Vostro 3560 fan problem

xkid,

I may be able to help.  This may require a service to replace the fan and heat sink assembly or something could be loose and striking the fan.  Please shoot me a private message.  Just click on the link in my name and then click start conversation.  In your message please include the service tag of the notebook and I will be happy to research service options.

TB

I reported the problem before, but no useful solution was got here, I told them it is the PCH's overheating, but what they want to do is just to replace the fan ,replace the heat sink or something else ,but they don't know what really caused the fan noise. (Those people who replied here may not using this notebook personally, so they can only offer conventional solutions).

I found a manual on the web and got to know that it is the PCH that cause the problem. If the temperature of PCH or CPU goes up to 65 ℃, the fan will run in full speed. The problem is the PCH has no radiator, it is just under the keyboard and there is not much space for a radiator. What I did is using a copper sheet and silica gel to conduct the heat away. The temperature of PCH droped about 15℃ (It is really very hot if you put your finger on PCH), and the fan never run in full speed again!!   No noise again! The fan is very quiet!:emotion-11:Now I enjoyed this notebook so much.

I really suspect the designer of this model has never used it for more than 1 hour, and the PCH is on the other side of main board and with no radiator is a low level mistake. OK, I think I can apply for a job of User Experience Engineer at DELL:emotion-2:  

You can try yourself if you have some tools like copper sheet and silica gel. I'm not sure if DELL will offer some help to do this.

Good luck!

see picture:

before(I posted it one month ago, you can search for it):

after:

what I did:

ghostinmind

Thank you for posting. What size did you cut the copper sheet, and what precautions did you use to make sure not to short out the system board?  What temps does the notebook stay after trying this and how has the system been performing?

TB

    Copper sheet:(about 36*32*0.3 mm)，I use silica thermal pad to conduct the heat away. I considered the possibility of contact with mainboard, so I put some Kapton tape on the side facing the PCH chip, and on the upside.(In fact, if the copper is adherent to the aluminum board solidly enough, there is no way to  short out the system board.)  I use heat conduct glue to combine the copper to the board under the keyboard, take a look of the pictures I posted, please.

    The performance is great, no noise even under heavy loading, the temperature is about 15 ℃ lower, PCH stays at about 52-53℃ all the time and no more than 58 so far, So the PCH will never trigger the fan to run in full speed.

Very nice, I am glad that you where able to find a workable solution.  

Thanks again for posting.

TB

Hi Terry B:

I hope someone could report this to DELL and to help some users that have the fan problem. I appreciate the DELL's quick replacement service, but at this model and this situation, replace heat sink, fan or something else won't solve the problem. This happens on brand new notebooks, many users reported this, it is a design flaw. Engineers may have better solution if they know that it is the PCH's overheating.

Thank you for your reply and attention

Hello all.

Can Dell do this fix for us? I have a 3 day old 3560 with the same problem.

Regards,

Bas

Dell, please make a solution for all models, also for 7520 SE. PCH diode has incorrect values and lunches fan on 4700 RPM! Pretty nice BUG!

I had the same problem and yours solution works ! :)

I made it in same way like you, but change copper plate to aluminium cooler plate (1mm thickness).
Between diode and cooler I spread thermal grease (you can see it in the midle(there is a little hole in cooler)).
I used kapton tape to edges and to bottom right edge (right side in the picture) to protect short circuit and heat.

Then I simply consolidate it by normal electrical isolate tape.
 

Temperature decrease is 7-12°C.

Fan is now at last quiet. Thank to you once again !

For those of you who have compatible Dell laptops and want better control of the fan after you make the heatsink modification, there is a software tool called "I8kfanGUI.exe" which can be downloaded and installed.  The program works with the Dell BIOS and provides a user interface to control the fan's state (on/off) and speed at varying temperatures.  This works very well on my XPS M-1210, even with having upgraded to Windows 7.  I have the fan turn on at slow speed at 45 deg. C and switch to high speed above 50 deg. C.  (normal temp for this PC unless there is a lot of CPU throughput is about 42 deg. C).  

Also, be sure there is no dust which has collected near the fan, at the vents, or between the main heat sink and the fan, if there is space for it to collect.  Dust......any of it which has built up, will effectively cut off airflow, regardless of how decent a heatsink is installed in one's PC.  The end result will be a "cooked" CPU.

Hi Bass Dude:

Thank you for your suggestion. The Fan software may works, but I don't know if there will be any problem that if PCH working at high temperature for a long time, because the PCH doesn't connect to any radiator or heat sink at all.

Hi,Unicelsis:

Thank you for posting,  I'm happy thatit is great to see that it works for you and it really helped someone, and I think you were very proud when you finished the work although it is Dell's fault:emotion-2:

Please, who can help me !

i could lower temperature of PCH Diode about 60 deg, but my vostro 3560's CPU fan always work, although about 3000 RPM but can it stop when my 3560 in idle mode, thanks a lot :)