Vostro 3560 fan problem

My experience thus far shows that the pressure of the keyboard against the metal plate, through the thermopad to the chip is good enough. the fan rarely, if ever, goes to max speed (unlike previously) so its definitely good enough. This is even before I enlarged the brass plate, which I believe will improve even further the cooling of the problematic chip, so in short - while your assumption is logical, my real world use case seems to negate your hypothesis  :emotion-1:

Thank you both, free_refil and boazrym, for your very important and valuable input.

I thought the pads had some kind of adhesive on one side to keep them in place, but now that you've explained that they need the CPU clamps that changes a bit my idea. 

Using both pads and thermal paste would be overkill? Would it have any adverse effect?

Fortunately, any option is available on eBay, I just want to know which one to order first.

Thank you all, once again.

Glad you could chime in BOAZRYM!  This solution is indeed less messy, but, I went with what was readily available, and presented my hypothesis, real world experience of course trumps my hypothesis...  I would say there is probably going to be a slight difference between the two if you were to test them thoroughly, however, if one users reports that it worked fine for them, I would say go for it, you definitely can't make it any worse, I don't believe!

the pressure of the keyboard against the metal plate, through the thermopad to the chip is good enough

Could you please post a pic of your practical solution, please? So you used thermal pads AND brass sheet? No copper?

Muaf: Images and explanation are below...

Yes, I've used a 1mm thermopad. It has an adhesive film but its rather ineffective. The important part of the keyboard that gently presses the brass on the thermopad and down on the chip itself. According to my fan speed it works.

I plan on enlarging the brass plate to extend even further to the fan bay. If it partially covers the fan (only partially - as it will have enough effect and I'm not sure I want to clog the air intake of the fan) I suspect it will knock out probably all cases of fan speeding up, except for the most demanding uses (such that I barely use).

You can see the Kapton tape I've put on the SMD components on the back of the keyboard (who will spot the OS I'm using?... :-) ):

The couple of thermopads I got. I used the thicker one (1mm), as you can see its 'bitten' corner. You can find such cheap ones on Ebay.

Thank you SO MUCH for taking time to post this pics. They are really helpful.

I've decided to purchase some kapton, thermal pads and a copper sheet, and eventually will get a hold of the thermal paste and try that too for comparison purposes.

Interesting!

Can anyone check the actual temperature of the culprit chip to see if its temperature was reduced ('under same conditions') or was it just a hushing of the fan? (I'm running Linux - can't do it here...). 

Hello,

so one small update from my post. Finally I ve contact dell support line. I ve asked them for this workaroud, if they know about this problem etc. He reccomand me to update my BIOS. And heureka, I updated my BIOS from version A13 to A16 which is available on dell page. Now its completely quite. Fan is running about 2900 rpm insted of 5300. 

So problem is completly solved.. If you cech the info about new bios there is notice that thermal policy has been updated. And it really works. SO I think if you still have a noisy fan after BIOS update there is probably another problem with the fan.

So lets check this link http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/cz/cs/czbsd1/DriverDetails/Product/vostro-3560?driverId=KRD68&osCode=W764&fileId=3330038645&languageCode=cs&categoryId=BI

I had the same problem with my new Vostro 3560. Called Dell support and a tech guy came to fix the problem after I explained what it was :-)

He putted a small cooling strip on the diode which gets hot.

did it solved the problem?

I'm on A16 as well...  As soon as PCH reaches 60 degrees celcius, the fan goes bonkers.  They didn't fix a thing IMO....  But I already have the fix described in this post applied to my machine, so take it with a grain of salt...

He putted a small cooling strip on the diode which gets hot.

Lucky you! Have you monitored the diode's temp after the fix? Is the fan running less?

or was it just a hushing of the fan?

You ask the right questions, boazrym. I'd worry about that too. Are they just forcing the fan to not run when needed and thus stressing the motherboard and components or did they actually find a soultion.

Based on the replies after this comment, I guess they didn't. 

That should be easy to check. I'm curious as well.

I guess I'll attempt that BIOS update and keep the extra cooling fixture in place as well. Nothing to lose, except maybe for an extra few grams :-)