrennf on 03-06-2007 08:09 PM

poochmaster · Answer

I recently upgraded my memory on my i8500 and noticed that the memory was getting hot, hotter than i ever noticed before. Its so hot i cant leave my hand on it. I am not sure if thats bad.

Anyway even though the temperature of the modules are high, my fan doesnt work any harder. I am just wondering how necessary it is to try to cool the modules.

Message Edited by poochmaster on 03-07-2007 03:23 PM

DBrennf · Answer

I think my fans are only triggered by cpu and motherboard temp sensors. I've never set the fans to be controlled by hardware. There are options to turn on fan control at memory temp settings. Default is 176F for max temp. That sounds awfully hot to me. Like you said - too hot to touch.

javaansinn · Answer

Hello

I also spent a lot of money on a RAM upgrade and found out, that it gets too hot.

I looked up the processor and it was a prescott, though the salesperson at Dell assured me in 2004 that I will get one with a Northwood cpu. I should have checked that sooner. Now I replaced the prescott with a northwood and the cpu is cooler, but SpeedFan shows 50° C for Temp1, which I don't know what it stands for.

It could be the northbridge, because the northbridge is just on the other side of the main board as the RAM is. I checked up how the northbridge is cooled and found out that there is a heat-conductive pad between the northbridge and the heat sink. I remove the dust inside the notebook every six months. Can anyone tell me what can I do to reduce the temperature of the northbridge?

Many thanks!

Message Edited by javaansinn on 05-31-2007 02:43 PM

DBrennf · Answer

I don't know what Temp1 might be. I use Precision fan control v3.0 beta 7 by Christian Diefer. It gives 6 different temp readouts and you can pick which of them control the fans among CPU, GPU, memory, chipset, Hard Drive 1, and Hard drive 2. I've got mine set really low now, based upon CPU temp. At 111 F, one is on slow, at 120 F, the second one comes on slow, at 131F, one goes to fast, at 140F, the other goes to fast. Just now set the same temp / fan settings for the memory also. Maybe that will help keep my lap cool. If not, will drill holes as mentioned above.

javaansinn · Answer

Hello DBrennf   To your idea:   1. This will affect the air flow within your notebook and the effectiveness of the fans. Look at the temperatures of the other components before and after you remove the covering of the ram. If the difference is not too great for your needs, you can do what you want.   2. Find a way to minimize the amout of dust that will pass the holes.   From which manufacturer are the SO-DIMMs that you use?   Refering to I8kfanGUI:   Thank you for the advice. Now I'm a bit confused, because SpeedFan reports 122F for the DIMM while I8kfanGUI says that this is the temp of the GPU. This is the highest temp. of all sensors which the two tools display. According to I8kfanGUI the memory temp. is only 105F while idle. Because of the special Dell Support I tend to rely on I8kfanGUI, but SpeedFan also has an option to enable Dell Support.   I prefer to let the bios do the cooling. Eventually I will have to replace a fan some day, but I can be sure that the hardware is cooled as intended by the manufacturer.   The only thing that annoys me is that the sensors show the highest temperatures for the GPU and the chipset. While the notebook is idle all other components remain cooler that these two and both use a heat-conductive pad. Knowing that this is not the best way to cool them, but lacking sth. to keep the heat sink away from the 'L bridges' (don't know if that's correct) on the facing of the processing unit, I don't know what to use here instead.   Perhaps someone has an idea.   Many thanks!

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